>>25327371 I'm currently 3/4ths the way through my first read through. I'll grant you it's better than Jane Eyre but I hate the way Charlotte plots have to have all these random connections between the characters. The relationship between Lucy and Paul is also not nearly as well developed as Jane and Rochester. I thought Shirley was a more interesting premise but it never felt like it came together cohesively.
>>25328873 Dying took much of the wind out of her sails. She was maybe working on a second novel but nothing has survived.
She did write a lot of pretty decent poetry. Much of it is set in her fantasy world, Gondal. So you get just someone mourning or defying or vowing vengeance or something, but with no context. If she had only written down all the background lore I think Gondal would have proved a fictional setting at least as good as, say, Narnia or Gormenghast. Could have made a classic series of children’s books. But she and Anne were happy to keep it as their private thing and only ever talk about it or refer to it obliquely in letters.