………
1847
(available in paperback from Penguin, 2003)
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1847, Charlotte Brontë’s classic, Jane Eyre, is the tale of a resolute, courageous young woman who faces difficult personal challenges. It is also the story of the limitations and conventions imposed on women in Victorian England.
Orphaned at the age of ten, Jane is sent to live with her aunt, Mrs. Reed, in whose home she is cruelly treated by her cousins. Later, at the Lowood School, Jane suffers heartless treatment by the tyrannical headmaster, but knows a loving friendship with the angelic Helen, whose death is a consuming loss. Taking a position as governess to Adele, the daughter of Mr. Rochester, Jane enters a strange household in which Rochester mysteriously comes and goes. While Jane and Rochester come to love each other, a dark secret is concealed from her. Part drama, part romance, and part horror story, Jane Eyre raises questions—questions that resonate today—about the struggles a woman of integrity must face in the quest for love and independence.
Jane Eyre’s early childhood is marked by deprivation. She is deprived of parenting, love, nurturing—and food. At her Aunt Reed’s home, Jane faints with hunger. The withholding of food is also used as a punishment at the Lowood School of her youth. At Lowood, food is “scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid.” When Jane dines in the gloomy charity school refectory, meals consist of burned porridge—“almost as bad as rotten potatoes”—or dishes with the “aroma of rancid fat.”
The villainous Brocklehurst, Lowood’s headmaster, is outraged when he learns that a sympathetic teacher, Miss Temple, has indulged the girls with a snack of bread and cheese. This type of pampering is not in keeping with his plan to “render them hardy, patient, self denying.” Meanwhile, Jane’s cravings lead her to imagine suppers of “hot roast potatoes, white bread and new milk.”
Jane’s dreams are fulfilled when she leaves Lowood for Thornfield, Rochester’s estate, to become the governess. Mrs. Fairfax, the elderly housekeeper, greets Jane with food and warmth. Noticing Jane’s cold hands, Mrs. Fairfax invites her to sit by the fire and instructs a servant to “make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two” for her. Jane thinks, “A more reassuring introduction for a new governess could scarcely be conceived.”
Negus, a mulled wine made with sugar, nutmeg, and often brandy, was a favorite in Victorian England. Created by Col. Francis Negus in the early eighteenth century, it was popular at balls and social events of the era. Our recipe for negus is the perfect antidote for a chilly night, and a perfect accompaniment to a discussion of Jane Eyre.
1 cup water 1 cinnamon stick 1 cup port wine 1 cup dry red wine, such as claret, Burgundy, Merlot, or Zinfandel |
4 teaspoons brandy 2 tablespoons sugar 1 lemon, sliced into thin rings Grated or ground nutmeg to taste (a large pinch works well) |
Heat the water and cinnamon stick in a nonreactive saucepan. Boil gently for a few minutes. Reduce heat and add the remaining ingredients. When heated through, strain into heatproof serving goblets.
Yield: 4 servings
(See photo insert.)
John Montague, the Earl of Sandwich, devoted his life to gambling and would often remain at the gaming table for hours. He is credited with inventing the sandwich in 1762, when he ordered servants to bring him slices of bread, meat, and cheese, and he layered them to prevent his cards from becoming greasy.
We adapted a recipe for tea sandwiches that Cheryl McHugh of Antioch, California, has made for her East County Mother’s Club, a recipe she found on whatscookingamerica.net. “Charlotte Brontë drew the reader into the life of Jane Eyre,” says McHugh. With bread and cream cheese, you may indulge your book club with these delicate sandwiches, of which Mr. Brocklehurst would never have approved.
NOTE: For these sandwiches, the bread should be thin, but experiment with different varieties. Our testers preferred Pepperidge Farm thinly sliced bread and thought a combination of white and wheat was tasty and appealing. Cover sandwiches loosely with waxed paper, then drape a damp kitchen towel over the waxed paper and refrigerate to prevent them from drying out. Prepare the sandwiches as close to serving time as possible.
12 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature ¾ cup finely chopped toasted walnuts 2 tablespoons finely minced parsley 1 tablespoon finely minced green bell pepper 1 tablespoon finely minced white onion 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
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Salt and white pepper 24 slices best-quality white bread, preferably thinly sliced ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature |
In a large bowl, combine the cream cheese, walnuts, parsley, and bell pepper. Add the onion, lemon juice, and nutmeg. Stir well. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for 1 hour to allow flavors to blend.
Spread one side of each piece of bread lightly with butter. Top the buttered side of 12 of the slices with the cream cheese mixture and cover each with another slice of bread, buttered side down. Carefully cut off the crusts with a sharp knife. Cut each sandwich diagonally into quarters.
Yield: 48 tea sandwiches, 10 to 12 servings
Unlike most book clubs, Boulder Great Books of Boulder, Colorado, meets weekly, and membership takes a serious commitment. “We ask participants to read the selection twice, so that requires us to keep the weekly choices short,” explains group leader Bill Sackett. “We usually read short selections from longer texts.”
Boulder Great Books is associated with the Great Books Foundation, which aims to instill in people “the habits of mind that characterize a self-reliant thinker, reader, and learner” through exploration of great books.
Boulder Great Books selected Jean Rhys’s 1966 novel, Wide Sargasso Sea, from the Great Books Foundation list; because Wide Sargasso Sea is based on the story of Jane Eyre, to discuss Rhys’s book members would be forced to violate the Great Books rule of not discussing outside books. “It takes away from the discussion when you go to an authority such as a critic, or even to the author,” says Sackett. “We try not even to read the introduction to the book, at least not until having read the selection once, so it won’t suppress our own ideas about it. And we don’t want participants going on about books that nobody else in the group has read. So to be able to discuss the Rhys book, we were almost forced to read and discuss Jane Eyre first.”
Group members were glad that Rhys’s book had led them to Jane Eyre. They admired Brontë’s literary style and her ability to create a memorable heroine. “The strength of character of Jane Eyre shines throughout the whole book,” says Sackett.
The group found that reading both books enriched their literary experience. “Both authors, in different ways, beautifully showed the strength of character of their protagonists,” says Sackett. “Reading the books together made us look at the characters in ways we wouldn’t have if we’d read just one book or the other.”
When Alma Pruessner of the Lovely Ladies Book Club in Bryan–College Station, Texas, mentioned a possible menu for her book club’s dinner discussion of Jane Eyre to her brother-in-law, an English professor, he suggested a bowl of boiled parsnips. “But the Lovely Ladies do have certain requirements for meals, and parsnips is not on the list of favorites,” said Pruessner.
Pruessner settled on a spicy meal of Indian chicken curry, using a recipe that she received in 1952 from a British neighbor. Pruessner served the curry over rice with the “side boys”—toasted coconut, golden raisins, toasted almonds, chopped apricots, and homemade pear chutney, along with English beer. The dinner received rave reviews from the Lovely Ladies.
For dessert she made a bread pudding with brandy sauce. “Bread pudding was a dessert often served in the time of Charlotte Brontë and her character Jane Eyre,” says Pruessner. “It is made with day-old bread, sugar, butter, eggs, and cream—a fairly simple and inexpensive, but delicious, dessert.”
teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg or 