Taking the candle, it retreated to the door

Illustrator: Edmund Garrett (1853-1929)

Source: Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Ch. XXV, facing p.64

Garrett, an American illustrator, shows a vampire-like Bertha Mason (to use Jane's own comparison), in Jane's bedroom. She has entered it two nights before Jane's expected wedding to Mr Rochester, and torn and trampled on her wedding veil. Jane dehumanises her by reporting this strange visitor to Rochester as "it."

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    • Image download and text by Jacqueline Banerjee.

    Illustrations identified by the British Library as being in the public domain. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]