Edited by Currer Bell."

The critics, who did not discover these books were by women, suggested persistently that "Wuthering Heights" must be an immature work by Currer Bell (Charlotte).

For not only in the West of England, but in Ireland, and in Wales, and in the north, too, if one is to believe those novels of Currer Bell's and her sister, there is a large and important class of landed proprietors of the same stamp as yourself, and exposed to the very same dangers.

Edited by CURRER BELL.

The first edition of Jane Eyre purports to be edited by Currer Bell, one of a trio of brothers, or sisters, or cousins, by names Currer, Acton, and Ellis Bell, already known as the joint-authors of a volume of poems.

The first edition of Jane Eyre purports to be edited by Currer Bell, one of a trio of brothers, or sisters, or cousins, by names Currer, Acton, and Ellis Bell, already known as the joint-authors of a volume of poems.

The second edition the samededicated, however, "by the author," to Mr. Thackeray; and the dedication (itself an indubitable chip of Jane Eyre) signed Currer Bell.

Author and editor therefore are one, and we are as much satisfied to accept this double individual under the name of "Currer Bell," as under any other, more or less euphonious.

And as these characteristics appear more or less in the writings of all three, Currer, Acton, and Ellis alike, for their poems differ less in degree of power than in kind, we are ready to accept the fact of their identity or of their relationship with equal satisfaction.

The question of authorship, therefore, can deserve a moment's curiosity only as far as "Jane Eyre" is concerned, and though we cannot pronounce that it appertains to a real Mr. Currer Bell and to no other, yet that it appertains to a man, and not, as many assert, to a woman, we are strongly inclined to affirm.

Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Bronté assumed the noms de plume of Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell (first half of the nineteenth century).

Currer Bell or Bronté married the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls.

It will be observed that the initial letter of both names is in every case preserved throughoutActon (Anne), Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily), and Bell (Bronté).

The Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, appeared first, and nothing happened.

Ellis and Acton Bell remained equals in obscurity, recognized only by their association with the tremendous Currer.

There is that immortal story of how Thackeray gave a party for Currer Bell at his house in Young Street, and how Currer Bell had a headache and lay on a sofa in the back drawing-room, and refused to talk to anybody but the governess; and how Thackeray at last, very late, with a finger on his lip, stole out of the house and took refuge in his club.

There is that immortal story of how Thackeray gave a party for Currer Bell at his house in Young Street, and how Currer Bell had a headache and lay on a sofa in the back drawing-room, and refused to talk to anybody but the governess; and how Thackeray at last, very late, with a finger on his lip, stole out of the house and took refuge in his club.

"is Maternity"; and, working up from his criticism of that chapter in Shirley to a climax of adjuration: "Currer Bell, if under your heart had ever stirred a child; if to your bosom a babe had ever been pressedthat mysterious part of your being, towards which all the rest of it was drawn, in which your whole soul was transported and absorbednever could you have imagined such a falsehood as that!"

In the course of this sad autumn of 1845 a new interest came into the lives of the sisters through the publication, at their own expense, of "Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell," as explained in the biographical notice of her sisters, which Charlotte prefaced to the edition of "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey," that was published in 1850.

While refusing to publish "The Professor," Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. expressed their willingness to consider favourably a new work in three volumes which "Currer Bell" informed them he was writing; and by October 16, 1847, the tale"Jane Eyre"was accepted, printed, and published.

Even the publishers were ignorant whether "Currer Bell" was a real or an assumed name till a flood of public opinion had lifted the book from obscurity and had laid it high on the everlasting hills of fame.

In the June of 1848, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," a second novel by Anne Brontë"Acton Bell"was submitted for publication to the firm which had previously published "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey," and this firm announced the new book in America as by the author of "Jane Eyre," although Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. had entered into an agreement with an American house for the publication of "Currer Bell's" next tale.

"Where did you get this?" said he, as if he could not believe that the two young ladies dressed in black, of slight figures and diminutive stature, looking pleased yet agitated, could be the embodied Currer and Acton Bell for whom curiosity had been hunting so eagerly in vain.

In reading Grace Aguilar it is not easy to believe her the contemporary of Currer Bell and George Eliot.

"Currer Bell is not more mysteriously awful, but Garth is not artistic.