Tracy Chevalier

This collection of original stories by today’s finest women writers—including Tracy Chevalier, Francine Prose, Elizabeth McCracken, Tessa Hadley, Audrey Niffenegger, and more—takes inspiration from the opening line in Charlotte Brontë’s most beloved novel, Jane Eyre. A fixture in the literary canon, Charlotte Brontë is revered by readers all over the world. Her novels featuring unforgettable, strong heroines still resonate with millions today. And who could forget one of literature’s best-known lines: “Reader, I married him” from her classic novel Jane Eyre? Part of a remarkable family that produced three acclaimed female writers at a time in 19th-century Britain when few women wrote, and fewer were published, Brontë has become a great source of inspiration to writers, especially women, ever since. Now in Reader, I Married Him, twenty of today’s most celebrated women authors have spun original stories, using the opening line from Jane Eyre as a springboard for their own flights of imagination. Reader, I Married Him will feature stories by: Tracy Chevalier Tessa Hadley Sarah Hall Helen Dunmore Kirsty Gunn Joanna Briscoe Jane Gardam Emma Donoghue Susan Hill Francine Prose Elif Shafak Evie Wyld Patricia Park Salley Vickers Nadifa Mohamed Esther Freud Linda Grant Lionel Shriver Audrey Niffenegger Namwali Serpell Elizabeth McCracken Unique, inventive, and poignant, the stories in Reader, I Married Him pay homage to the literary genius of Charlotte Brontë, and demonstrate once again that her extraordinary vision continues to inspire readers and writers.

Reader, I Married Him

High Fidelity

They thought it was simply the King, and the title, because they could never have understood my desperate need to acquire something they had always had and taken for granted, as their birthright. And that was security. Financial. Social. Domestic. Marital. Security was all I ever longed and struggled and schemed for, because since very early and forgotten childhood, I had never had it, and my deepest, my driving fear through it all was that I never would.

Reader, I Married Him quotes

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