Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), was an English novelist and poet. She and her two younger sisters, Emily and Anne, make the Brontes perhaps the most remarkable family in the history of English literature. Charlotte's best-known novel is her second, and the first to be published, "Jane Eyre" (1847). (Emily's equally famous novel, Wuthering Heights, was published two months later.) "Jane Eyre" combined the "Bildungsroman" with Gothic romance, a Byronic hero, Christian sensibility, and a distinctly feminine perspective. The novel was a landmark in literary history and remains popular and influential to this day."