The British Library’s new digital English literature resource displays the school report revealing that Charlotte Brontë "writes indifferently" and "knows nothing of grammar, geography, history, or accomplishments".
The eight-year-old future author of Jane Eyre was "altogether clever of her age (but) knows nothing systematically," according to the report, taken from the school register of the Clergy Daughters' School, at Cowan Bridge.
It also mentions Emily Brontë, poet and author of the novel Wuthering Heights. Emily was almost six in 1824. Emily, the report stated, "reads very prettily, and works a little."
Sisters Elizabeth and Marie Brontë, then aged nine and ten, left school "in ill-health." Both sisters died the following year, in 1825 within weeks of each other, Maria in May, and Elizabeth in June.
"Typhoid fever hit Cowan Bridge, leading to a number of deaths among its pupils, thought to have been exacerbated by the school's poor food and harsh regime," writes the British Library.
Shortly before Elizabeth's death in June, Charlotte and Emily were also removed from the school. The school's routine and conditions, combined with Charlotte Brontë's memory of her sisters' deaths, provided inspiration for Lowood School in Jane Eyre.
