The Many Faces of Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte is one of my favourite authors, so I thought it would be fun to write my last post comparing covers of her most well-known novel, Jane Eyre. It's the story of a passionate-but-reserved and strong-but-quiet girl who endures a difficult and lonely childhood, becomes a governess, falls in love with her employer, but runs away on the day of their wedding because she discovers a secret that makes it impossible for them to marry. Much more happens after this, but just in case you haven't read Jane Eyre before, I'm trying not to give anything away.

Anyways, this classic has inspired many different cover artists over the years. I'll show you a few, and comment on what I think are the pros and cons of each.

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This is a very conventional cover, and it gives a very good idea of the novel. Like the Anna Karenina cover we saw a few posts ago, the central figure of the woman makes it clear that it's a classic and a romance. Jane's expression is good (true to character, I think), but the book repeatedly describes her as plain and mousy-looking, so this cover fails in that respect.

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I don't know for sure because I haven't looked up any background about this cover, but I'd be willing to bet that it was produced within the last 10 years and marketed to two audiences: readers who already love Jane Eyre ("Look, we made a nice cover for your favourite book!") and romance readers who've never heard of the story before ("Look, another romance novel! We've made a really simple cover with a woman's silhouette so you know for sure that it's a love story."). Again, it gives a good idea of what the story's really like, but the silhouette downplays Jane's distinctive personality and just emphasizes her identity as the heroine who falls in love.

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This is cute and the font and (once again... I'm noticing a trend) Jane's solitary figure makes it really obvious that this is a romance novel. The art is kind of charming, and casual enough that I have no criticisms about the presentation of Jane. My only major complaint is that the story is a serious one, and this cover makes it look too light and cutesy.

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Well... This one makes the mystery element of the story really, really obvious, but there's no way to see that it's a romance novel, which I think is a pretty serious failing. Also, I really dislike the font, which is ugly and makes the story (and Jane, as the narrator and main character) look badly put together.

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I thought I'd include this last one just for fun, as an example of the worst possible Jane Eyre cover of all time. Seriously though, it's painful for me to look at, not to mention post it here so more people will see it. Anyways, this one has too many problems to list, but the key is that it completely misrepresents Jane's character and her relationship with Rochester... Jane Eyre isn't a soap opera. Hopefully seeing this won't turn you off from reading this "Story of Undying Love"... Remember, this one's from an abridged version. Maybe we can blame the horror of it on that.