Tonight, by listener request, we will read the opening to the classic 1847 novel "Jane Eyre" by English writer Charlotte Brontë and published under the pen name “Currer Bell”. It is the story of a young, orphaned girl who lives with her Aunt and cousins and is mistreated by them. The novel is considered one of the greatest works of English fiction. It revolutionized writing style by being the first to focus on its protagonist's moral and spiritual development through an intimate first-person narrative, where actions and events are coloured by psychological intensity. Charlotte Brontë has been called the "first historian of the private consciousness", and the literary ancestor of writers like Proust and Joyce.