Charlotte Brontë’s pseudonym, Currer Bell, was the name of a male alternate personality in charge of her writing, not a sign of feminism or shyness

I am reading Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë, and have reached the year 1850, by which time the author of Jane Eyre is well known to be Charlotte Brontë and not “Currer Bell.”

Yet, at the end of a private letter dated January 19, 1850, she signs “Currer Bell” (1, p. 316). And in a letter of March 16, 1850, she refers to Currer Bell as though he were some real other person: “One thing, however, I see plainly enough, and that is, Mr. Currer Bell needs improvement, and ought to strive after it; and this (D.V.) [God willing] he honestly intends to do—taking his time, however, and following as his guides Nature and Truth” (1, p. 320).

For biographical context on her use of pseudonyms, I quote from The Oxford Companion to The Brontës:

“All four Brontës published under pseudonyms, a continuation of their childhood habit of writing in fictitious authorial voices…and they subsequently published all their novels under these pen names, even Villette (1853), which was released long after Charlotte’s identity had become widely known…Charlotte herself used her pseudonym in professional correspondence with people she had not actually met; ‘Currer Bell’, she explained to Williams in 1848, ‘is the only name I wish to have mentioned in connection with my writings’…Charlotte’s favorite juvenile pseudonym was Charles Townshend…At age 13, she had adopted the prose persona of Captain ‘Andrew’ Tree and was signing her poems as Arthur Wellesley…” (2, p. 407).

If her motivation for using a male pseudonym was to be taken seriously in patriarchal, male chauvinist, Victorian England, why had she used it in childhood, when public response was not at issue, and why did she continue to use it as an adult in both private correspondence (related to her writing) and for novels, after her true identity was well known? And why, in her letter of March 16, 1850, did she speak of “Currer Bell” as though he were another, real person?

As I have argued in past posts related to other writers (search pseudonyms in this blog), an often ignored reason for novelists to use pseudonyms is that they may have alternate personalities who want to publish. In the case of Charlotte Brontë, it appears that the personality (or personalities) who did her creative writing had always, since childhood, had a male self-image.

I do not know why her writing personalities were male. Perhaps because, even as a child, it was obvious to her that male authors would be taken more seriously. Perhaps because her mother died when she was five, leading her to think that males had a better chance in life. Or perhaps she wanted to please her father. In any case, the issue in this post is why authors use pseudonyms: It may indicate the presence of an alternate personality.

1. Elizabeth Gaskell. The Life of Charlotte Brontë [1857], Edited by Elisabeth Jay. Penguin Books, 1997.

2. Christine Alexander and Margaret Smith. The Oxford Companion to the Brontës. Oxford University Press, 2006.