Charlotte Brontë (April 21, 1816 – March 31, 1855) was a renowned English novelist and poet of the Victorian era, best known for her masterpiece Jane Eyre (1847). As the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, she played a crucial role in establishing their literary reputations, often publishing under the pseudonym Currer Bell to avoid the prejudices faced by female authors at the time.