Claire Harman on Charlotte Bronte in Belgium

Charlotte Bronte's true identity revealed through five powerful and poigant letters2.Biographer Claire Harman on the two years Charlotte Bronte spent as a mature student in Belgium, at a school run by Zoe and Constantin Heger, and its turbulent epistolary aftermath.When Charlotte Bronte's passionate letters to Constantin Heger were published in 1913, they caused a sensation. Today, they are more likely to provoke a sympathetic response.Marking the 200th anniversary of her birth, Claire Harman unfolds the story of Bronte's time in Brussels. She explores the letters she wrote to Heger after her return to Haworth and his stoney refusal to correspond with her, in spite of her pleas and her wish to write a book and dedicate it to him: "I would write a book and I would dedicate it to my literature master - to the only master I have ever had - to you Monsieur".It's amongst the most painful incidents in Bronte's life-story, but Claire Harman goes on to discuss how Bronte eventually used the experience in The Professor, Villette, and, of course, in her masterpiece, Jane Eyre.Producer: Beaty Rubens.