In this book, Pfordresher (English, Georgetown Univ.; Jesus and the Emergence of a Catholic Imagination) raises many points about English novelist Charlotte Brontë's (1816&55) childhood, her family life, and her role as an author that will be familiar to her fans. He breathes new life into these biographical elements by using them to tease out an ongoing tension between the "twin sources of her remarkable achievement": her experiences and her imagination. Pfordresher suggests that the latter saved Brontë (and the fictional Jane Eyre). He also explores overlaps between her lived experiences and her heroine's story. Some of the details (such as Brontë's father's struggle with his eyesight) add new depths to passages in the 1847 novel. Overall, Pfordresher reveals that Jane Eyre is not reducible to Brontë's experiences, just as Brontë herself is much more than the author of the novel. VERDICT While not exactly an academic biography, this book will be a great addition to public libraries and prove interesting for readers curious about Brontë's social world. [See Prepub Alert, 1/9/17; "Editors' Spring Picks," LJ 2/15/17, p. 24.]—Emily Bowles, Appleton, WI