Jane Eyre is a classic romance novel by Charlotte Brontë that was published in 1847 by Smith, Elder & Company, London. It is Brontë's masterpiece and one of the most famous British novels. Charlotte Brontë first published the book as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography under the pseudonym Currer Bell. The novel was an immediate critical and popular success. Especially effusive in his praises was William Makepeace Thackeray, to whom Charlotte Brontë dedicated the novel's second edition, which was illustrated by F. H. Townsend.