Reader, I married him.

This is the first sentence of the last chapter of Jane Eyre, simply titled “Conclusion”. After all her trials, Jane has returned to Mr Rochester, now blind and maimed by the fire that destroyed Thornfield Hall. The wedding is as plain as the sentence: “he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present.” Back from church, Jane walks into the kitchen, where the housekeeper is basting a pair of chickens, and announces: “Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning.” Mary looks up and stares.

Charlotte Brontë published the novel in 1847 under the male pseudonym Currer Bell, with the subtitle An Autobiography, and it was an immediate success. Throughout the book, Jane speaks directly to her “reader”, as to a confidant.

The sentence is famous for its grammar as much as for its news: Jane does not say that he married her, or that they were married. She remains the subject of her own story to the very end.

Jane Eyre, Chapter 38 (opening sentence), 1847

Checked word for word in the work itself.

Read the passage in the work