Which Brontë novel was initially rejected by publishers?

The Professor was the Brontë novel initially rejected by publishers.

Written by Charlotte Brontë in 1846, The Professor was her first completed novel. It tells the story of William Crimsworth, an Englishman who becomes a teacher in Brussels, and draws on Charlotte’s own experiences as a teacher and governess in Belgium. The novel’s first-person male narrator also gave Charlotte a different perspective from the one she used in Jane Eyre.

Charlotte submitted the manuscript to several publishers, but it was rejected by many of them. Smith, Elder & Co. eventually showed interest in her later novel, Jane Eyre, which was published in 1847 and became an immediate success. The Professor was not published during Charlotte’s lifetime.

It finally appeared posthumously in 1857, after Charlotte’s death, with editing and approval from her widower, Arthur Bell Nicholls. It is sometimes confused with Jane Eyre because both are Charlotte Brontë novels, but The Professor was the earlier manuscript and the one associated with repeated publisher rejections.