This volume covers the period from 1852 until Charlotte Brontës tragically early death in March 1855. We read of her long struggle to complete Villette, and her indignation when Harriet Martineau finds in it evidence that her mind is "full of the subject of one passion-love." Complete texts of many letters to Mrs. Gaskell illuminate Charlotte's friendship with the fellow-novelist who was to be her biographer. Subsequent letters touchingly reveal her love for her husband, her "tenderest nurse" during her last illness.