Charlotte Brontë's famous novel Jane Eyre has lived a remarkably chequered life. It has, for example, been praised for its passion, attacked for its unfeminine coarseness, celebrated for its feminist politics, ridiculed for its technical shortcomings and promoted as a literary classic. Defining Moments examines the various practices which have given rise to Jane Eyre's complex cultural profile. The study begins with the writing process, exploring how and why Charlotte Brontë gave her novel specific textual features. It then traces the ways in which meaning and value have been attached to these features as Jane Eyre has been published, marketed, read, reviewed, analysed within various critical discourses, canonized, adapted into other media and studied at all levels of the education system. This latter point leads Defining Moments into ongoing debates about the teaching of English.