The Life of Charlotte Bronte is the posthumous biography of Charlotte Brontë by fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. Although quite frank in places, Gaskell suppressed details of Charlotte's love for Constantin Heger, a married man, on the grounds that it would be too great an affront to contemporary morals and a possible source of distress to Charlotte's still-living friends, father and husband.The first edition was published in 1857 by Smith, Elder & Co.. A major source was the hundreds of letters sent by Brontë to her lifelong friend Ellen Nussey.-- Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.