What does one do when faced with overwhelming hardship… endure and triumph. Perhaps no better example is one of the all time great heroines of literature, Jayne Eyre.

 

 

Before its publication, Charlotte Bronte’s working title was Jayne Eyre: An Autobiography. Primarily, this gothic novel told in the first person voice of Jayne, is told in five parts. First, the story opens with 10 yr old Jane, a poor orphan at the mercy of her cruel relatives suffering through an abusive childhood. Next, we see her as a student who attends a school where she doesn’t fit in.  After she graduates and becomes a governess, she falls in love with her employer, Mr. Rochester (who loves her as well, although neither declares their heart to each other).

Due to draconian and melodramatic circumstances ranging from intrigue to illness, she leaves Thornfield, her true love’s home and contemplates marriage with her cousin, a cold clergyman.

 

“A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and flagrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway."

 

 

 

After more harsh conditions and misfortunes, Jayne with her very British perseverance reunites with Edward Rochester and marries her hero.

 

 

Penhaligon’s London, opened its first shoppe in the 1860s, just about the time Jane Eyre was written. Bluebell is perhaps the most British and iconic of all Penhaligon’s scents and is a beloved cult classic, (as is the novel) to generations of romantics.

 

Bluebell is not a simple soliflore and declares its nature from the onset; top notes of citrus, suggesting bitterness, and heart notes of gentle but hardy florals, including Hyacinth, Lily of the Valley, Cyclamen, Jasmine and Rose. Base notes of Galbanum, Clove and Cinnamon show veiled passion.

 

Although Penhaligon’s has recently reformulated fragrances from its archives, I don’t think they will touch this classic perfume, Bluebell will endure; it’s as for ever appealing, tenacious and unique as Jayne Eyre.

– Michelyn Camen, Editor-in Chief