love with a rake. She flees her disastrous marriage and sets up as a professional artist—a highly unusual and daring step for a woman of her time.  Brontë’s message remains relevant in a time when the dangerous lover—not unlike the dark and mesmerizing Heathcliff and Rochester respectively of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre—still lurks in romance narratives, and the belief in the beautiful illusion of saving the lost soul through love retains its seductive power. 

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