Discovering _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ are practically as the same book, I have disclosed their relationship in parallel columns--the most satisfactory and conclusive evidence in the world. Herewith we see both volumes agree in scenes and chapters virtually word for word, and from beginning to end. Both works we now find are one in origin, each containing not less than four identical characters portrayed by Charlotte Brontë from her own life, she herself being the original of the heroine in each book, and her friend M. Héger in the main the original of the hero thereof. Charlotte Brontë's brother, Branwell Brontë, in agreement with her estimate of him as a wreck of selfishness, is the unhappy fool of both books; while her life-long companion, Tabitha Aykroyd, who was to her as nurse, mother, and friend, is therein the indispensable domestic servant and motherly good woman of the humble class. I will not occupy my preface with an enumeration of the many important and interesting Brontë discoveries I have been enabled to make and present herewith in _The Key to the Brontë Works_. I may briefly indicate my chief sensational discoveries:--The discovery of the origin of _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_; the discovery that in _Jane Eyre_ Charlotte Brontë immortalized not only herself and M. Héger, but also her father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, her brother, four sisters, her aunt and a cousin, and Tabitha Aykroyd, the Brontë servant or housekeeper; the discovery first revealing the history of Charlotte Brontë's life at Brussels and friendship with M. Héger, the original of her chief heroes; and the discovery of the most sensational fact that Charlotte Brontë and not Emily wrote _Wuthering Heights_, and was herself the original of the heroine and M. Héger that of the hero, as I have mentioned. My warm thanks are due to Mr. Harold Hodge, who commissioned me to write my article "The Key to _Jane Eyre_" for _The Saturday Review_;[3] and to Mr. W. L. Courtney, M.A., LL.D., the editor of _The Fortnightly Review_, who commissioned me to write my article "The Lifting of the Brontë Veil: A New Study of the Brontë Family."[4] Mr. Courtney's words of encouragement--those of a true gentleman and an eminent literary scholar and author--have made bright to me the accomplishment of this work. I thank Lady Ritchie--the gifted author-daughter of Thackeray the writer of _Vanity Fair_ to whom Charlotte Brontë in her second edition dedicated _Jane Eyre_--for her kind permission to use in _The Key to the Brontë Works_ what her ladyship had written me privately in regard to her sitting at dinner beside Charlotte Brontë on June 12th, 1850, with Mr. Thackeray and Mr. George Smith the publisher, when Miss Brontë was wearing a light green dress, an incident that has relation to the green dress in the interesting Héger portrait of Charlotte Brontë drawn in 1850, now the property of the nation and in the National Portrait Gallery, London.