A SELL-OUT audience greeted the Haworth launch of a new book of stories inspired by Jane Eyre.

Reader I Married Him features the work of 21 writers commissioned to respond to Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel.

The book was the brainchild of bestselling novelist Tracy Chevalier, the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s creative partner for the centenary year of Charlotte Brontë’s birth.

The book was published in the UK on April 7, and three contributors gathered to read from the book at the Old School Room where Charlotte once taught.

Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveller’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry, attended in place of writer Salley Vickers, who was ill.

Helen Dunmore and Audrey read their contributions to the collection to a captivated audience and then Tracy led a discussion about Jane Eyre and its place in English literature.

Guests then returned to the Brontë Parsonage Museum for wine, book signings and a look at the Charlotte Great and Small exhibition.

Museum arts officer Lauren Livesey said: “Welcoming three leading figures from the world of contemporary literature to Haworth was a huge honour and hearing them read in the place where Charlotte was very special.”

Reader I Married Him is available from the museum bookshop for £12.99.