Governess: The Lives and Times of the Real Jane Eyres

I'd recomend this highly as a look into Victorian social mores, women's lives in Victorian England, and the changing social sphere of women during this period. Unlike what many would like us to believe, the ‘correct' social, financial, matrimonial and educational status of women fluctuated throughout this period, and no one can look into this better than the outsiders of the social order, governesses.

However, the prose occasionally editorializes where it's completely unnecessary, putting an opinionated spin on what is otherwise an invaluable history. These women have been talked over enough in their lives; they don't need the trend continued posthumously.