Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty was inspired in part by her own experience as a teenager. She has said that she remember[s] what it felt like to be that age – on the cusp of womanhood, with all its attendant mysteries and possibilities. In addition, Bray was also influenced by the novels of Charlotte Bronte and the Brontë sisters. She has said that she wanted to create a Gothic Victorian world for her readers, one that would be both familiar and yet strange.