Villette (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Charlotte Bronte

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140434798 ISBN 13: 9780140434798

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2004

Synopsis

Villette is Charlotte Brontė's powerful autobiographical novel of one woman's search for true love, edited with an introduction by Helen M. Cooper in Penguin Classics.

With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette. There, she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, the hostility of headmistress Madame Beck, and her own complex feelings - first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a governess in Brussels, Charlotte Brontė'sautobiographical novel, the last published during her lifetime, is a powerfully moving study of loneliness and isolation, and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances.

Helen M. Cooper's new introduction places the novel in the context of Brontė's life and career and argues for the importance of the novel as an exploration of imperialism.

Charlotte Brontė (1816-55), eldest of the Brontė sisters, was born in Thornton, West Yorkshire. Jane Eyre was first published in 1847 under the pen-name Currer Bell, and was followed by Shirley (1848) and Vilette (1853). In 1854 Charlotte Brontė married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She died during her pregnancy on 31 March 1855 in Haworth, Yorkshire. The Professor was posthumously published in 1857.

If you liked Villette, you may enjoy Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford, also available in Penguin Classics.

'I am only just returned to a sense of real wonder about me, for I have been reading Villette'
George Eliot

'Her finest novel'
Virginia Woolf

About this title

Review:

I am only just returned to a sense of real wonder about me, for I have been reading Villette... (George Eliot)"

About the Author:

Charlotte Brontė was born in Yorkshire in 1816. As a child, she was sent to boarding school, where two of her sisters died; she was subsequently educated at home with her younger siblings, Emily, Branwell and Anne. As an adult, Charlotte worked as a governess and taught in a school in Brussels. Jane Eyre was first published in 1847 under the pen-name Currer Bell, and was followed by Shirley (1848), Villette (1853) and The Professor (posthumously published in 1857). In 1854 Charlotte married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She died in March of the following year.

Charlotte Bronte (1816-55), sister of Anne Bronte and Emily Bronte. Jane Eyre appeared in 1847 and was followed by Shirley (1848) and Vilette (1853). In 1854 Charlotte Bronte married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She died during her pregnancy on March 31, 1855 in Haworth, Yorkshire.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0140434798
• ISBN 13: 9780140434798
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 672