Villette

COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED

In shaping Villette, as with Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte drew upon her own life.

Her heroine, Lucy Snowe, possesses neither beauty nor fortune, but her cool demeanour belies a passionate heart. Friendless and alone in the world, she takes up a position at a girls’ school in Brussels presided over by the indomitable Madame Beck. There she falls under the spell of the vain, irascible and noble-hearted professor, M. Paul Emanuel.

Seldom has the ebb and flow of a love affair been portrayed so harrowingly and movingly. In its wit and flashes of poetry, its depth and originality of character, for many readers Villette is Charlotte Bronte’s crowning achievement.