After a family catastrophe, orphaned Lucy Snowe must navigate 19th-century London with no safety net other than the final wages from her position as a companion to an elderly woman who has recently passed away. Fate leads Lucy onto a boat bound for the continent and to Villette, where she manages to secure a position as an English teacher at a girls' school. She is constantly observed by the school's scheming headmistress. As a Protestant, she is viewed with suspicion in the strictly Catholic culture that pervades the place. Nevertheless, it is here that Lucy seeks a home for a sensitive but resilient heart, nurtured by disappointments, each one harsher than the last.
As the years go by, Miss Snowe will come to see more clearly into human life: into suffering and happiness, prevailing worldviews such as religion, and above all, gender. Villette [1853] is the masterpiece by Charlotte Brontë that has been overshadowed by the global success of Jane Eyre.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË [1816-1855], born in Thornton in West Yorkshire, was an English novelist, the eldest of the famous Brontë sisters. Several of her novels rank among the classics of English literature, with Jane Eyre as the most famous.
