Villette - Softcover

Charlotte Brontė

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1551114615 ISBN 13: 9781551114613

Publisher: Broadview Press, 2005

Synopsis

Charlotte Brontė’s contemporary George Eliot wrote of Villette, “There is something almost preternatural in its power.” The deceptive stillness and security of a girls’ school provide the setting for this 1853 novel, Brontė’s last. Modelled on Brontė’s own experiences as a student and teacher in Brussels, Villette is the sombre but engrossing story of Lucy Snowe, an unmarried Englishwoman making her way in a culture deeply foreign to her. The heroine’s relationships with the fiery professor M. Paul, the cool Englishman Dr. John, and the school’s powerful headmistress, Madame Beck, are described in her compelling and enigmatic first-person narration.

This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction by Kate Lawson and Lynn Shakinovsky. The many contextual documents include contemporary writings on surveillance and espionage, anti-Catholicism, and working women, as well as letters describing Brontė’s own time in Brussels.

About this title

About the Author

Kate Lawson is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Waterloo. She is the co-author with Lynn Shakinovsky of The Marked Body: Domestic Violence in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Literature (State University of New York Press, 2002).

From the Back Cover

Charlotte Brontė’s contemporary George Eliot wrote of Villette, “There is something almost preternatural in its power.” The deceptive stillness and security of a girls’ school provide the setting for this 1853 novel, Brontė’s last. Modelled on Brontė’s own experiences as a student and teacher in Brussels, Villette is the sombre but engrossing story of Lucy Snowe, an unmarried Englishwoman making her way in a culture deeply foreign to her. The heroine’s relationships with the fiery professor M. Paul, the cool Englishman Dr. John, and the school’s powerful headmistress, Madame Beck, are described in her compelling and enigmatic first-person narration.

This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction by Kate Lawson and Lynn Shakinovsky. The many contextual documents include contemporary writings on surveillance and espionage, anti-Catholicism, and working women, as well as letters describing Brontė’s own time in Brussels.

Edition details

• Publisher: Broadview Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1551114615
• ISBN 13: 9781551114613
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 647
• Editor: Kate Lawson