PEL : Villette

The Penguin English Library Edition of Villette by Charlotte BrontëThat evening more firmly than ever fastened into my soul the conviction that Fate was of stone and Hope a false idol - blind bloodless and of granite core. I felt too that the trial God had appointed me was gaining its climax and must now be turned by my own hands hot feeble trembling as they wereWith 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 an initially suspicious headmaster and her own complex feelings first for the schools English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a governess in Brussels Charlotte Brontës last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War. About the Author Charlotte Brontë 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 byShirley (1848)Villette (1853) andThe Professor (posthumously published in 1857). In 1854 Charlotte married her fathers curate Arthur Bell Nicholls. She died in March of the following year.