Villete

Charlotte Brontë achieved the pinnacle of her artistic brilliance with her final novel, Villette. Villette is Brontë's most accomplished and deeply felt masterpiece, surpassing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim when it was first published in 1853. Lucy Snowe, the autobiographical narrator, departs England and a traumatic past to work as a teacher in a French boarding school in Villette. As she sees the sporadic relationship between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a stunning coquette, she is confronted with her feelings of love and longing. The initial hurt is followed by others, and with them comes the grief Lucy has been trying to avoid for so long. Despite difficulty and failure, Lucy Snowe survives to provide an unflinching account of a tumultuous life's journey – a trip that is one of the most perceptive fictional examinations of a woman's consciousness in English literature.