num_pages: 622
description: With her final novel, Villette, Charlotte Brontë reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, Villette is Brontë's most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim. Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. The first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life's journey - a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman's consciousness in English literature.
language: English
title: Villette
titlecomplete: Villette
characters: Mrs. Louisa Lucy Bretton, Dr. John Graham Bretton, Paulina Mary Home, Madame Modeste Maria Beck, Lucy Snowe, M. Paul Carl David Emanuel, Ginevra Laura Fanshawe
genres: Fiction, 19th Century, Classics, Gothic, British Literature, Historical Fiction, Romance, Literature, Victorian, Novels
ratings_count: 70974
publisher: Penguin Classics