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Charlotte's Books

Villette by Charlotte Bronte
With her final novel, Villette, Charlotte Bronte reached the height of her artisitic power. First published in 1853, Villette is Bronte'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 Ginevra Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. This first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adveristy 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. (Bantam Books)
"For the woman writing Villette - both the narrator, Lucy Snowe, and the actual author, Charlotte Bronte - imagination is finally victorious over Human Justice, and Villette, record of pain and defeat that it is, is also Lucy Snowe's own festival of bas coeur, the heart beneath." from the introduction by Susan Fromberg Schaffer

Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Following the tremendous popular success of Jane Eyre, which earned her lifelong notoriety as a moral revolutionary, Charlotte Bronte vowed to write a sweeping social chronicle that focused on "something real and unromatic as Monday morning." Set in the industrializing England of the Napoleonic wars and Luddite revolts of 1811-12, Shirley (1849) is the story of two contrasting heroines. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, who is trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory and whose bare life symbolizes the plight of a single women in the nineteenth century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.(Modern Library)
"Shirley follows Jane Eyre as a new exemplar - but so much a forerunner of the feminist of the the later twentieth century that it is hard to believe in her actual existence in 1811-12. She is a theoretic possibility: waht a woman might be if she combined independence and means of her own with intellect. Charlotte Bronte imagined a new form of power, equal to that of men, in a confident young woman [whose] extraordinary freedom has accustomed her to think for herself....Shirley [is] bronte's most feminist novel." Lyndall Gordon, Charlotte's biographer.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Until the age of 10, Jane Eyre grew up with her abusive aunt and cousins. She was then sent to Lowood where the conditions were unlivable. It wasn't until Jane turned 18 that she saw hope in her future as a governess for a French coquette. When Jane arrives at Thornfield, her world is completely changed: amidst a mystery of the house and a friendship with the matron of the house, Jane finds herself in love with the master of the house. Thornfield promises to change her life forever.

The Professor by Charlotte Bronte
Young William teaches at an all boys school and an all girls school parttime at each. Through his self discovery, he falls in love with a young teacher. As Charlotte's first novel, it lacks the passion her other writing so beautifully exhibits, but shows her growing love and talent for the written word. A definite and enjoyable must for any Bronte fan.

The other Bronte novels will be added later.

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