The novel is initially set in the English countryside, and later follows Lucy Snowe, the main character to the fictional town of Villette, a Gothic town where the majority of the action takes place. Furthermore, the character of Graham Bretton is widely acknowledged to have been modelled upon Brontë's publisher, George Murray Smith. Paul Emanuel is closely based upon that of M. Most literary historians believe that the character of M. After several publishers had rejected it, Brontë reworked the material and made it the basis of Villette. She finally returned to her family's rectory in Haworth, England, in January 1844.Ĭharlotte drew on this source material for her first (albeit unsuccessful) novel The Professor. She became lonely and homesick, and fell in love with M. Her second stay in Brussels was not a happy one. Elizabeth had joined the Brontë family to care for the children after the death of her sister, their mother Maria Brontë, née Maria Branwell.Ĭharlotte returned, alone, to Brussels in January 1843 to take up a teaching post at the pensionnat. The sisters' time at the pensionnat was cut short when their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell, died in October 1842. In return for board and tuition, Charlotte taught English and Emily taught music. There they enrolled in a pensionnat (boarding school) run by M. In 1842 Charlotte Brontë, at the age of 26, travelled to Brussels, Belgium, with her sister Emily.

It was preceded in writing by The Professor (her posthumously published first novel, of which Villette is a reworking, though still not very similar), Jane Eyre, and Shirley. Villette was Charlotte Brontë's third and last novel published during her life. After an unspecified family disaster, the protagonist Lucy Snowe travels from her native England to the fictional Continental city of Villette to teach at a girls' school, where she is drawn into adventure and romance. Villette ( / v iː ˈ l ɛ t/) is an 1853 novel written by English author Charlotte Brontë.

Villette by Charlotte Brontë