Charlotte Brontë reached the height of her artistic power in Villette, an accomplished and deeply felt final novel. The critical acclaim it received eclipsed that of Jane Eyre, with rave reviews from George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and more.
The autobiographical narrator, Lucy Snowe, flees England and her tragic past to become a governess in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There, her struggle for independence is challenged by both her friendship with a worldly and handsome English doctor and her feelings for an autocratic schoolmaster, and Brontë's modern heroine must decide if there is any man in her society with whom she can live and still feel free. Yet in spite of the adversity, Lucy recounts her turbulent life's journey-one that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of 19th century woman's consciousness in literature.
