In time for the 200th anniversary of her birth a Penguin Hardcover Classics edition of the
book many believe to be Charlotte Brontë's crowning achievement With neither friends nor
family Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the
small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly
pupils an initially suspicious headmaster and her own complex feelings first for the
school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her
own deeply unhappy experiences as a governess in Brussels Charlotte Brontë's last and most
autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited
love. For more than seventy years Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic
literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1 700 titles Penguin Classics
represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and
disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions
and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors as well as up-to-date
translations by award-winning translators.
