The Professor

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When the orphaned William refuses his uncles proposal to become a clergyman and rejects an offer from his brother Edward to work as his clerk, he decides to accept a position as an English teacher at a boys school in Belgium. When his career leads him to take up another post at a girls' school nearby, William becomes emotionally involved with the manipulative headmistress of the establishment, Mademoiselle Reuter. The tangle of feelings produced by this relationship and his love for a younger pupil sets the young teacher on a downward spiral towards disaster. Based on Charlotte Bronts own autobiographical experience in Brussels as a teacher, and later reworked into the much-expanded Villette and only published posthumously, The Professor was Charlotte Bronts first attempt at full-length fiction and bears all the hallmarks of her future work, with touches of genius and an unparalleled sharpness of style.

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At the end we are steeped through and through with the genius, the vehemence, the indignation of Charlotte Bront It is the red and fitful glow of the hearts fire which illuminates her page. -- Virginia Woolf

Author Bio

Charlotte Bront (181655) was the eldest of the three celebrated Bront sisters. Under the care of her father, Charlotte was educated and encouraged to take an interest in natural history. This freedom inspired Charlotte to argue strongly for the intellectual worth of women through her novels, and her success and the respect she won paved the way for future female authors.