"Villette! Villette! Have you read it?" exclaimed George Eliot when Charlotte Brontëeuml;'s final novel appeared in 1853. "It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power."Arguably Brontëeuml;'s most refined and deeply felt work, Villette...
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"Villette! Villette! Have you read it?" exclaimed George Eliot when Charlotte Brontëeuml;'s final novel appeared in 1853. "It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power."Arguably Brontëeuml;'s most refined and deeply felt work, Villette draws on her profound loneliness following the deaths of her three siblings. Lucy Snowe, the narrator of Villette,flees from an unhappy past in England to begin a new file as a teacher at a French boarding school in the great cosmopolitan capital of Villette. Soon Lucy's struggle for independence is overshadowed by both her freindship with a wordly English doctor and her feelings for an autocratic schoolmaster. Brontëeuml;'s strikingly modern heroine must decide if there is any man in her society with whom she can live and still be free."Villette is an amazing book," observed novelist Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. "Written before psychoanalysis came into being, Villette is nevertheless a psychoanalytic work-a psychosexual study of its heroine, Lucy Snowe. Written before the philosophy of existentialism was formulated, the novel's view of the world can only be described as existential. . . . Today it is read and discussed more intensely than Charlotte Brontëeuml;'s other novels, and many critics now beleive it to be a true master-piece, a work of genius that more than fulfilled the promise of Jane Eyre." Indeed, Virginia Woolf judged Villette to be Brontëeuml;'s "finest novel."Villette, by Charlotte Bronte, is part of the Literary Classics Collection, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of the Literary Classics Collection:- New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars- Biographies of the authors- Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events- Footnotes and endnotes- Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work- Comments by other famous authors- Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations- Bibliographies for further reading- Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. The Literary Classics Collection pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.
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