Villette (Illustrated)

 -Includes 26 Illustrations. -Table of contents to every chapters in the book. -Complete and formatted for kindle to improve your reading experience Villette is an 1853 novel by Charlotte Brontë. After an unspecified family disaster, the protagonist Lucy Snowe travels from England to the fictional French-speaking city of Villette to teach at a girls' school, where she is drawn into adventure and romance.Villette was Charlotte Brontë's fourth novel. It was preceded by the posthumously published The Professor, her first, and then Jane Eyre and Shirley.Villette begins with its famously passive protagonist, Lucy Snowe, age 14, staying at the home of her godmother Mrs. Bretton. Also in residence are Mrs. Bretton's son, John Graham Bretton (whom the family calls Graham), and a young visitor, Paulina Home (who is called Polly). Polly is a peculiar little girl who soon develops a deep devotion to Graham, who showers her with attention. But Polly's visit is cut short when her father arrives to take her away.For reasons that are not stated, Lucy leaves Mrs. Bretton's home a few weeks after the Polly's departure. After some initial hesitation, she is hired as a caregiver by Miss Marchmont, a rheumatic crippled woman. Lucy is soon accustomed to her work and has begun to feel content with her quiet lifestyle.During an evening of dramatic weather changes, Miss Marchmont regains all her energy and feels young again. She shares with Lucy her sad love story of 30 years previously, and concludes that she should treat Lucy better and be a better person. She believes that death will reunite her with her dead lover. The next morning, Lucy finds Miss Marchmont dead.Lucy then leaves the English countryside and goes to London. At the age of 23, she boards a ship for Labassecour despite knowing very little French. She travels to the city of Villette, where she finds employment as a bonne (nanny) at Mme. Beck's boarding school for girls. (This school is seen as being based upon the Hégers' Brussels pensionnat). After a time, she is hired to teach English at the school, in addition to having to mind Mme. Beck's three children. She thrives despite Mme. Beck's constant surveillance of the staff and students."Dr. John," a handsome English doctor, frequently visits the school because of his love for the coquette Ginevra Fanshawe. In one of Villette's famous plot twists, "Dr. John" is later revealed to be John Graham Bretton, a fact that Lucy has known but has deliberately concealed from the reader. After Dr. John (i.e., Graham) discovers Ginevra's unworthiness, he turns his attention to Lucy, and they become close friends. She values this friendship highly despite her usual emotional reserve.We meet Polly (Paulina Home) again at this point; her father has inherited the title "de Bassompierre" and is now a Count. Thus her name is now Paulina Home de Bassompierre. Polly and Graham soon discover that they knew each other in the past and renew their friendship. They fall in love and eventually marry.Lucy becomes progressively closer to a colleague, the irascible, autocratic, and male chauvinist professor, M. Paul Emanuel, a relative of Mme. Beck. Lucy and Paul eventually fall in love.However, a group of conspiring antagonists, including Mme. Beck, the priest Père Silas, and the relatives of M. Paul's long-dead fiancée, work to keep the two apart. They finally succeed in forcing M. Paul's departure for the West Indies to oversee a plantation there. He nonetheless declares his love for Lucy before his departure and arranges for her to live independently as the headmistress of her own day school, which she later expands into a pensionnat (boarding school).