My first impression of Villette by Charlotte Brontë (1853) was the familiarity of the writing — if I had no inclination of the author or book title, but merely “read it blind,” I think I would still know it was Charlotte Brontë. Even though I had never read it before, the style was so familiar because it was so apparently Charlotte.

Because I had read Lyndall Gordon’s amazing biography of Charlotte beforehand, I felt prepared for Villette. I read it with an eye for what it said about Charlotte — her life, her experiences, her opinions — and I think this colored my experience of it. Ultimately, it is a book in which the plot is only secondary. Read More→