Villette

Charlotte Bronte's last novel--a highly autobiographical one--tells the story of Lucy Snowe, a cold young woman who becomes a teacher at a school for girls in Brussels, where she falls in love with a fellow teacher, M. Paul Emmanuel. The plot parallels a situation in Bronte's own life, when she studied in Brussels in the 1840s and became involved in a mostly one-sided romance with a professor. Her father requested a happy ending to the story, but the best she could do was to supply a somewhat ambiguous one that has provided a puzzle for Bronte scholars since the book was published.