Read this when
Villette
For everyone who's been alone in an empty building over the holidays, pretending to be fine. Lucy Snowe did it in 1853. 🌧️
Who it's for
Lucy Snowe is one of fiction's great maskers: she hides her past, her feelings and even key facts from the reader, while revealing an intense inner life underneath.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Charlotte Brontë's 1853 novel is narrated by Lucy Snowe, who as a girl stays with her godmother Mrs. Bretton in England and later, after an unspecified family misfortune, travels to the fictional Continental city of Villette. She finds work at Madame Beck's boarding school for girls, first caring for children and then teaching English.
Where to find it
Public domain in the US; free on Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks, with free LibriVox audiobooks. Also widely in print (Penguin Classics, Oxford World's Classics and others), in libraries (Libby/.
Before you start
Heads up: Despair and a wish to die.
Age: Ages 16+
She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.Kate Chopin, The Awakening
