Charlotte Brontë, The Professor

Scott Caddy (Arizona State University)

Ed. by Grace Moore, University of Otago
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Grace Moore (University of Otago)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1846

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel
Romance

Resources

Unlike Charlotte Brontë’s more well-known novels, The Professor (1857) exists as something of an outlier. It was her first finished manuscript (completed around 1846), yet it was rejected for publication during her lifetime. It is, therefore, her only posthumously published novel. Readers and scholars alike have judged the book, as Heather Glen puts it, “an unpleasant and oddly disquieting book” (Glen 7). Glen also notes that early reviewers, “indeed, Charlotte Brontë’s publisher himself—saw The Professor as an abortive draft of Villette (1853), cruder, clumsier, less finished” (7). As Brontë’s only novel with a male narrator and protagonist, …

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2110 words

Citation: Caddy, Scott. "The Professor". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 January 2023 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7467, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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