Villette
About this audiobook
Arguably Charlotte Bront├1⁄2's most deeply felt work, Villette draws on her own profound loneliness following the deaths of her three siblings.
Left to fend for herself after a family tragedy, Lucy Snowe flees from her unhappy past in England to begin a new life as a teacher at a French boarding school in the cosmopolitan capital of Villette. There, Lucy struggles to prove herself in her new circumstances and to manage both her unruly students and her inner grief. But her quest for independence and stability is soon challenged by her complex feelings for a worldly English doctor and then an autocratic professor. Bront├1⁄2's strikingly modern heroine must decide if there is any man in her society with whom she can live and still be free.
Plain, poor, and lacking charm as well as any trace of self-esteem, Lucy is an unusual but utterly memorable heroine. As this thoughtful novel delves into her psyche, listeners will come to know and love her as a friend.
Discover more
About the author
Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) grew up in the isolated parsonage at Haworth, Yorkshire, where her father was curate. She and her sisters Emily and Anne thrived in fantasy worlds that drew on their voracious reading of Shakespeare, romantic, and gothic fiction. Charlotte was employed as a teacher and a governess before she began writing with her sisters. The Professor, her first novel, was rejected for publication until 1857, although Jane Eyre, published in 1847 under a pseudonym, achieved great success.
Wanda McCaddon (d. 2023) narrated well over six hundred titles for major audiobook publishers, sometimes with the pseudonym Nadia May or Donada Peters. She earned the prestigious Audio Award for best narration and numerous Earphones Awards. She was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine.
