Diane Rehm's Reader's Review: Villette by Charlotte Bronte

June 20, 2007

The Diane Rehm Show
WAMU 88.5 FM American University Radio
(an NPR station in Washington, D.C.)

The book for the next Reader's Review will be
Villette by Charlotte Bronte. Ms. Rehm's discussions are always spirited and thoughtful. You can listen on the radio at WNYE 91.5 FM in NYC, or stream online.

With her final novel, Villette, Charlotte Bronte reached the height of her artistic power. First published in 1853, Villette is Brontes most accomplished and deeply felt work, eclipsing even Jane Eyre in critical acclaim.

Her narrator, the autobiographical Lucy Snowe, flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. In spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent lifes journey — a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a womans consciousness in English literature.