The Professor
by Charlotte Brontë
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This story of William Crimsworth, who goes to Brussels to seek his fortune and falls in love with Frances, a schoolteacher and lace-maker while he is himself pursued by Madamoiselle Reuter, is a subtle portrayal of a self-made man and his relationships in a society that worships property and propriety.Tags
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CurrerBell The Professor and Hard Times don't have all that much in common — and even less so do CB and CD have that much in common — but there's an interesting conversational exchange in The Professor, in the last chapter but one, that reminds me of the "reason vs. sensibility" theme in Hard Times.
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Member Reviews
This was a terrible book. The main character was infuriatingly supercilious and completely convinced of his own superiority. He doesn't even bother to teach well but frequently mentions that he doesn't challenge his students because he doesn't think they'll bother to learn, when it was his job to make them want to learn. I was very disappointed when Frances accepted his proposal since she was the only character that wasn't totally horrible, and she didn't deserve to be dominated by this awful man. I was truly surprised when Mr. Crimsworth allowed her to keep working and teaching. It seemed very out of character for him given his habit of demanding everyone do what he want or he would treat them with veiled contempt, and he told Frances show more repeatedly that he wanted to provide for her and didn't give it up until she insisted she work.
Miss Brontë also expects her reader to understand French. She expected this in Jane Eyre as well, but as only the exchanges with Adele, which never contained anything important, where I really was under the impression I was missing important information in this book.
These things led to me not particularly enjoying the book, but the final nail in the coffin was Mr. Crimsworth's absolute raging anti-Catholicism. It's hard to read the prospective of a prejudiced character at any time, but especially when he or she refuses to learn better or admit his discrimination. I also thought it was horribly hypocritical of Charlotte Brontë to claim that all Catholic girls and women are wicked seducers with no sense of morality considering her own infatuation with a married man who was her teacher. I don't usually listen to classic audiobooks at more than 1.5 as the recordings tend to be less clear and the language sometimes takes time to digest and understand, but I found myself so impatient to be done with this book that I listened to it at twice the speed starting from about half way through, and sometimes even ventured to 2.15 in my eagerness to be done with the torture. I probably should have just DNFed it, but I do hate leaving books incomplete.
I don't know how Charlotte went from writing this monstrosity to writing the wonderful Jane Eyre, but I'm very glad that I read this after Jane Eyre or I probably wouldn't have ventured to read another of Charlotte Brontë's books. show less
Miss Brontë also expects her reader to understand French. She expected this in Jane Eyre as well, but as only the exchanges with Adele, which never contained anything important, where I really was under the impression I was missing important information in this book.
These things led to me not particularly enjoying the book, but the final nail in the coffin was Mr. Crimsworth's absolute raging anti-Catholicism. It's hard to read the prospective of a prejudiced character at any time, but especially when he or she refuses to learn better or admit his discrimination. I also thought it was horribly hypocritical of Charlotte Brontë to claim that all Catholic girls and women are wicked seducers with no sense of morality considering her own infatuation with a married man who was her teacher. I don't usually listen to classic audiobooks at more than 1.5 as the recordings tend to be less clear and the language sometimes takes time to digest and understand, but I found myself so impatient to be done with this book that I listened to it at twice the speed starting from about half way through, and sometimes even ventured to 2.15 in my eagerness to be done with the torture. I probably should have just DNFed it, but I do hate leaving books incomplete.
I don't know how Charlotte went from writing this monstrosity to writing the wonderful Jane Eyre, but I'm very glad that I read this after Jane Eyre or I probably wouldn't have ventured to read another of Charlotte Brontë's books. show less
The first novel Charlotte Brontë wrote for publication, The Professor, was rejected from multiple publishers and she ultimately shelved it and busted out Jane Eyre, which became a runaway bestseller. While she returned to The Professor multiple times, she ultimately ended up reworking the setting and some of the plot into the freaking amazing Villette, which was the last novel she published during her lifetime. Lightly edited by her husband and father, The Professor came out posthumously and reads a bit like bizarro Villette mixed in with some Shirley, the Rochester/Jane vibe of Jane Eyre, and some Charlotte Brontë auto-fan-fiction where she imagines a world in which she and her real life "true friend" / romantic obsession of a show more married professor in Brussels live happily ever after. Told from the first-person perspective of "the Professor" and not the Charlotte / Jane / Lucy Snowe character, Frances Henri, the reader is thrown into a bit of a tailspin when this dude starts sounding very much like Charlotte's female protagonists. While obviously a first attempt and missing the headlong romance of Jane Eyre (although it keeps that novel's love for a very long sentence with lots of semi-colons) or the sophisticated plot development of Shirley or Villette, this is still very enjoyable and a must-read for Brontë fans. show less
It's a good thing Charlotte Bronte got to publish Jane Eyre first.
She meant this to be her first novel, but it was rejected by publishers and only printed posthumously. It's a valuable work, as it shows her developing skill, and it certainly has some intriguing storytelling, but it also has noticeable flaws.
In this story, William Crimsworth has to make his way in the world due to a lack of harmony between him and various family members who might otherwise have helped him. He starts out in trade, working for his brother, who makes it very clear that he has no family feeling and no compassion at all. When this situation becomes untenable, Crimsworth ends up in Belgium and finds a position as an English professor at a boys' school.
The show more school next door is for girls, and eventually Crimsworth is hired to teach some classes for them as well. Not having been around very many females in his life, he is initally a little overcome, but he masters himself and finds pride in being a stern, no-nonsense teacher.
He is initially captivated by the directress of the school, a Mademoiselle Reuters. Later he is drawn to a young, quiet sewing instructor named Frances Henri.
The characters are very interesting and the story well told for the first half (or perhaps more) of the book. I found Charlotte Bronte's storytelling quite compelling; there is a power in it, but it also seems unexpectedly revealing of her personality. Once one has read a few Charlotte Bronte novels (of course, there are only about four in total!) one gets an idea of what she must have been like.
For one thing, I would argue that her main characters never really begin with any immaturity or uncertainty that they must age out of. They are all very self-aware, complacent about their own abilities, fairly proud, and decided in their opinions. Did Charlotte Bronte view herself as having a similar mental or moral superiority to her contemporaries? I suspect she did.
I enjoyed this book right up until the denouement finished, whenCrimsworth gets married . After that, the rest of the novel is one really long summing-up. Bronte takes us through the next ten years of his life, doing a lot of telling and not a lot of showing, and the plot is gone. I don't mind a flashing forward in time that takes up a page or two at the end. But I really think that plot should still be happening up until that point.
Also,Frances Henri, who becomes Crimsworth's wife, could have been an interesting character--and she was, until they got engaged. She was a bit mysterious, with unplumbed depths of talent and imagination. After the engagement, though, she is described in terms rather too like a doll or a possession for a modern reader to be entirely comfortable with her. Bronte tries to give her still a certain independence, but it doesn't quite work for some reason. Perhaps it's because the story is being told from a man's point of view, and he comes off as rather patronizing. We know Charlotte Bronte can sustain interesting females--after all, Jane Eyre always retains a certain spirit and fight no matter what the state of her relationship with Rochester.
All things considered, I'm much more on board with Charlotte Bronte's novels that are told from a female perspective. One wonders what she herself thought of The Professor. show less
She meant this to be her first novel, but it was rejected by publishers and only printed posthumously. It's a valuable work, as it shows her developing skill, and it certainly has some intriguing storytelling, but it also has noticeable flaws.
In this story, William Crimsworth has to make his way in the world due to a lack of harmony between him and various family members who might otherwise have helped him. He starts out in trade, working for his brother, who makes it very clear that he has no family feeling and no compassion at all. When this situation becomes untenable, Crimsworth ends up in Belgium and finds a position as an English professor at a boys' school.
The show more school next door is for girls, and eventually Crimsworth is hired to teach some classes for them as well. Not having been around very many females in his life, he is initally a little overcome, but he masters himself and finds pride in being a stern, no-nonsense teacher.
He is initially captivated by the directress of the school, a Mademoiselle Reuters. Later he is drawn to a young, quiet sewing instructor named Frances Henri.
The characters are very interesting and the story well told for the first half (or perhaps more) of the book. I found Charlotte Bronte's storytelling quite compelling; there is a power in it, but it also seems unexpectedly revealing of her personality. Once one has read a few Charlotte Bronte novels (of course, there are only about four in total!) one gets an idea of what she must have been like.
For one thing, I would argue that her main characters never really begin with any immaturity or uncertainty that they must age out of. They are all very self-aware, complacent about their own abilities, fairly proud, and decided in their opinions. Did Charlotte Bronte view herself as having a similar mental or moral superiority to her contemporaries? I suspect she did.
I enjoyed this book right up until the denouement finished, when
Also,
All things considered, I'm much more on board with Charlotte Bronte's novels that are told from a female perspective. One wonders what she herself thought of The Professor. show less
A precursor to Villette
By sally tarbox on 21 October 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
Charlotte Bronte's first novel; the reader familiar with her other works will soon recognize familiar themes - schools, Belgium, an exacting professor, an eager female pupil and cruel relatives.
Here, however, the professor is the narrator; and while we recognise Monsieur Heger, Charlotte's adored teacher in Brussels, here the nationalities are transposed, and he is an Englishman, striving to make his way in the world. The pupil is an oppressed needlework teacher, French-speaking but likewise determined to better herself...
The writing skills are all there, but it all seems a little shapeless - I kept waiting for the blunt-spoken but apparently well-meaning Mr show more Hunsdon to have some vital role to play, or for the dissimulating headteachers Pelet and Reuter (or the nasty elder brother) to feature significantly but it all kind of floats off into a happy ending.
*3.5 - a fair but vastly weaker novel than the superlative 'Villette'. show less
By sally tarbox on 21 October 2017
Format: Kindle Edition
Charlotte Bronte's first novel; the reader familiar with her other works will soon recognize familiar themes - schools, Belgium, an exacting professor, an eager female pupil and cruel relatives.
Here, however, the professor is the narrator; and while we recognise Monsieur Heger, Charlotte's adored teacher in Brussels, here the nationalities are transposed, and he is an Englishman, striving to make his way in the world. The pupil is an oppressed needlework teacher, French-speaking but likewise determined to better herself...
The writing skills are all there, but it all seems a little shapeless - I kept waiting for the blunt-spoken but apparently well-meaning Mr show more Hunsdon to have some vital role to play, or for the dissimulating headteachers Pelet and Reuter (or the nasty elder brother) to feature significantly but it all kind of floats off into a happy ending.
*3.5 - a fair but vastly weaker novel than the superlative 'Villette'. show less
Having just read a major Bronte biography I decided to read or re-read the Bronte sisters' novels starting with this first one of Charlotte's. However, although I remember loving "Jane Eyre", first read as a child, I didn't care for her first attempt. The plot is rambling and uneven, and the characters are not convincing. The hero, William Crimsworth, has been given a good education by his deceased mother's brothers, but they disown him when he refuses to go into the church as they want him to, since he lacks a vocation. He tries to become an industrialist by starting as a clerk at his older brother's firm, but the brother is extremely rude to him and does not acknowledge their relationship. An odd man called Hunsden, another man of show more business in the town, does him a "favour" by getting him sacked, but he does give him a letter of introduction to a friend in Brussels, and it is through that contact that William obtains a job he seems suited for - teacher at a boys' school. The school is owned by a man called Pelet who after a while tells him that the female head of the school next door would also like to engage him for English lessons for the girl pupils. Much of the story therefore is about what happens at the school and his entanglement with the headmistress and an unprepossessing teacher of needlework.
Although the author seems to have intended this to be a non-melodramatic story which tells of an ordinary man who gets on by stint of his own efforts, it does still rely on certain other characters putting themselves out for William, such as his odd friend Hunsden and a rich man in Brussels. In the case of the latter, William tells us that he is able to apply to this man for a recommendation to get him his next teaching job because he saved the man's son from drowning - this is then described at that point rather than earlier in the history where it belongs and seems rather too convenient and indeed, melodramatic.
Given that Charlotte spent time in Brussels at a girls' school situated next door to a school for boys - the two being run by a married couple - the major part of the book draws on her own experience and perhaps on her own prejudices. She and her sister Emily began by being pupils at the girls' school, and Charlotte went on to become a teacher there. It is clear that they kept a distance between themselves and the other pupils (in a letter she refers to herself and Emily being alone among numbers - an almost identical phrase used by her protagonist), and that she later felt isolated among the other teachers (in another letter she describes the utter misery of being left alone at the school during a holiday when the other teachers had all decamped to their family homes). Part of the reason was their different religion: nearly everyone else at the school was Roman Catholic rather than Protestant. While isolated at the school, Charlotte became desperate enough to go to the cathedral and confess (about her inappropriate attraction to the headmaster), and her later prejudice against Roman Catholics seems to date from that incident. The novel shows remarkable prejudice against the Flemish and some other European races, who are described very unflatteringly, and one of the major strikes against them is their Roman Catholicism, so it seems unavoidable that a lot of the narrator's prejudices are actually the author's own.
The characters most clearly developed in the book are the unpleasant ones, principally the headmaster and headmistress of the Belgian schools. Although not yet married when William starts work there, it is possible that the author has drawn on her own jaundiced views of their real-life equivalents. The headmistress in particular is very two-faced, and Charlotte certainly viewed her actual employer as being like that. The other major female character is William's love interest Frances, but she is rather a cipher and is chiefly characterised by her subservient devotion to her 'maitre' which it seems can be translated either as teacher or master.
The unevenness of the plot is shown by the fact that, after the main school part, a year and then ten years whizz past with just a summary. I also wasn't convinced that, even if Frances had run a successful school, they would have enough money for retirement to a nice house in the English countryside. The ending is also odd with its hint that Hunsden might somehow be contaminating their son with his cynical views.
One other problem is the annoying proportion of untranslated French for a reader not fluent in French, especially in a key scenewhere the narrator proposes to Frances - in fact, I looked up a copy on Project Gutenberg and copy/pasted some of the dialogue into a French to English translation engine just to find out what was being said.
All in all, this was rather a disappointment. I believe Charlotte reworked her Brussels experiences into 'Villette' so am hoping that will be rather better than this. As I couldn't enjoy it, I can only award it one star. show less
Although the author seems to have intended this to be a non-melodramatic story which tells of an ordinary man who gets on by stint of his own efforts, it does still rely on certain other characters putting themselves out for William, such as his odd friend Hunsden and a rich man in Brussels. In the case of the latter, William tells us that he is able to apply to this man for a recommendation to get him his next teaching job because he saved the man's son from drowning - this is then described at that point rather than earlier in the history where it belongs and seems rather too convenient and indeed, melodramatic.
Given that Charlotte spent time in Brussels at a girls' school situated next door to a school for boys - the two being run by a married couple - the major part of the book draws on her own experience and perhaps on her own prejudices. She and her sister Emily began by being pupils at the girls' school, and Charlotte went on to become a teacher there. It is clear that they kept a distance between themselves and the other pupils (in a letter she refers to herself and Emily being alone among numbers - an almost identical phrase used by her protagonist), and that she later felt isolated among the other teachers (in another letter she describes the utter misery of being left alone at the school during a holiday when the other teachers had all decamped to their family homes). Part of the reason was their different religion: nearly everyone else at the school was Roman Catholic rather than Protestant. While isolated at the school, Charlotte became desperate enough to go to the cathedral and confess (about her inappropriate attraction to the headmaster), and her later prejudice against Roman Catholics seems to date from that incident. The novel shows remarkable prejudice against the Flemish and some other European races, who are described very unflatteringly, and one of the major strikes against them is their Roman Catholicism, so it seems unavoidable that a lot of the narrator's prejudices are actually the author's own.
The characters most clearly developed in the book are the unpleasant ones, principally the headmaster and headmistress of the Belgian schools. Although not yet married when William starts work there, it is possible that the author has drawn on her own jaundiced views of their real-life equivalents. The headmistress in particular is very two-faced, and Charlotte certainly viewed her actual employer as being like that. The other major female character is William's love interest Frances, but she is rather a cipher and is chiefly characterised by her subservient devotion to her 'maitre' which it seems can be translated either as teacher or master.
The unevenness of the plot is shown by the fact that, after the main school part, a year and then ten years whizz past with just a summary. I also wasn't convinced that, even if
One other problem is the annoying proportion of untranslated French for a reader not fluent in French, especially in a key scene
All in all, this was rather a disappointment. I believe Charlotte reworked her Brussels experiences into 'Villette' so am hoping that will be rather better than this. As I couldn't enjoy it, I can only award it one star. show less
Despite the fact that this is, by modern standards anyway, a very uneven novel and that the protagonist is a bit of a prig, there remains much to enjoy over its twenty-five chapters. The story of William Crimsworth’s struggles to find his métier and eventual happiness echoes parts of Charlotte Brontë’s own experiences but also points up her own unfulfilled hopes for combining a loving marriage with a successful career as an independent woman. The fact that aspects of this novel — unpublished in her own lifetime — were recycled in Villette (published in 1853) suggests that she knew that those experiences were worth recording, even in fictional form.
A bald outline of the plot reads almost like a fairytale. Orphan William, whose show more mother married beneath her class, is allowed an Eton education by his titled uncles but he rejects their plans for him as a Church of England cleric in favour of ‘trade’, a calling which they despise. As a lowly Northern clerk in the employ of his older mill-owning brother he is treated shabbily, recalling the underdogs in the novels of Dickens, Brontë’s contemporary; but thanks to a letter of introduction from a colourful local character, Hunsden Yorke Hunsden, he is offered a place in a boys school in Brussels as a professeur d’anglais.
He takes to this so well he is also offered a similar post in the neighbouring girls school. Here he comes across a shy and sensitive mature student called Frances Henri in whom he recognises both studiousness and a spark of real spirit, and respect inevitably turns from fondness to something more. As in all good fairytales, however, the path to true love is never smooth, and nearly half of the novel concerns the tortuous terrain he has to navigate.
In this first-person narration William’s self regard and prejudices often stand as obstacles to the modern reader’s enjoyment, as also do the slow pace and lengthy descriptions. Typically — as for many 19th-century novelists — physiognomy looms large as a notional predictor of national character, but very occasionally Brontë comes up with striking images and concepts. Here is William describing student Juanna’s face: “Narrow as was her brow it presented space enough for the legible graving of two words, Mutiny and Hate.” He finds himself impervious to any of the surface charms of his young female charges: “to the tutor [they] are like tapestry hangings of which the wrong side is continually turned towards him; […] he so well knows what knots, long stitches, and jagged ends are behind […] the seemly forms and bright colours exposed to general view.”
Mlle Reuter, the jealous and scheming directrice of the girls school, betrays her true feelings about her students in a chilling summary: “Ambition, literary ambition, especially, is not a feeling to be cherished in the mind of a woman,” she tells William, declaring that Frances Henri would be “much safer and happier if taught to believe that in the quiet discharge of social duties consists her real vocation, than if stimulated to aspire after applause and publicity.” This, I imagine, must be the kind of admonishment that Charlotte, when herself at a pensionat in Brussels in 1842, must have heard and hated with a passion — after all this was the kind of attitude she and her sisters Emily and Anne tried, as aspiring authors themselves, to fight against.
In The Professor Charlotte manages to have her cake and eat it when Frances [spoiler alert!] not only manages the fairytale goal of marrying the narrator-hero but also insists that she maintains a teaching career: “people who are only in each other’s company for amusement,” she notices, “never really like each other so well, or esteem each other so highly, as those who work together, and perhaps suffer together.” Unlike the fairytale happy-ever-after ending where we are never treated to what happens after wedding bells are sounded, this novel spends a considerable time describing William and Frances’ married life, working career in Brussels, joy at the birth of a son, wise financial investment and subsequent retirement to an idyllic rural North of England setting.
To say I liked this novel would be to overstate the case, but I did admire it, particularly for challenging contemporary conventions and perceptions about womanhood. As a male I wasn’t always convinced by the character of the main protagonist — he seemed much too po-faced and moralising to ring true when we know most human beings are flawed — but I did enjoy the dialogues conducted in French and the recreation of teaching as it often used to be before the bureaucrats took over. Charlotte’s own experience of being both a governess in England and an English teacher in Brussels did mean that her insights into student psychology were well grounded:
"Human beings — human children especially — seldom deny themselves the pleasure of exercising a power which they are conscious of possessing, even though that power consist only in a capacity to make others wretched.”
Bullying — like poverty — is unfortunately always going to be with us.
I’m glad that the publishers have made this rarely read classic available in a cheap edition, but even with the several typos that occasionally litter the pages the central message comes through loud and clear: as Frances in the middle of a spirited discussion with Yorke Hudsden declares, “better to be without logic than without feeling.” Feeling it is that serves as a leitmotif throughout this novel.
http://wp.me/p2oNj1-1Di show less
A bald outline of the plot reads almost like a fairytale. Orphan William, whose show more mother married beneath her class, is allowed an Eton education by his titled uncles but he rejects their plans for him as a Church of England cleric in favour of ‘trade’, a calling which they despise. As a lowly Northern clerk in the employ of his older mill-owning brother he is treated shabbily, recalling the underdogs in the novels of Dickens, Brontë’s contemporary; but thanks to a letter of introduction from a colourful local character, Hunsden Yorke Hunsden, he is offered a place in a boys school in Brussels as a professeur d’anglais.
He takes to this so well he is also offered a similar post in the neighbouring girls school. Here he comes across a shy and sensitive mature student called Frances Henri in whom he recognises both studiousness and a spark of real spirit, and respect inevitably turns from fondness to something more. As in all good fairytales, however, the path to true love is never smooth, and nearly half of the novel concerns the tortuous terrain he has to navigate.
In this first-person narration William’s self regard and prejudices often stand as obstacles to the modern reader’s enjoyment, as also do the slow pace and lengthy descriptions. Typically — as for many 19th-century novelists — physiognomy looms large as a notional predictor of national character, but very occasionally Brontë comes up with striking images and concepts. Here is William describing student Juanna’s face: “Narrow as was her brow it presented space enough for the legible graving of two words, Mutiny and Hate.” He finds himself impervious to any of the surface charms of his young female charges: “to the tutor [they] are like tapestry hangings of which the wrong side is continually turned towards him; […] he so well knows what knots, long stitches, and jagged ends are behind […] the seemly forms and bright colours exposed to general view.”
Mlle Reuter, the jealous and scheming directrice of the girls school, betrays her true feelings about her students in a chilling summary: “Ambition, literary ambition, especially, is not a feeling to be cherished in the mind of a woman,” she tells William, declaring that Frances Henri would be “much safer and happier if taught to believe that in the quiet discharge of social duties consists her real vocation, than if stimulated to aspire after applause and publicity.” This, I imagine, must be the kind of admonishment that Charlotte, when herself at a pensionat in Brussels in 1842, must have heard and hated with a passion — after all this was the kind of attitude she and her sisters Emily and Anne tried, as aspiring authors themselves, to fight against.
In The Professor Charlotte manages to have her cake and eat it when Frances [spoiler alert!] not only manages the fairytale goal of marrying the narrator-hero but also insists that she maintains a teaching career: “people who are only in each other’s company for amusement,” she notices, “never really like each other so well, or esteem each other so highly, as those who work together, and perhaps suffer together.” Unlike the fairytale happy-ever-after ending where we are never treated to what happens after wedding bells are sounded, this novel spends a considerable time describing William and Frances’ married life, working career in Brussels, joy at the birth of a son, wise financial investment and subsequent retirement to an idyllic rural North of England setting.
To say I liked this novel would be to overstate the case, but I did admire it, particularly for challenging contemporary conventions and perceptions about womanhood. As a male I wasn’t always convinced by the character of the main protagonist — he seemed much too po-faced and moralising to ring true when we know most human beings are flawed — but I did enjoy the dialogues conducted in French and the recreation of teaching as it often used to be before the bureaucrats took over. Charlotte’s own experience of being both a governess in England and an English teacher in Brussels did mean that her insights into student psychology were well grounded:
"Human beings — human children especially — seldom deny themselves the pleasure of exercising a power which they are conscious of possessing, even though that power consist only in a capacity to make others wretched.”
Bullying — like poverty — is unfortunately always going to be with us.
I’m glad that the publishers have made this rarely read classic available in a cheap edition, but even with the several typos that occasionally litter the pages the central message comes through loud and clear: as Frances in the middle of a spirited discussion with Yorke Hudsden declares, “better to be without logic than without feeling.” Feeling it is that serves as a leitmotif throughout this novel.
http://wp.me/p2oNj1-1Di show less
It’s clear this is Charlotte’s first effort at writing a novel. Yet I’m glad I read it, because you can see the seeds of her talent in the way she crafts sentences. I do think the story of a teacher in Brussels is stronger when she reworks it from the female point of view in Villette.
The main character is a bit insufferable and annoying. The romance fell flat for me as I never understood what Frances saw in him. Regardless, it’s Brontë, so it’s worth reading.
“In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers are very well; but how many wet days are there in life—November seasons of disaster, when a man’s hearth and home would be cold indeed, without the clear, cheering gleam of intellect.”
The main character is a bit insufferable and annoying. The romance fell flat for me as I never understood what Frances saw in him. Regardless, it’s Brontë, so it’s worth reading.
“In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers are very well; but how many wet days are there in life—November seasons of disaster, when a man’s hearth and home would be cold indeed, without the clear, cheering gleam of intellect.”
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Author Information
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Charlotte Bronte, the third of six children, was born April 21, 1816, to the Reverend Patrick Bronte and Maria Branwell Bronte in Yorkshire, England. Along with her sisters, Emily and Anne, she produced some of the most impressive writings of the 19th century. The Brontes lived in a time when women used pseudonyms to conceal their female identity, show more hence Bronte's pseudonym, Currer Bell. Charlotte Bronte was only five when her mother died of cancer. In 1824, she and three of her sisters attended the Clergy Daughter's School in Cowan Bridge. The inspiration for the Lowood School in the classic Jane Eyre was formed by Bronte's experiences at the Clergy Daughter's School. Her two older sisters died of consumption because of the malnutrition and harsh treatment they suffered at the school. Charlotte and Emily Bronte returned home after the tragedy. The Bronte sisters fueled each other's creativity throughout their lives. As young children, they wrote long stories together about a complex imaginary kingdom they created from a set of wooden soldiers. In 1846, Charlotte Bronte, with her sisters Emily and Anne published a thin volume titled Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. In the same year, Charlotte Bronte attempted to publish her novel, The Professor, but was rejected. One year later, she published Jane Eyre, which was instantly well received. Charlotte Bronte's life was touched by tragedy many times. Despite several proposals of marriage, she did not accept an offer until 1854 when she married the Reverend A. B. Nicholls. One year later, at the age of 39, she died of pneumonia while she was pregnant. Her previously rejected novel, The Professor, was published posthumously in 1857. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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The Complete Novels: Agnes Grey / Jane Eyre / The Professor / Shirley / The Tenant of Wildfell Hall / Villette / Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Brontë
The Brontë Collection: Includes Jane Eyre, The Professor, Shirley, Villette, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Cottage Poems and More by Charlotte Brontë
6 Volume Set Jane Eyre, Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey, Professor, Poems, Miscellanea, Shirley, Villete by Charlotte Brontë
Brontë Sisters: The Professor / Angrian Tales and Poems / The Tenant of Wildfell Hall / Agnes Grey / Wuthering Heights / Jane Eyre / Villette / Shirley by Anne Brontë
Agnes Grey / The Tenant of Wildfell Hall / Jane Eyre / The Professor / Villette / Wuthering Heights / Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell by Anne Brontë
Novels of the Sisters Bronte. Thornton Edition. In Twelve Volumes (Complete). Includes The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Anne Brontë
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Professor
- Original title
- The Professor
- Original publication date
- 1857 (posthumously) (posthumously); 1857
- People/Characters
- William Crimsworth; Edward Crimsworth; Frances Evans Henri; Zoraide Reuter; Hunsden; Monsieur Pelet (show all 9); Eulalia; Caroline; Hortense
- Important places
- Brussels, Belgium; Yorkshire, England, UK
- First words
- The other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the following copy of a letter sent by me a year since to an old school acquaintance: - 'DEAR CHARLES, - I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neith... (show all)er of us what could be called popular characters; you were a sarcastic, observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own portrait I will not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly attractive one - can you?
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)'Papa, come!'
- Original language
- English
- Disambiguation notice
- Some of these include Emma as well; those should be separated from editions that include only The Professor.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 3,161
- Popularity
- 5,489
- Reviews
- 50
- Rating
- (3.31)
- Languages
- 17 — Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Portuguese (Portugal)
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 247
- UPCs
- 2
- ASINs
- 65