The professor

This is the first modern edition of a Charlotte Bronte novel that is based on the author's original manuscript. The useful introduction explains the history of this novel's composition and publication. Its appendixes include an unused Bronte preface, a list of editorial variants, and several related manuscripts. Additionally, there is an index to the literary and biblical allusions in all four of Charlotte Bronte's major novels. This important Clarendon edition is essential for all serious collections in Victorian fiction serving graduate students and upper-division undergraduates. -S. A. Parker, Hiram College

This first novel went unpublished during Bront?'s lifetime, rejected by publishers each time it was submitted despite her growing fame for such works as Jane Eyre and Shirley. It was released only after her untimely passing, when there was a great hunger for anything from the pen of this now-famous author, but it was a poor addition to her work. A critic in 1857 wrote that it was "crude, unequal, and unnatural to a fault; it has all the unripe qualities of a bad first work." And indeed it is dreary and confusing, uninvolving and filled with minutiae, and suffers from many awkward and improbable devices, not the least of which is the choice of a male protagonist to tell a tale with many autobiographical aspects. The reading by James Wilby is expert and probably as exciting and dramatic as is possible, given the material. Comprehensive literary collections will want to add this early work of a major author, but more popular collections can safely pass it by.AHarriet Edwards, East Meadow P.L., NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Written in 1845-46 prior to her work on Jane Eyre but published posthumously in 1857, this novel draws from Charlotte Brontë's personal experiences growing up in Yorkshire and working abroad as a governess in Brussels In her introduction to The Professor, Brontë states, "I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had seen real living men work theirs--that he should never get a shilling he had not earned--that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment to wealth and high station--that whatever small competency he might gain should be won by the sweat of his brow. . . ." Written in a style both brief and realistic--and not in demand by publishers of her time--Brontë relates the experiences of a young man as he changes his life from dreary ancillary work in the local mills to the position of a professor in Belgium. Not only does she depict with honesty the vagaries of a young man abroad, running into women and fellow teachers with different values in love and work than his own, she also illustrates concerns of her own times such as factory conditions in need of improvement for the sake of workers. The seeds of liberal ideas sown contemporaneously with her novel's writing here, just a few years later, would foment revolutions across the European continent. CHARLOTTE BRONTË was born at Thornton, Yorkshire, on January 17, 1816. She was the third child of Reverend Patrick Brontë, an Irishman by birth, and Maria Branwell Brontë, who was from a prosperous Cornish family. Following her mother's death in 1821, Charlotte and four sisters and one brother were raised by an aunt, Elizabeth Branwell. Excerpted from The Professor by Charlotte Brontë All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.