Villette (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charlotte Bronte [3]
1848 Amid growing rumors that there is only one “Bell” writer, Charlotte and Anne travel to London to prove otherwise. Charlotte’s publisher, George Smith, learns the truth of the Brontës’ identities but is sworn to protect their secret. In September, Branwell Brontë dies after a sustained bout of depression, alcoholism, and drug use; in December , Emily dies of tuberculosis.
1849 In May, Anne dies of tuberculosis. Charlotte’s novel Shirley is published by Smith, Elder. In November, Charlotte travels again to London, this time as a well-known author. She meets one of her literary idols, William Makepeace Thackeray.
1850 Charlotte returns to London. In August, she travels to Windermere, where she meets the writer Elizabeth Gaskell, with whom she becomes close friends. In December , Charlotte writes the prefaces and biographical notes for her sisters’ novels; she reveals the true identities of the “Bells” and works to protect the posthumous reputations of Emily and Anne, who have received some criticism for their “coarse” and “nihilistic” writings. Depressed by the loss of her siblings, Charlotte writes little fiction this year but reads Jane Austen for the first time; she disparages Austen’s novels as shrewd and observant, but without sentiment.
1853 Charlotte’s novel Villette is published in January. In April, she spends a week in Manchester with Elizabeth Gaskell; in September, Gaskell visits her at Haworth.
1854 In June, Charlotte marries Arthur Bell Nicholls, whom she has known since 1845, when he began work as a curate at Haworth.
1855 Charlotte is happily married for a few months, but early in the year she becomes ill; she dies on March 31.
1857 Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë is published, as is Charlotte’s first novel, The Professor, though the latter’s release is partly obscured by the enormous interest readers show in Gaskell’s work.
1928 In August, Haworth Parsonage opens to the public as the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
Introduction
I think if a good fairy were to grant me the choice of a gift,
I would say—grant me the power to walk invisible; though
certainly I would add—accompany it by the grace never to
abuse the privilege.
—Charlotte Brontë
When Charlotte Brontë began writing Villette, her last novel, she was no longer hiding under the anonymous pen name of Currer Bell, the celebrated author of Jane Eyre. Anne Thackeray Ritchie, the daughter of novelist William Thackeray, recalled the first time she met the mysterious writer at a small soiree hosted by her father. “After a moment’s delay the door opens wide, and the two gentlemen come in leading a tiny, delicate, serious, little lady, pale with fair straight hair and steady eyes.... She enters in mittens, in silence, in seriousness, our hearts are beating with wild excitement. This then is the authoress, the unknown power whose books have sent all London talking, reading, and speculating” (quoted in Smith, ed., The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 2, p. 60; see “For Further Reading”). Much to Anne’s dismay, the evening would be largely disappointing. Although Charlotte Brontë looked the part of the demure heroines she so brilliantly imagined, she lacked their fiery spark. She refused to chat with the ladies, became embarrassed and awkward, and spent most of the evening cowering in a comer. Anne reported that her father was so bored that he slipped away before the night was over and went to his club. The quiet authoress may have been a literary genius, but she was not much of a public celebrity.
Lucy Snowe, the heroine of Villette, is equally wary of public presentations and displays. Cautious, determined,