Charlotte Brontë’s Villette was published in 1853.
Villette appeared on 27 January 1853 from Smith, Elder & Co., with Charlotte publishing under the established name Currer Bell. It was her third novel published during her lifetime, following Jane Eyre and Shirley. The novel’s first edition was issued in three volumes.
Its narrator, Lucy Snowe, travels to the fictional French-speaking city of Villette and takes work at a girls’ school. The setting draws heavily on Charlotte’s experiences in Brussels, where she and Emily Brontë studied and taught at the pensionnat run by Constantin Héger and his wife.
Villette is often praised for its psychological depth and its complex portrayal of loneliness, desire, independence, and religious doubt. Readers sometimes confuse its date with Charlotte’s other works: Jane Eyre was published in 1847, Shirley in 1849, and The Professor was published posthumously in 1857. Villette was Charlotte’s final novel published while she was alive.