The Professor (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Charlotte Brontė (Author), Heather Glen (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Penguin Classics | Publication Date: June 6, 1989

The hero of Charlotte Bronte's first novel escapes a dreary clerkship in industrial Yorkshire by taking a job as a teacher in Belgium. There, however, his entanglement with the sensuous but manipulative Zoraide Reuter, complicates his affections for a penniless girl who is both teacher and pupil in Reuter's school.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

The Professor was the first novel that Charlotte Brontë completed. Rejected by the publisher who took on the work of her sisters in 1846--Anne's Agnes Grey and Emily's Wuthering Heights--it remained unpublished until 1857, two years after Charlotte Brontë's death. Like Villette (1853), The Professor is based on her experiences as a language student in Brussels in 1842. Told from the point of view of William Crimsworth, the only male narrator that she used, the work formulated a new aesthetic that questioned many of the presuppositions of Victorian society. Brontë's hero escapes from a humiliating clerkship in a Yorkshire mill to find work as a teacher in Belgium, where he falls in love with an impoverished student-teacher, who is perhaps the author's most realistic feminist heroine. The Professor endures today as both a harbinger of Brontë's later novels and a compelling read in its own right.
    "The middle and latter portion of The Professor is as good as I can write," proclaimed Brontë. "It contains more pith, more substance, more reality, in my judgment, than much of Jane Eyre."


The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun-dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hard-bound editions of important works of liter-ature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inau-gurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

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"We read Charlotte Bronte not for exquisite observation of character, not for comedy, not for a philosophic view of life, but for her poetry. Probably that is so with all writers who have, as she has, an overpowering personality, so that . . . they only have to open the door to make themselves felt. There is in them some untamed ferocity perpetually at war with the accepted order of things."

--Virginia Woolf

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (June 6, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140433112
• ISBN-13: 978-0140433111
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,301,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I Wouldn't Recommend It to Everyone, But I Liked It, August 18, 2004

By 

John (United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Professor (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

I read this in a class with a lot of people who love Victorian novels, and almost everyone hated it. By general consensus it was dry and featured an unlikeable main character. For this reason, I wouldn't recommend it to many people. Nevertheless, I generally enjoyed it. It wasn't as good as Jane Eyre or Villette, but I am glad I read it.

It is a love story, and as such, I thought it succeeded. What most people saw as dry, I saw as sparse, unsentimental narration. I thought it made the love story a little more original and fresh for me. Though if this sort of storytelling isn't for you, I definitely wouldn't read it.

The other problem that most people have with this is the character of William Crimsworth. At times, he is a chauvenist and a racist. These are difficult aspects to overcome for many.

I think there are two ways to see the novel. First, it can be seen as a decent love story between a flawed man and a woman who may offer him redemption. I don't think this is a totally unenjoyable way to read it. You could also see it as a satire on the chauvenistic, supposedly self-reliant Crimsworth. It's probably a little more successful if you see it this way. If you don't like it one way, look at it from the other. Don't read this novel before Jane Eyre or Villette, but this can be a pretty good read.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Professor's Lessons in Life, July 10, 2005

By 

R. Chaffey "beckahi" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Professor (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Collection) (Paperback)

"The Professor", by Charlotte Bronte, was the author's first novel but it was not published until after her death (and perhaps she refashioned it to some degree later in her novel "Villette"). It is the tale of William Crimsworth, a man without parents and forsaken by his brother, who is forced to make his own way in the world. He decides to try his hand at teaching and travels to Brussels to teach English at an all-boys' school.

Once at the school in Brussels, he immediately begins a successful, if not profitable, teaching career. Soon enough he finds himself teaching four classes per week at the neighboring school for girls, and also finds himself falling for the headmistress Mlle. Reuter. Inexperienced with women, he is susceptible to and deceived by her whiles and charms until love enters his life in the form of a fellow teacher-pupil Frances Henri. As is to be expected, despite the abuse Crimsworth suffered from his brother, and having nothing of his own, he manages to work his way into wealth and is able to marry the woman he has fallen in love with.

At the beginning of "The Professor", Crimsworth confesses that is narrative his not exciting and he holds true to his word, especially since he can be a rather irksome narrator. While not a novel to shake the foundations of literature, "The Professor" offers insights into who Charlotte Bronte would become as a writer. Her characters, a few who are one-dimensional, are mainly well-sketched and drawn out; and despite her claim to the lack of excitement in her narrator's story, his tale unfolds briskly and with few unexpected revelations. Having been a governess herself, (the novel is based on her own experiences), Bronte combines asides about the state of education and the relationship that exists between teacher and pupil. Some of these insights hold true for today as well, making "The Professor" an undated and well-written account of man's struggle for success and happiness.

**Two things I disliked about the Wordsworth Classics edition. This version was rampant with typos throughout the entire novel; the same mistakes were repeated numerous times. I was also maddened by the fact that entire conversations in French were not translated, and therefore not understood, especially during the climax of the story.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The genius is there, but the personality isn't, July 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Professor (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

For a young writer's first attempt this novel is quite well-written and the plot is fairly well-conceived. However, the narrator is badly done (the Bronte girls should never try to write from a man's perspective!) and the narrative is both dull and sentimental. The characters have none of the strength and personality which makes Jane Eyre such a timeless favorite. I prefer Charlotte's later work, which has acquired depth and realism. In The Professor, her emotional maturity had clearly not caught up to her precocious intellect.