This little book was written before either Jane Eyre or Shirley,and yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first attempt.A first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it had been previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years.I had not indeed published anything before I commenced The Professor, but in many a crude effort,destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had got over any such taste as I might once have had for ornamented and redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain and homely. At the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the subject of incident, etc., such as would be generally approved in theory, but the result of which, when carried out into practice, often procures for an author more surprise than pleasure.

Charlotte Bronte"s first novel, The Professor, is narrated from the viewpoint of an ambitious and self-made man.

Rejecting his aristocratic inheritance William Crimsworth goes to Brussels to find his fortune. He takes a job teaching at a boarding school for young ladies, where he begins a flirtation with Zoraide Reuter, who, out of jealousy, attempts to frustrate his courtship of Frances Henri, an attractive young woman determined to make her way in the world.

In The Professor Charlotte Bronte holds up to scrutiny the Victorian ideals of self-help and individualism. The result is anunusual love story, and a novel profoundly critical of a society inwhich the relationships between men and women are reduced to power struggles.

PREFACE

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

THE END