In Defence of Villette:

Mild spoilers ahead

Today, the 21st of April, is Charlotte Brontë’s 202th birthday. If you’re new to my blog, then you probably won’t be aware that Charlotte is my favourite person in the universe. I wanted to celebrate her birthday but didn’t have anything to post.

Well, that was until I found myself scrolling through a bunch of Goodreads reviews on her novel, Villette. I came away feeling a little sad. Although readers are entitled to their own opinions, I can’t help but feel they’re dismissing the important aspects of the novel. The little things that make Villette so good. The three recurring issues readers had were the narrative, the love interests, and the ending. I must admit, all these are pretty reasonable. They’re things that bothered me to begin with (I even covered them in my review last summer), but, upon reflection, I realised how crucial these were to the story. I hope to ameliorate these issue by discussing them today.

Here goes:

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The Brontë Novels:

Reviews: The Professor | Jane Eyre | Shirley | Villette | Wuthering Heights | The Tenant of Wildfell Hall | Agnes Grey.

Today, I thought I’d rank the Brontë novels in order from my least favourite to my ultimate favourite. To me, I love every novel the sisters produced but some more than others. None of their books are bad, but you can definitely see an improvement in their writing with each new book.

I tried my hardest to order them for you, and they’re all spoiler free, so don’t worry if you haven’t read them yet! Here they are:

The Brontës | Where It All Began:

Related posts here

For the next week or so, I’m going to be celebrating the bicentenary of Emily Brontë’s birth. She was born on the 30th July, 1818, as the fifth child to Patrick and Maria Brontë. She had an interesting and eventful life, despite never really leaving her Yorkshire home. After catching a cough from her brother’s funeral, Emily developed tuberculosis and died at the age of 30 on the 19th December, 1848.

If you haven’t visited my blog before, you probably won’t be aware of how much I love the Brontë family. Despite Charlotte being my firm favourite, all the members of this family hold a special place in my heart. I wanted to start off the celebration by telling you about my journey with the Brontë sisters.

I have been connected to Haworth, Yorkshire, for a long time now. My dad has an ardent interest in steam trains, so every few years he’d take us along to Haworth. He’d drop us off on Main Street whilst he went along to a train convention. I can remember the independent shops decorating the steep, cobblestone pavement leading up to the church. I can distinctly remember the apothecary shop, you know the one where Branwell regularly bought his opium from, as it’s my mum’s favourite shop. I can remember the rugged and untamed moors that surround this little village. Those moors that are either blooming in heather, or drowning in a tainted orange colour. It is, quite honestly, my favourite place to be.