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This story of William Crimsworth, who goes to Brussels to seek his fortune, falls in love with Frances, a schoolteacher and lace-maker, and is himself pursued by Mile Reuter, has often been dismissed as merely an abortive draft of Villette. Yet Charlotte Bronte always stubbornly defended the novel, and in a brilliant critical introduction Heather Glen argues for a new reading of The Professor as a subtle portrayal of a self-made man and his relationships - power relations - in an individualistic society that worships propriety. In this peculiarly ambiguous and disturbing love story Charlotte Bronte thus reveals herself as a social critic of insight and power.
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