Villette

Sleep went quite away. I used to rise in the night, look round for her; beseech her earnestly to return. A rattle of the window, a cry of the blast only replied- Sleep never came!

Besed on the author's own experiences as a governess in Brussels, Bronte's last novel tells the story of lonely Lucy Snowne, who finds employment at a girls' boarding school in the town of Villette. Finding the students challenging and experiencing the pain of unrequited love for the first time, Lucy becoes increasingly isolated in a world governed by societal expectation and struggles to maintain her integrity in the faceof her envious and watchful employer, Madame Beck.