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Monday, November 28, 2005

Monday, November 28, 2005 12:35 am by M. in    4 comments
A new and very complete edition of Charlotte Brontë's Villette is published these days. As usual the publishing date varies somehow betweeen the different sources (from November 1 in amazon.ca to December in the publisher's web).

The edition is supervised by Dr. Kate Lawson and published by Broadview Press (Dr. Lawson gave a talk last October 24 with the title "Being a 'Redundant' Woman: Charlotte Bronte's Last Novel, Villette" in the Kitchener Public Library, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada presenting this new edition).

Charlotte Brontë’s contemporary George Eliot wrote of Villette, “There is something almost preternatural in its power.” The deceptive stillness and security of a girls’ school provide the setting for this 1853 novel, Brontë’s last. Modelled on Brontë’s own experiences as a student and teacher in Brussels, Villette is the sombre but engrossing story of Lucy Snowe, an unmarried Englishwoman making her way in a culture deeply foreign to her. The heroine’s relationships with the fiery professor M. Paul, the cool Englishman Dr. John, and the school’s powerful headmistress, Madame Beck, are described in her compelling and enigmatic first-person narration.
The many contextual documents in this Broadview edition include contemporary writings on surveillance and espionage, anti-Catholicism, and working women, as well as letters describing Brontë’s own time in Brussels.

Take a look at the table of contents.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Charlotte Brontë: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Villette
Appendix A: Brontë and Brussels
Letter from Charlotte Brontë to Emily Brontë, 2 September 1843
Letter from Charlotte Brontë to Constantin Heger, 8 January 1845 (translation)
Letter from Charlotte Brontë to Constantin Heger, 18 November 1845 (translation)
Appendix B: Storms in the Bible
Mark 4: 35-41
Acts 27: 1, 9-16, 18-44
Appendix C: Women and Love
From Sarah Stickney Ellis, The Daughters of England (1842)
From Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, Olive (1850)
From Harriet Martineau, review of Villette. Daily News (3 February 1853)
From William Makepeace Thackeray, letter to Lucy Baxter (11 March 1853)
Appendix D: Women and Work
From Sarah Stickney Ellis, The Women of England (1839)
From Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
Letter from Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey, 24 June 1851
From Harriet Taylor Mill, “The Enfranchisement of Women.” Westminster Review, July 1851
Letter from Charlotte Brontë to Elizabeth Gaskell, 20 September 1851
From Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, A Woman’s Thoughts About Women (1858)
Appendix E: Surveillance and Espionage
The Post Office Espionage Case, 1844-45

a. “Opening Letters at the Post Office.” House of Lords, 17 June 1844
b. “Alleged Post-Office Espionage,” The Times, 25 June 1844
c. The Times, 7 August 1844
d. The Times, 5 June 1845
From “Reflections Suggested by the Career of the Late Premier.” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, January 1847
From Charlotte Brontë, The Professor (1857)
From Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Aurora Floyd (1863)
Appendix F: Anti-Catholicism in England
From Patrick Brontë, “The Maid of Killarney; or Albion and Flora: A Modern Tale; In Which Are Interwoven some Cursory Remarks on Religion and Politics” (1818)
From Maria Monk, Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, as Exhibited in a Narrative of her Sufferings during a residence of five years as a novice, two as a black nun in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery at Montreal (1836)
From Thomas De Quincey, “Maynooth.” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, May 1845
From Charles Neaves, “Priests, Women and Families.” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, May 1845
“Papal Aggression”

a. From Nicholas Wiseman, Archbishop of Westminster. A Pastoral Letter, “From Outside the Flaminian Gate,” 7 October 1850
b. The Times, 14 October 1850
Select Bibliography


Wow, this looks really interesting !

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4 comments:

  1. Speaking of Villette, I thought I might ask this question here.
    Have there been any recent movies/TV productions of Villette? If so, where could I get a hold of them (eg. websites/stores?)

    Does anyone know a movie or production of Villette is in the making right now?

    Two years ago I had similar questions regarding Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (there were no movies or tv productions of that classic available back then)and even my Professor was beginning to give up hope about seeing a version soon enough. Then suddenly the BBC came up with a production only few months after my course on North and South ended.

    So yeah...I am really dying to see a movie or mini-series on Villette :-D

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  2. In this web (a review of a BBC radio version of the novel)some information can be found : "There have been two television versions, one in 1957 (with Jill Bennett as Lucy) and another in the early Seventies (with Judy Parfitt); there was also a stage adaptation at the Sheffield Crucible a couple of years ago. " Obviously we can add the Scarborough production that we have posted lately.

    The 1970 one is covered in the imdb
    but the other one seems elusive.

    Obviously there's no video or DVD editions as far as I know. Sorry :(

    M.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We talked about that in class today. How in the world could anyone transfer Villette from page to screen? Unless the entire film would consist of a camera walking around as Lucy Snowe's perspective, I think any attemmpt to construct an adaptation. Lucy's narrative style is crucial and as soon as the camera revealed Lucy's appearance, the entire mystique of the novel is blown. Lucy works tirelessly to keep her physical appearance from her reader; showing her face clearly and extracting the first person would make Bronte turn like a rotisserie chicken.
    How would you do it?

    mattgdonald@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oops. I made Grammar mistake in the second sentence. I meant to write: any attempt to construct an adaptation would be impossible.

    ReplyDelete