Wife

Abstract

With the publication of Villette Charlotte’s life as a creative writer was virtually at an end. Her one remaining major fragment, Emma, tells of how a poor little rich girl arrives at a school, and it is then found that she is a poor little poor girl since her fees are not paid.¹ This opening scene is full of interest, but it is impossible to guess how the story is going to develop. Orphan children and schools feature prominently in the other novels, and the story is reminiscent of some of the juvenilia, notably Ashworth, but this fact hardly helps us to conjecture the possible outcome of Emma. It would be interesting to know whether it was the child or the teachers who were going to provide the main focus of the story, but we would not get very far in speculating about the possible outline of Villette if we had only its first chapter, and the future development of Emma must remain a mystery. Another fragment entitled Willie Ellin, also written in 1853, probably belongs to the same story.²