"Villette" is an 1853 novel written by English author Charlotte Brontë. After an unspecified family disaster, the protagonist Lucy Snowe travels from her native England to the fictional French-speaking city of Villette to teach at a girls' school, where she is drawn into adventure and romance. "Villette" was Charlotte Brontë's fourth novel; it was preceded by and is a reworking of the posthumously published "The Professor", her first novel, and then by "Jane Eyre" and "Shirley".