Friends and lovers! Earlier this year, I got to write the introduction for Harper Perennial’s newest edition of Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, which means that no matter what else I accomplish in my nubile, fresh-scented life, I will at least have her legacy to glom onto as we sail on into eternity. It will be available after 9/1/15 and you can preorder it here. Would you like a SNEAK PEEK at said introduction, to entice you to buy it, if you are currently drowsing upon the fence?
During my first time reading Villette, I was taken in by Lucy Snowe’s semblance of calm entirely; when she finally admitted to having loved, and loved passionately, I was absolutely floored. The second time I read Villette, I was absolutely astonished that she had managed to convince me for even a second that she wasn’t in love. There is something thrilling, something that induces gratitude in me, about the privilege of spending so much time with Lucy Snowe’s singular mind, of hearing her thoughts, of slowly gaining hard-fought access to the innermost rooms of her soul. The third time I read Villette, I realized I kept a place for her in my heart too, a place of near-infinite capacity. I have suffered at her hands, but I am glad to have been held by them.
Oh, ALSO. While we are on the subject of MY LITERARY ACCOMPLISHMENTS, the Portuguese-language edition of Texts From Jane Eyre is going to be released in Brazil at the end of October! There’s nowhere to pre-order it just yet, but if you’re in Brazil, just fling yourself into the nearest bookshop and demand it. Oh, and they’re not calling it Texts From Jane Eyre, it’s from Sherlock & Watson, because we’d like to keep you all on your toes.
See that Ortberg is on every label.
Tags: books, little wodehouse quote in there, me me me me me, villette
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Shirley Jackson and Me
You’re immortal now. No one can stop you.
This is TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.
Also I really can’t thinking of another novel that rewards rereading quite as much as Villette does. I’m very excited to read this introduction!
I look forward to having this book delivered to my door in a plain van
Oh my God, I did not realize there were texts between Sherlock and Watson in you book! Because it is all the same content, right? I must admit that book is now immensely more appealing to me (I know, I’m a terrible Toastie for not yet owning a copy), perhaps because it now sounds like a lovely fanfic. Can you imagine how irritated Watson would get over Holmes’ texts?
Also, congrats on the introduction! Publishers consulting you for thoughts on classic novels, that is how it should be.
She can imagine! And she did!
Good gracious, congratulations and god bless us every one. I’m having a hell of a time keeping up with work-related reading but I so want to read this, too. Will it be available as a transdermal patch? I’ll probably still get the book, but just in case.
OMG, I have a long list of things I want via transdermal patch. Can I learn search engine optimization? All of Wordsworth?
(You might want to have another look at the second line of your text)
OH MY GOD
OMG, this is probably a super-silly comment, but the Portuguese translations of the titles are all awesome. I am not in Brazil but now I sort of inexplicably wish I were, just in order to try to read “Orgulho e Preconceito.”
Mallory, can you say if there are going to be other translations soon, for other markets? French, maybe? /crosses fingers/
Mallory, that’s beautiful. That line you pull out, about the small space in her heart, which, like Peribanou’s tent, could possibly expand to an infinite capacity was precisely what my lonely 14 year old self needed to hear (when *I* first read it) to describe what an impossible admiration felt like, to capture how I carried people in my heart too.
I haven’t re-read Villette in a long time, but this happy event is precisely the motivation needed. 🙂
PREORDERED! Cannot wait…come at me September 🙂
Oooooh….here’s an idea! If you could write an introduction to any book at all, what would it be?
First one that popped into my head was The Handmaid’s Tale – I have no idea why that was the first book to enter my mind.