Currer Bell [Charlotte Bronte] – The Professor – First UK Edition 1857

A first edition, first printing, first issue of ‘The Professor’ published by Smith Elder in 1857. Two volumes bound in the original publisher’s cloth – no inscriptions. Good copies with fading to the original purple cloth and browning to the spine – wear and tear – some cracking to the gutters. Now in custom-made slip case.

‘The Professor’ was the first novel written by Charlotte Brontë, who published under the pseudonym Currer Bell. She wrote it in the late 1840s, but it was repeatedly rejected by publishers during her lifetime. Although Brontë later achieved success with Jane Eyre (1847), The Professor remained unpublished until after her death.

It was finally published posthumously in 1857 by her widower, Arthur Bell Nicholls, with a biographical notice by her friend and fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. The novel offers insight into Brontë’s early literary development and draws from her own experiences in Brussels, dealing with themes of ambition, identity, and gender roles. 

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