When the orphaned William refuses his uncles" proposal to become a clergyman and rejects an offer from his brother Edward to work as his clerk, he decides to accept a position as an English teacher at a boys" school in Belgium. When his career leads him to take up another post at a girls" school nearby, William becomes emotionally involved with the manipulative headmistress of the establishment, Mademoiselle Reuter. The tangle of feelings produced by this relationship and his love for a younger pupil sets the young teacher on a downward spiral towards disaster. Based on Charlotte Brontë"s own autobiographical experience in Brussels as a teacher, and later reworked into the much-expanded Villette and only published posthumously, The Professor was Charlotte Brontë"s first attempt at full-length fiction and bears all the hallmarks of her future work, with touches of genius and an unparalleled sharpness of style.