Charlotte Bronte's 'The Professor' Quiz

Answer: Eton

William's father was a bankrupt manufacturer but his mother was the daughter of a lord. His father had died before he was born and his mother died shortly afterwards. It was his mother's brothers, Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe, who paid for his education.

Eton (or Eton College as it is more properly known) was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI, so had been around for 400 years before Charlotte Bronte wrote 'The Professor' in the 1840s. In England, a public school is actually a fee paying, private school. The term 'public' originates from the idea that any pupil could be enrolled regardless of factors such as religion, and because the schools were initially subject to public control. Some famous 'Old Etonians' include Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge; the author George Orwell; and the actor Damian Lewis.

Answer: Edward

Edward Crimsworth is a bully, who refuses to treat William as a brother and constantly searches for faults with his work and his character. Bronte suggests in the novel that this is because of his hatred for his mother's family coupled with jealousy of the good education that only William received from them. William only lasts three months working for his brother before resigning - one of their final interactions is his brother attempting to hit him over the head with a horse whip!

Edward gets his comeuppance when he loses all his money and is forced to sell his mansion, Crimsworth Hall. Unfortunately, he manages to regain his wealthy position through "railway speculations".

Answer: Brussels

Brussels is the capital city of Belgium, which was only officially recognised as an independent nation in 1839, shortly before 'The Professor' was written. Charlotte Bronte called upon her own knowledge of living and working in Brussels in order to write the novel. She and her sister Emily taught at a boarding school in Brussels in 1842 before having to return home on the death of their aunt. Charlotte returned to Brussels in 1843 before finally moving back to her home in Haworth, Yorkshire early in 1844.

Charlotte also worked her experiences in Brussels into her third published novel, 'Villette', which also deals with working in a foreign boarding school but has a female protagonist.

Answer: English

William is given the position of professor of English and Latin at the school, although he is at first worried about the title of 'professor' until told that it simply meant 'teacher'. In England, the term 'professor' would normally be used to describe a senior university academic.

The terms of the job also allow him to take up an additional role as the English teacher at a neighbouring boarding school for girls run by Mademoiselle Reuter.

Answer: Lace mending

Frances Henri is a nineteen year old Swiss orphan. She is using the income from lace mending to pay for lessons in a wider range of subjects, in order to qualify her to be a governess or a teacher of more mainstream subjects such as history and geography. She and William meet when she joins his class to improve her English.

When a jealous Mademoiselle Reuter discovers William and Frances's developing relationship, Frances is dismissed, and Mademoiselle Reuter refuses to tell William her address. He is forced to resort to walking around Brussels with the hope of bumping into her! He finally meets her again at her aunt's graveside and their relationship is able to continue.

Answer: Monsieur Pelet and Mademoiselle Reuter are getting married

During the course of the novel, Mademoiselle Reuter appears to fall in love with William. He had begun to return her feelings, but was put off when he realised she was engaged to Pelet. When Mademoiselle Reuter appears to break off her engagement, and gives away the fact that she prefers William, Pelet attacks William in a drunken rage. However, he had no memory of it the next morning and William doesn't resign from his job over the incident.

Eventually Mademoiselle Reuter decides that rich Monsieur Pelet is better husband material than William and they set a date to get married. Despite his love for Frances, William fears that he may be lured into having an affair with Mademoiselle Reuter if they were living in the same house, so quits his job and moves out.

Answer: William saved his son from drowning

William saved Jean Baptiste Vandenhuten, Victor Vandenhuten's only son, from drowning after he fell into a river while trying to climb into a rowing boat. William didn't think much of the incident, as he was a proficient swimmer from his time at Eton, but Victor Vandenhuten was extremely grateful and promised to help William if he should ever need anything in the future.

William asked for Vandenhuten's help to get a new job after resigning from Monsieur Pelet's school. He ended up with a much better paid job, which gave him sufficient means to ask Frances Henri to marry him. Victor Vandenhuten also ended up giving away the bride!

Answer: Victor

Although it was common in the 19th century for people to name their children after themselves or other members of their family, it was very unlikely that William would ever have named his son after the brother who hated him. In fact William and Frances's only son is named Victor, after their friend Victor Vandenhuten.

Young Victor is described as a serious child, who loves reading and animals. He had a dog called Yorke who was named after William's friend Yorke Hunsden, who gave him to Victor as a puppy.

Answer: Her mother was English

Frances's full name was Frances Evans Henri, because her mother was an Englishwoman. Although she loved her home country of Switzerland, she also had a great desire to see the country her mother came from. She loved England before she met William, and although she had a collection of English novels, bequeathed to her by her mother, a love of literature was not the driving force behind her wish to move to the country. Her aunt was Swiss and had no interest in England.

When William and Frances leave Brussels, they travel widely across the whole of Great Britain, before finally settling in William's home county - which Bronte never names in the novel.

Answer: By opening their own school

Bronte stated in a preface to 'The Professor' that her intention in writing it was to create a hero who worked for his own fortune: "that whatever small competency he might gain, should be won by the sweat of his brow". Therefore William and Frances do not get any inheritances or gifts to help them, but gain their fortune through William's income from his new job and the success of their own school.