SOURCE: “Charlotte Brontë: ‘If You Knew My Thoughts. …’” In The Brontës: Branwell, Anne, Emily, Charlotte, Continuum, 1991, pp. 133-82.

In the following excerpt, Knapp examines the hatred between brothers Edward and William Crimsworth in The Professor and discusses the impact this has upon William's anima and his relationships with women.

Written with the grace and charm of many a Victorian novel, The Professor also possesses a psychologically fascinating quality of its own. Unlike Wuthering Heights, neither the happenings nor the characters emanate from the author's archetypal depths; they are not, therefore, mythical in stature. More like Agnes Grey, The Professor is a structured and rationally conceived work, an attempt on the author's part to perfect and restrain the formerly effulgent style of her juvenilia.

The writing of The Professor may have served as a means to clarify Charlotte's thoughts concerning the art of the novelist. Every move and...