The Professor was the first novel by Charlotte Bronte. It was originally written before Jane Eyre and rejected by many publishing houses, but was eventually published posthumously in 1857. In this book, Bronte inhabits the voice and consciousness of a man, William Crimsworth. Like Jane Eyre he is parentless; like Lucy Snowe in Villette he leaves the certainties of England to forge a life in Brussels. But as a man, William has freedom of action, and as a writer Bronte is correspondingly liberated, exploring the relationship between power and sexual desire.