BBC Audiobooks, 2005, unabridged, read by James Wilby
reviewed by Rachel Murphy
Having been a devoted fan of Jane and Rochester since my mid-teens, I decided to give Bronte’s The Professor a try, on audiobook—though perhaps I was motivated even more by its narrator, the film actor James Wilby (Behind the Lines, A Tale of Two Cities).
The story is of a young Englishman, William Crimsworth, who tries to free himself from a tyrannical employer (his brother) by finding a job abroad. Securing a place as teacher at a boys’ school in Belgium, William is later hired to tutor girls as well, at the neighboring ladies’ seminary. The story, told in first person, deals with his struggles as a teacher, both with his pupils and with the other faculty, whose seemingly duplicitous behavior is inexplicable to William, especially in contrast to the goodness and assiduity of one of his pupils, with whom William eventually falls in love.
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