I have a Villette book bag.

I designed and ordered a unique Villette bag from a personalized wedding paraphernalia website. I love to tuck a copy of Charlotte Bronte’s Villette into the mysteriously-named bag. (Villette is Bronte’s fictional name for Brussels, the city where she studied, taught, and fell in love.) On my first trip to London, Villette was my comfort book. When I got lost in Green Park (at least I think it was Green Park), I read Bronte to calm myself. Like Lucy Snowe, I had to ask directions.

Villette is the best kind of spinster lit. You don’t have to be a spinster to love it. The heroine Lucy Snowe’s story still appeals after many readings. She is witty and funny, as well as intense. The destitute Lucy surprises herself when, after the death of her employer, she dares to spend her last money traveling to Belgium alone. There’s nothing left for her in England. And in Villette, by the barest chance, Lucy reinvents herself as a brilliant English teacher.

This marvelous book is partly a realistic examination of love and work, and partly a Gothic novel with supernatural manifestations. In a couple of scenes, Lucy sees what may be the ghost of a nun; and there is a long hallucinatory scene after her rival administers a drug to her so she won’t be able to meet M. Paul, her potential lover. And so it’s a very modern book published in 1853: “Tune in, turn on, and drop out,” said Timothy Leary in the ’60s. Bronte in detail describes Lucy’s drug experience. Lucy would, however, never drop out. Lucy hangs in there. She might have liked the ’60s.

It used to be difficult to find copies of Villette, so I was delighted when Penguin published a hardcover edition in 2016. It has the same introduction and notes as the paperback, but the paper is of a much higher quality. However, I may have read this poor book almost to death. Do the leaves in the middle and on the right side look as though they are fading away? I fear that this gorgeous book has suffered from outings in the Villette bag. I need to pay it more respect.

I now have a backup plan for traveling with Villette. I bought one of the cheapest copies I could find for reading at cafes, outdoors, or on the road: I recommend the Wordsworth edition ($4.95) or a Signet ($4.71). Although all my books are reading copies, paperbacks don’t have to be in pristine shape. I have no conscience about carrying this in my Villette bag. If it gets slightly scrunched, so be it.

Are you a Villette fan? And what edition do you have? And do you have multiple copies of any of your favorite books?