Topline
A tiny e-book of poetry written by English novelist Charlotte Brontë when she was solely 13 years previous has been donated to a museum within the childhood residence she shared along with her two sisters—who have been additionally authors—after the booklet bought for $1.25 million final week.
Principal curator Ann Dinsdale holds a uncommon “little e-book” written by Charlotte Brontë that was … [+]
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Key Info
The Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, England—a village about 20 miles west of Leeds—announced Monday that the booklet had been donated to the museum by the Buddies of the Nationwide Libraries, a British nonprofit that helps cultural establishments purchase uncommon books, manuscripts and different literature.
The FLA bought the booklet for $1.25 million on the New York Antiquarian E-book Truthful final week after elevating the seven-figure price ticket in lower than two weeks following the announcement of the poetry e-book’s sale.
“A Book of Rhymes” is the final of greater than two dozen miniature handwritten poetry books by the oldest Brontë sister to stay in a personal assortment and comprises ten beforehand unpublished poems in a 15-page booklet smaller than a taking part in card.
The booklet hadn’t been seen in public in additional than a century because it bought at a 1916 New York public sale for $520, about $13,000 today, till it went up on the market final week on the New York e-book honest (the vendor is nameless, however has been described as an American collector).
The Brontë Parsonage Museum has the biggest assortment of the Brontë sisters’ manuscripts on the planet, together with 9 of Charlotte’s miniature poetry books, with seven extra on the best way from the $20 million Blavatnik Honresfield Library sale final yr, for which the FNL additionally helped elevate funds.
Essential Quote
“It’s all the time emotional when an merchandise belonging to the Brontë household is returned residence, and this last little e-book coming again to the place it was written when it had been thought misplaced could be very particular for us,” mentioned Ann Dinsdale, the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s principal curator, in a statement.
Key Background
Brontë was a novelist and poet who grew up in Nineteenth-century England in a literary household. Her father, Patrick Brontë, was a priest and writer who ultimately settled along with his household in clergy housing in Haworth, the place the Brontë sisters wrote most of their work and that now homes the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The encircling space’s haunting moorlands influenced the sisters’ writing. Charlotte is greatest remembered for her second novel, Jane Eyre, which was revealed in 1847. Her two youthful sisters who survived childhood have been additionally revealed authors. The center daughter Emily’s e-book Wuthering Heights is a basic of English literature, whereas youngest daughter Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Corridor is taken into account by some students to be among the many first feminist novels ever revealed.
Tangent
Manuscripts and memorabilia associated to the Brontë sisters’ life and work are very talked-about at public sale. In 2019, the Brontë Parsonage Museum paid $777,000 for an additional of Charlotte’s miniature poetry booklets. In December, the FNL helped eight British cultural establishments collectively buy the $20 million Blavatnik Honresfield Library collection, which incorporates uncommon Brontë manuscripts and works from different notable British authors like Jane Austen, Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott.
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