zaterdag 12 november 2011
The document is tiny. Its 19 pages are the size of your credit card. Its author was 14 years old. And it is expected to reach in the region of £300,000 when it goes under the hammer at Sotheby’s auction house on December 15.
For this is a lost story by none other than Charlotte Bronte, author of Jane Eyre, and a member of the famous family who lived in the parsonage in Haworth, West Yorkshire.
Our fascination with the Bronte sisters is seemingly inexhaustible. This autumn alone, there have been new films of Charlotte’s novel Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights. Director Andrea Arnold’s brooding, silent Wuthering Heights is the 27th film adaptation of this book.
The-Brontes
donderdag 10 november 2011
Haworth, Scroggling the holly weekend.
Its almost the start of Haworths calender of Christmas events. It starts as always with the Scroggling the Holly Weekend this coming Saturday and Sunday. Next week is the Christmas market and a good chance to see Haworth looking Christmassy without the scary ice and snow that have arrived the past couple of years in early December or even late November.
abigailsateliers/scroggling-the-holly-weekend-haworth/
abigailsateliers/scroggling-the-holly-weekend-haworth/
Auctions at Bonhams
Auctions at Bonhams
The Sotheby's auction of a Charlotte Brontë manuscript is not the only one going on in the following days:In Bonhams to be auctioned next November 22:
Books, Maps, Manuscripts and Historical Photographs, including the Property of the late Michael Silverman
New Bond Street, 22 Nov 2011 at 10:30
Lot No: 16
Autograph letter signed ("P. Brontë"), to the Haworth stationer John Greenwood, asking him to order Dr Cumming's Sermon before the Queen and the Churchman's Almanack for 1851, one page, lightly browned overall, a little wear, marginal nicks, but nevertheless still in attractive condition overall, oblong 8vo, Haworth, 5 December 1850
Estimate: £600 - 800, € 690 - 920
PATRICK BRONTË FACES THE THREAT OF PAPAL TYRANNY. This letter was written by the Rev Patrick Brontë, while living alone with his surviving child, Charlotte, at Haworth Parsonage, Branwell having died on 24 September 1848, Emily on 19 December 1848, and Anne on 28 May 1849: although by now he had perhaps some inkling of the fame that was to be accorded to all three of his daughters; for Charlotte had managed to wrest control of her sisters' novels from their original publisher Thomas Newby, and Smith Elder were due to publish Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey five days after the date of this letter, on 10 December 1850. Charlotte was to escape the confines of Haworth Parsonage a few days later, going to stay with her friend Harriet Martineau at the Knoll in Ambleside on 16 December – see the adjacent lot.
'Six young men wish to let themselves all a hire for the purpose of cleaning out pockets...'
Charlotte Brontë's soon-to-go-under-the-hammer unpublished manuscript is all over the news today. Sites echoing the news include The Washington Post, CBS News, The Huffington Post, etc. What they're mostly doing is republishing this Associated Press release:
Sotheby's says an unpublished work by the teenage Charlotte Brontë could sell for 300,000 pounds ($482,000) at an auction next month'Six young men wish to let themselves all a hire for the purpose of cleaning out pockets...'
The auction house says "The Young Men's Magazine, Number 2" is dated August 1830, when the writer was 14.
The mini-magazine, measuring 1.4 inches by 2.4 inches (35mm by 61mm), contains a tale of murder and madness set in the imaginary world of Glass Town.
Sotheby's book specialist Gabriel Heaton said it "provides a rare and intimate insight into one of history's great literary minds."
He said it includes a foretaste of a famous scene in Brontë's "Jane Eyre" — "when Bertha, Mr. Rochester's insane wife, seeks revenge by setting fire to the bed curtains in her husband's chamber."
The manuscript will be sold Dec. 15 in London. (Picture credits: Sotheby's)
A first edition of Jane Eyre at Christie's
A first edition of Jane Eyre at Christie's
And another auction with Brontë-related material. This time a first edition of Jane Eyre is going to be auctioned at Christie's. Just check your pocket money, who knows?
And another auction with Brontë-related material. This time a first edition of Jane Eyre is going to be auctioned at Christie's. Just check your pocket money, who knows?Sale 8002
Valuable Printed Books and Manuscripts
23 November 2011
London, King Street
[BRONTË, Charlotte (1816-1855)]. Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. Edited by Currer Bell. London: Smith, Elder, 1847.
£22,000 - £26,000 ($35,266 - $41,678)
Lot Description
3 volumes, 8° (198 x 118mm). Half-title in each vol. and advertisements dated June, 1847, at end of vol. I. (Some spotting, the majority marginal, but affecting text of first three chapters of vol. I, staining to quire R in vol. III, occasional finger-soiling and small light waterstains, half-title to vol. III tipped onto front endpaper.) Original brown fine-ribbed cloth by Westleys and Clark with their ticket in vol. I, covers with trellis-like borders, gilt-lettered spines, yellow endpapers (spines rubbed and repaired at head and foot, corners rubbed, some splits to inner hinges, front inner hinge of vol. I entirely split from text block, some repairs to endpapers), later cloth box. Provenance: E.M. George (faded inscription at head of first text leaf in each vol, giving his address at Pound Road, Aylsham) -- Paula Fentress Peyraud (1947-2008; sale Bloomsbury New York, 6 May 2009, lot 168).
FIRST EDITION of Charlotte Brontë's story of a young, plain-looking governess who falls in love with her employer, Rochester, unaware that he keeps a dangerous, mad wife hidden away on the uppermost floor of his country house. The assumed name of Bell, shared with her sisters, was the midddle name of her future husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, who had arrived in Haworth in May 1845 as her father's curate. Published at 31s. 6d. on 19 October, 1847, in an edition of 500 copies, her novel followed the unsuccessful publication of Poems by the three sisters in May 1846, and the rejection of her first novel The Professor. It was her greatest work, and the first Brontë novel to appear in print. In the second edition of January 1848, the name Currer Bell was given as that of the author and no longer just the editor of the book. Smith 2; Block p. 28; Sadleir I, 346; Wise p. 16; Wolff I, 826. (3) bronteblogfirst-edition-of-jane-eyre-in-christies.html
Elizabeth Gaskell
My fascination for Elizabeth Gaskell began with the BBC as they presented some of her memorable stories in film adaptations. Until I later watched Wives and Daughters, and saw the small documentary of her included in the DVD, that I really became aware of who Mrs. Gaskell was.
Read more: theregencyinkwell/a-guests-thoughts-on-writing/
Read more: theregencyinkwell/a-guests-thoughts-on-writing/
woensdag 9 november 2011
Mini-tijdschrift van Charlotte Brontë op veiling
Het – tot nu toe onbekende – juweeltje is gevuld met verhalen uit de imaginaire wereld ‘Glass Town’, ontsproten aan de rijke verbeelding van de Brontë kinderen die opgroeiden in de pastorie in Yorkshire.
De kinderen schreven vele tijdschriftjes vol met verhalen uit deze fantasierijken.
-‘We pretended we had each a large island inhabited by people 6 miles high.’ In their collaborative early writings the Brontes created and peopled the most extraordinary fantasy worlds, whose geography and history they elaborated in numerous stories, poems, and plays. Together they invented characters based on heroes and writers such as Wellington, Napoleon, Scott, and Byron, whose feuds, alliances, and love affairs weave an intricate web of social and political intrigue in imaginary colonial lands in Africa and the Pacific Ocean.
Twee boeken over de fantasiewereld van de Brontë kinderen.
• Glass Town: The Secret World of the Bront’ Children
Michael Bedard (Author), paintings by Rick Jacobson and Laura Fernandez
Publisher: Atheneum, 1997
isbn 9780689811852
dinsdag 8 november 2011
maandag 7 november 2011
Local weather patterns at Haworth
Rebecca Chesney:
I am a visual artist based in Preston, UK. The Bronte Weather Project is a year long research residency based at The Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth and will run from September 2011.
During the residency I will be studying the local weather patterns at Haworth and also reading texts by the Brontes to see how they were influenced and inspired by the weather.
http://www.bronteweather.blogspot.com/
From this weblog:
Letter to Ellen Nussey dated October 1836
"It is a Stormy evening and the wind is uttering a continual moaning sound that makes me feel very melancholy - At such times, in such moods as these Ellen it is my nature to seek repose in some calm, tranquil idea and I have now summoned up your image to give me rest There you sit, upright and still in your black dress and white scarf - your pale, marble-like face - looking so serene and kind - just like reality - I wish you would speak to me -."
Charlotte Bronte
I'm reading through letters by Charlotte Bronte and have found this weather reference in a letter held in the Huntington Library, San Marino in California. I've had a quick look to see if they have a copy on their web database, but it's not looking like it's online. I can feel an essential research trip coming on...*
Young Men's Magazine at Sotheby's
When Charlotte Brontë listed her plays in the manuscript Catalogue of my Books with the periods of their completion up to August 3, 1830 (now at the Morgan Library, fragment on the right) she included six numbers of The Young Men's Magazine. Now, it seems that Number two has resurfaced and it will be auctioned at Sotheby's next December 15, according to The Times :It is one of the most powerful images in English literature — a mad, wronged wife driven by thoughts of revenge sets fire to the home of her husband. Yet the inspiration for Charlotte Brontë’s depiction of a blaze in Mr Rochester’s bedroom in Jane Eyre came not in adulthood but when she was just 14, a newly discovered manuscript reveals. The document, heralded by scholars as one of the most important literary finds in years, has until now been hidden in a private collection. Brontë wrote the tale of murder and madness that prefigured Jane Eyre in August 1830, 17 years before the novel was published. It is part of a 19-page 4,000-word manuscript entitled The Young Men’s Magazine, Number 2. Still in its original red folder, it is written in minuscule script on pages measuring just over 6cm by 3.5cm. It is the missing second volume in a series of six she created that year. On Brontë’s death in 1855 her surviving manuscripts passed her widower, the Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls, who later sold them. The manuscript only emerged when its owners approached Sotheby’s, the auctioneer, which realised its significance. What it lacks in size, it makes up for in scholarly and monetary value. It is expected to make about £300,000 when it is sold on December 15.bronteblogyoung-mens-magazine-at-sothebys
Literary experts, meanwhile, are excited by what it reveals about the young Brontë. Gabriel Heaton, senior specialist in books and manuscripts at Sotheby’s, said: “This minute manuscript marks Charlotte Brontës first burst of creativity and, significantly, provides a rare and intimate insight into one of history’s great literary minds.”
In her classic novel, Jane Eyre falls in love with Mr Rochester, not knowing he is already married. His insane wife, imprisoned in an attic, sets fire to the bed curtains in his chamber in an early chapter and later burns down his home. Heaton noted that though the thought of a 14-year-old girl in a Yorkshire parsonage in 19th-century England knowing about murder and madness may seem astonishing, Brontë’s imagination seems to have thrived on being allowed free access to her father’s library. (Dalya Alberge)