It was during December 1827 that the world really took shape, when Charlotte suggested that everyone own and manage their own island, which they named after heroic leaders: Charlotte had Wellington, Branwell had Sneaky, Emily had Parry, and Anne had Ross. Each island's capital was called Glasstown, hence the name of the Glasstown Confederacy.[4]
Emily and Anne, as the youngest siblings, were often relegated to inferior positions within the game. Therefore, they staged a rebellion and established the imaginary world of Gondal for themselves. "The Gondal Chronicles," which would have given us the full story of Gondal, has unfortunately been lost, but the poems and the diary entries they wrote to each other provide something of an outline.[5]The earliest documented reference to Gondal is one of Emily's diary entries in 1834, 9 years after the Glasstown Confederacy, when the two younger sisters were aged 16 and 14 respectively; it read: "The Gondals are discovering the interior of Gaaldine."[4][5]
All of the prose chronicles are now lost. The only surviving remnants of the Gondal works are made up of poems, diary entries and some occasional memory aids such as lists of names and characteristics.[6]
The Gondal saga is set on two islands in the South Pacific. The northern island, Gondal, is a realm of moorlands and snow (based onYorkshire). The southern island, Gaaldine, features a more tropical climate. Gaaldine is subject to Gondal, which may be related to the time period of the early nineteenth-century in which Britain was expanding its Empire.[6]
The character stories created by the Bronte children are filled with melodrama and intrigue. The early part of Gondal's history follows the life of the warlike Julius Brenzaida, a figure reminiscent of the Duke of Zamorna from the siblings' earlier Tales of Angria and Prince of Gondal's primary kingdom of Angora. The two loves of his life are Rosina, who becomes his wife and queen, and Geraldine Sidonia, who gives birth to his daughter, Augusta Geraldin Almeda (A.G.A). Julius is evidently a two-faced king. After sharing a coronation with Gerald, King of Exina, he imprisons and executes him. Julius is eventually assassinated during a civil war and is succeeded by his daughter, A.G.A., who is similar to her father in temperament. She has several lovers, including Alexander of Elbë, Fernando De Samara, and Alfred Sidonia of Aspin Castle, all of whom die. She also is eventually murdered during a civil war.[6] wiki/Gondal
(1) A notable exception is the pioneer work of TJ Wise & JA Symington (eds), The Miscellaneous and Unpublished Writings of Charlotte and Patrick Branwell Brontë (Shakespeare Head Brontë), 2 vols: 1 (1936) and 2 (1938)
(2) Alexander, Christine (ed), An Edition of the Early Writings of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 1. The Glass Town Saga 1826-1832 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987); vol 2. The Rise of Angria 1833-1835: part 1, 1833-1834, part 2, 1834-1835 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), vol 3 (forthcoming).
Neufeldt, Victor (ed), The Works of Patrick Branwell Brontë: An Edition, vol 1 (New York: Garland, 1997), vols. 2 and 3 (1999).
Paperback editions: Barker, Juliet (ed), Charlotte Brontë: Juvenilia 1829-1835 (Penguin, 1996)
Glen, Heather (ed), Charlotte Brontë: Tales of Angria (Penguin, 2006)
It should be mentioned also Christine Alexander's coordination of the Brontë juvenilia volumes of Juvenilia Press, a pedagogic press which publishes juvenilia edited by graduate students.
(3) In the Editor's Preface to the New Edition of 'Wuthering Heights', 1850:
Whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff, I do not know: I scarcely think it is. But this I know: the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master - something that, at times, strangely wills and works for itself.
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