Bronte and Austen treasures saved by national libraries charity.

Rare handwritten poems by Emily Brontë, works by Robert Burns and Jane Austen first editions are included in the collection.

Friends of National Libraries (FNL) have raised over £15m to acquire the Honresfield Library, which houses the works, and say they intend to keep it in the public domain.

The library has been largely inaccessible for the last 80 years.

It was curated towards the end of the 19th century by Rochdale mill owner William Law. He gathered manuscripts and printed books written by literary giants from England and Scotland.

Auction house Sotheby's announced the sale of the library, in three tranches, in May 2021.

Emily Bronte's poems had been expected to fetch between £800,000 and £1.2m, and a first edition of her novel Wuthering Heights between £200,000 and £300,000.

However, FNL successfully petitioned the agents to postpone the sale.

The delay allowed the charity to raise sufficient funds to purchase the entire collection outright on behalf of libraries in the UK

Following the purchase, FNL said the collection will remain permanently in the public domain and never be lost to overseas institutions or to private collections that are inaccessible to the British public

 Read all: bbc.com/news

Prince Charles' library SOS: Royal warns of race against time to save our treasured literary collection for the nation.

26 October 2021  M

Manuscripts from some of Britain’s greatest poets and authors could be lost to the nation without urgent action, Prince Charles warns today. Writing in the Daily Mail, the heir to the throne said it was ‘too awful to contemplate’ the loss of handwritten texts by some of the country’s best-known writers – including Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns and Charlotte Bronte.

And he warned that the UK is facing a race against time to save a collection of literary treasures from being auctioned off and potentially taken abroad.

His heartfelt appeal came amid growing pressure to save the Honresfield Library Collection, which includes notebooks from the Bronte sisters, letters from Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott’s original manuscript for his novel Rob Roy.

Read all: dailymail/Prince-Charles-warns-race-against-time-save-treasured-literary-collection-nation

T.S. Elliot estate and Stephen Fry in the fight to keep the Honresfeld collection together.

According to the Daily Mail, the T.S. Elliot estate has stepped in (not the first time it comes to Brontës help) in the fight to keep the Honresfeld collection together: One tweet from Stephen Fry boosted the appeal last month to save a secret £15million treasure trove of literary masterpieces, which are at risk of being split up and sold after staying hidden for a century. Following Fry’s intervention, I can reveal that T.S. Eliot’s trustees, 56 years after his death, have donated £50,000 to help save the manuscripts of Charlotte Brontë, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns for the nation. (Richard Eden and Juliet Conway)

Stephen Fry himself published this a few days ago in the Air Mail:

But what most catches the eyes is the extraordinary trove of Brontëana. There are seven exquisitely produced miniature books written, illustrated, and bound by the teenage Charlotte, chronicling adventures in her imagined world of Glass Town. We have always known that, after Emily’s death, Charlotte found a notebook of her younger sister’s poetry, but it has been assumed that the verses themselves were irretrievably lost. Yet now here that notebook is, filled with 31 Emily Brontë poems in her own hand for academics and enthusiasts to pore and purr over. (...)

Yet hold awhile. Jane Austen continues to grow as (please don’t hit me) a global brand. The Brontës inspire more and more generations around the world. Scott has always been venerated on the Continent, and especially in this year of the 250th anniversary of his birth his reputation is resurgent in his homeland, the Scotland whose identity he more or less invented. To the Scots, Rabbie Burns is more than a national bard; he is a personal friend. (...)

Sotheby’s has agreed to hold off the sale until November, allowing a new-forged and unprecedented consortium of British libraries (Oxford’s Bodleian; the British Library; the Brotherton, in Leeds; the National Library of Scotland; inter alia) time to raise the needful, a gulp-inducing $21 million. Their plan is to keep the collection whole in name and substance, but collaborating and sharing elements with their most natural homes. To Abbotsford, the vast mansion Sir Walter built that now serves as the Scott museum; to Jane Austen’s House, in Hampshire; to the Haworth Brontë Parsonage Museum; to the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, in Alloway. Public access remains the key. The palpable physicality of the handwritten is especially to be prized in our Digital Age. You can almost hear the scratch of pens racing across the paper in these astonishing diaries, letters, and notebooks. (..)

Reader, as Charlotte B. liked to apostrophize, perhaps you can help?

FNL forms consortium to save literary treasure trove for the nation FNL is leading a bid to save Honresfield Library a treasure trove of literary manuscripts.

Read all: fnl.org.uk/50-fnl-forms-consortium-to-save-literary-treasure-trove-for-the-nation

Friends of the National Libraries has announced that it is leading a bid to save one of the most important private collections of manuscripts and printed books associated with some of the greatest writers in the United Kingdom.  FNL is today launching an appeal and is in discussion with private philanthropists and sources of public funds to raise the purchase price of £15million. FNL, and the participating libraries and museums listed below, are profoundly grateful to the vendors and their representatives Sotheby’s for deciding to postpone the auction of the first part of the library, originally announced for July, in order to preserve the entire library as a collection to be allocated to libraries around the UK for the benefit of the public.

Friends of the National Libraries is the only UK charity that focuses on saving our written and printed heritage, by giving acquisition grants to regional, national and specialist archives and libraries throughout the UK.  Its national role makes it ideally placed to spearhead the campaign to purchase the Honresfield Library.  Today it launches an appeal for funds to enable the Honresfield Library to be preserved and shared across the United Kingdom.

Taking a UK-wide approach to acquiring the Honresfield Library, FNL, along with a consortium of libraries and museums, will work to raise the substantial funds needed to acquire the Honresfield Library and will then pass ownership of every individual item to the appropriate national, regional and specialist institution across the UK that will benefit the widest possible public.

 A major and co-ordinated effort is needed to save this astonishingly important collection.  The consortium of institutions that has come together to realise this vision includes:

Abbotsford: The Home of Walter Scott, Melrose, Scotland;
The Bodleian Libraries, Oxford;
The British Library, London and Yorkshire;
The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh;
The Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Yorkshire;
Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, Hampshire;
The Brotherton Library, University of Leeds;
The National Trust for Scotland: The Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway.
Taking an innovative approach, FNL will ensure that the Honresfield collection will be cared for and made available in institutions across the UK, enabling the widest possible audience to see, study and enjoy this pre-eminent material.

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Bronte diaries and letters at heart of private family collection.

Rebecca Yorke, Interim Director of the Brontë Society, said: “The thought that rare and precious Brontë manuscripts were going to be sold off individually at auction was devastating, so this is wonderful news.

"We’re proud to be working on the fundraising campaign to bring these unique items home to Yorkshire. The sums involved are significant, but we will do all we can to save the ‘little books’, letters, first editions, Emily’s notebook and other items, so they can be enjoyed by Haworth residents and visitors for years to come.”

Charles Sebag-Montefiore, Trustee and Treasurer of FNL, said:  “FNL is thrilled to be able to take the lead in saving the Honresfield Library. FNL is working with a consortium of institutional funders and individual philanthropists to raise the substantial funds need to secure this extraordinary collection for the benefit of everyone in the UK. This is a crucial national endeavour to raise enough funds to keep this unique treasure trove in Britain. This is cultural levelling up, as the items will be spread across the UK from Yorkshire to Edinburgh, Oxford and London.” thetelegraphandargus

It happened at Sotheby's.

My friend, Geri Meftah, of The Brontë Sisters  blog, told  me  about The Honresfield Library collection  and its Brontë items to be auctioned off via Sotheby's. One of her emails contained this information:

".... literary lovers will be able to see items from the private collection at exhibitions in London, Edinburgh and New York"

New York? That's well within a day trip for me, so my husband and I decided to see if we could view the collection. I was particularly interested in seeing the manuscript of Emily's poems, which would be in the  Sotheby's NYC display.

Display area

For many years it has been said such Emily papers were destroyed. Well here were  some and quite possibly they were among the very papers that electrified Charlotte in the autumn of 1845 when she read Emily's poems and resolved they would all seek publication.

These pages are arguably the most important Brontë manuscript there is, based on the rarity of Emily's effects, the importance of her poetry and for being the spur that ultimately brought us the Brontë sisters books.  

At first I wondered since we were not gong to be bidding, we would not be let in to see the collection. But that's wasn't the case at all. Sotheby's was very welcoming. All one had to do was make an appointment via email. This we did. 

Sotheby's  NYC, should be known as a free, cool thing to do in Manhattan. You get to wonder about and  look at all the items featured  in up coming autions. We saw three floors of priceless jewels, paintings and much else. There's also a great Italian cafe on site!

The Brontë items on display in New York , besides Emily's poems, were Martha Brown's copy of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (signed by Patrick Brontë) , two letters of Branwell's, plus the family's 1816 Berwick Book of Birds, featured in the beginning of Jane Eyre.

Branwell letters

It was all great to see. There's nothing like Brontë items. We enjoyed looking at it all for some time. We then went off to see everything else on display in this historic auction house.

When we were about to leave, I said to my husband " let's say goodbye to the Brontë items." and we returned to the Honresfield display. I noticed a young man looking it over. "Oh I thought how nice,  another fan". We had the area all to ourselves earlier, it was good to see another enthusiast. 

There was a tag in Emily's poems, placed like a bookmark. My husband wanted to know its significance.
A young woman came by who was obviously connection to Sotheby's and he asked her about it. Turned out it was something to do with the packing. Anyway instead of leaving, we fell into conversation about the items with her and the young man. 

We all were excited about the items and chatted about them.

Then as she was speaking, the young woman reached into her pocket,took out a key and opened the Brontë case.

Bronte display case

My shock was such, it was as if we had entered another dimension.
In fact I said aloud.

 " She's opening the case!"

She then handed the young man the Berwick Book to look over .

I said"  She's taking stuff out! "

I now realized I was in the presence of a for real bidder and a curator. I later read the young man's  business card. He was  a representative of a large, antiquarian  book company with shops around the world.

After he looked the book over,  the curator very kindly showed my husband and I the Jane Eyre related pages and prints .

 I was pinching myself already.

Berwick book

The Berwick book was put back in its place and she then took out Emily's poems to hand to him for inspection. When he was about to hand them back, I saw my chance and I took it.  I would regret it forever if I didn't.

" May I hold that too? " I asked and she said" Certainly "

Holding EJB poems

I do believe these poems were among the ones CB found in 1845.  The poems were neatly written in ink in Emily 's hand (like block printing as they did in the little books, but larger) with editing marks done later by Charlotte in pencil. These pages were not put to the flames when Emily and Anne's papers were burned. That speaks of a special attachment on Charlotte 's part. I did think of Emily's writing her poems and Charlotte holding these pages. Everything started after that discovey, and here, somehow, I held those pages too...even if for a half minute. You can't even hope for something like that. It's a kind of miracle.

Close up of poems photo

And now for the good news! The sale has been postponed so Friends of the National Libraries, the National Library of Scotland, the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford and Jane Austen's House in Hampshire, among other groups, can raise the funds needed to keep the collection together and in public venues! The group thanked Sotheby's for giving them time to try to "preserve the entire library as a collection to be allocated to libraries around the UK for the benefit of the public".

Anne Lloyd.

The British Library Has Joined Forces With Other U.K. Institutions to Save a Historic Manuscript Collection From the Auction Block.

Read all: news.artnet/uk-institutions-save-historic-literary-library-sothebys

Next month, a once-in-a-generation collection of literary manuscripts, including pieces by Jane Austen, Walter Scott, and the Brontë sisters, was set to hit the auction block.

A consortium of British libraries and museums have come together in an attempt to save the prized group of manuscripts from being split up and disappearing into private hands—and Sotheby’s has agreed to postpone the sales while the effort is underway. 

In a statement this week, the consortium vowed to raise the £15 million ($21 million) needed to purchase the collection and redistribute it to libraries around the U.K. “for the benefit of the public.”

“Once in a generation, a collection of books and manuscripts appears from almost nowhere that is met with a mixture of awe and stunned silence, followed by concerted action to bring it into public ownership,” said John Scally, an FNL trustee and the head of the National Library of Scotland, in a statement. “The U.K.-wide consortium is determined to raise the funds to ensure we can save the Honresfield Library for everyone to share and enjoy.”

The consortium has put out a plea for help from institutional funders and individual philanthropists, while the FNL has launched a crowdfunding campaign. 

“We are pleased to play our part in this potential outcome for this great library,” said Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby’s specialist in English literature and historical manuscripts, in a statement. “The unprecedented initiative is testament to the continued power of literature to inspire the public so many years after these writers first put pen to paper.”

The Sotheby’s Auction Of Bronte Treasures.

One of two letters from Branwell Bronte to Hartley Coleridge, image courtesy of Sotheby’s

Read all the article on  The Sotheby's Auction Of Bronte Treasures | Anne Brontë (annebronte.org)

The Bronte Society has rightly called for the collection to be saved for the nation and has written to MPs. Unfortunately, the vast value of the Honresfield collection is too much for them to hope to raise without governmental help, and this government has shown no inclination to support literary heritage and the arts, before or during the pandemic. Nevertheless, hope springs eternal, and you can read their response, and find out how to support it, here. If you are in the UK you can also download a template letter to send to your own Member of Parliament.

The Bronte family Bewick, courtesy of Sotheby’s

What is for sure is that a fabulous collection will be sold by Sotheby’s next month and that this has brought them to light once again – even if only fleetingly. I’m off to look down the back of my sofa for some spare pennies, if any of you have a million or two to spare, please get in touch. I will see you again next Sunday for another new Bronte blog post but I leave you with this thought: how astonished would the Bronte sisters have been if they could have known that their work would be so valued, and create such excitement, two centuries after their births?

In today’s post we’re going to look at perhaps the most eagerly anticipated literary auction of the century: the auction of the Honresfield Library at Sotheby’s on 13th July, with online bids accepted from 2pm on the 2nd.

Special thanks go to Dr. Gabriel Heaton and Melica Khansari of Sotheby’s who have supplied me with lots of details and images of the items to be auctioned so that I can share them with you.  This, in fact, is the first of three Honresfield auctions which are taking place ion 2021 and 2022, so what is the Honresfield Library and why is it of such interest to Bronte lovers?

The Sotheby's Auction Of Bronte Treasures | Anne Brontë (annebronte.org)

“This material should be kept together. The three sisters were writing much of it around the same table,”

With a wide range of unique Brontë and Jane Austen material on the auction block, campaigners are calling for a blanket export bar on items from the library leaving the UK, with institutions including the Bodleian Library exploring how to safeguard the collection.

“This material should be kept together. The three sisters were writing much of it around the same table,” Dinsdale said. She said that for institutions strapped for cash after the Coronavirus epidemic “July doesn’t give us much time at all”.

The UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport would not comment ahead of the sale.(...)

In a measure of the library’s worth, Sotheby’s recently offered one of the jewels in the collection, seven miniature books handwritten by Charlotte Brontë between the ages of 13 and 22, covering 174 pages, to the Brontë Parsonage Museum in a private sale for £4.5 million, which would keep it out of the auctions.

In November 2019 the Parsonage ran a major fundraising campaign to buy a single miniature work, called the The Young Men’s Magazine, at a Paris auction for €600,000. Dinsdale said the Parsonage was not ruling out an attempt to buy the books, but “all our energy is focussed on trying to keep the collection as a whole together. We have always tried not to be involved in inflating the prices of Brontë material.“ (Tim Cornwell) thetimes/fight-to-keep-early-burns-book-out-of-private-hands

The Honresfeld Collection is now on display at Sotheby's New York.

The Honresfeld Collection is now on display at Sotheby's New York and so The New York Times puts the spotlight on some of its Brontë items (#SaveTheHonresfeldLibrary) in a slideshow. Sotheby’s said recently that it would offer a “lost library” that includes a cache of Brontë material. “It’s just absolutely gobsmacking,” one Brontë biographer told me. Highlights are on view in New York through June 9. 

A RARE HANDWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT OF EMILY’S POEMS.

A RARE HANDWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT OF EMILY’S POEMS, MENTIONED IN THE PREFACE TO WUTHERING HEIGHTS, WITH PENCIL CORRECTIONS BY CHARLOTTE (EST. £800,000-£1,200,000)

SOTHEBY'S

#SaveTheHonresfeldLibrary.

The Brontë Society: 

The news is exciting that the fabled Honresfeld Library has emerged from myth and obscurity to reveal its extraordinary treasures. But without immediate government intervention in the public interest, a national collection hidden for 100 years will soon be scattered piecemeal across the world—perhaps never to be seen.The first tranche is set to go under the hammer in July 2021. This is a library filled with unique and precious British treasures—manuscripts in the hands of Burns, Scott, Austen, the Brontës.  With national libraries and literary house museums, the public custodians of such materials, struggling to survive after a year of forced closure and lost revenue, this is not the moment to bring national treasures onto the international market.  Saved for the nation, this unrivalled collection will be a source of vital cultural revenue and creative renewal.  Retained as a coherent collection, it will repay scholarly investigation and provide enjoyment for all lovers of literature for the next 100 years.

In collaboration with other literary museums including Jane Austen's House, we have written to our local MPs to urge immediate action on this. If you would like to do the same, we have created a template letter for you to download and send. You can find this by clicking the button marked 'Downloads'.

If you are outside the UK and would like to help with this campaign, please keep sharing articles and posts on social media (#SaveTheHonresfeldLibrary) and watch this space for more ways to get involved. bronte/save-the-Honresfeld-Library

Sotheby’s (first auction open for bidding from 2 – 13 July 2021)

Treasures include an extremely rare handwritten copy of Emily’s poems, with revisions from Charlotte (est. £800,000-1,200,000) and the well-loved Brontë family copy of Bewick’s History of British Birds, the book made famous in the opening pages of Jane Eyre (est. £30,000-50,000), brimming with entertaining annotations from their father Patrick. Little-seen letters to and from the likes of fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, Hartley Coleridge (son of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge), George Smith, publisher and vital champion of ‘The Bells’ (The Brontës’ secretive pseudonym), and many more, abound.

Scottish literature is also at the heart of the collection, which includes the most important manuscript by Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, in private hands. A compendium of poems, notes and ideas put together by Burns as an unknown twenty-four year old, First Commonplace Book offers a unique insight into the bard’s mind. It was last sold at Sotheby’s in 1879, for £10. The collection also includes other individual handwritten manuscripts of Burns’s poems and original letters to friends, family, patrons and lovers which build a picture of his colourful life.

Romantic writer Sir Walter Scott – the second-most quoted writer in the Oxford English Dictionary after Shakespeare – is also represented, most notably by the complete manuscript for Rob Roy, one of the last remaining manuscripts of a great 19th century novel that is not now in an institution.

Further noteworthy lots include Jane Austen first editions, including Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, a copy of Don Quixote printed in 1620 for Edward Blounte, the publisher famous for the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, and an annotated copy of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poems with pages showing author’s changes from proof printing in his hand. There is hardly an area that is untouched, with Homer, Ovid, the Grimm Brothers, Montaigne, Ann Radcliffe, Horace Walpole, Charles Dickens and Mary Wollstonecraft also making an appearance.

The more than 500 historic manuscripts, exceptional first editions, intimate letters and beautiful bindings will be offered across three auctions at Sotheby’s, commencing this summer (first auction open for bidding from 2 – 13 July 2021). The public will get the chance to view the library, with exhibitions of highlights to take place in London, Edinburgh and New York.  

sothebys/the-honresfield-library-part-one

A Lost Collection of Robert Burns Manuscripts: Sir Alfred Law, Davidson Cook, and the Honresfield Collection

Read all :scholarcommons 

• That we still know so much about the Honresfield Collection is owing, not only to A.J. Law himself, but to the Burns scholar who gained his confidence, Davidson Cook. On the face of it, Cook was an unlikely figure to get privileged access at Honresfield. He was not a professional scholar, and not university educated. Nonetheless, Cook did a quite remarkable job, not only for the Honresfield Burns manuscripts, but also for the other major Honresfield collections, of Walter Scott and of the Brontës. Cook himself wrote and published about all three collections, but equally importantly he contacted and networked with other researchers, helping them gain access to the Honresfield material and collaborating with them on the production of the facsimiles and editions that would provide scholarly access for the future.

• Solid information is also available about the fate of at least some of the Honresfield Brontë manuscripts. In March 1933, a group of them (though not the Emily Brontë “E.J.B.” poems manuscript) was auctioned at Hodgson’s, in London, listed as “The Property of a Collector” rather than with Law’s name attached (Alexander and Smith, 291; see also Book Prices Current, 1933, 119-121). In the early thirties, auction prices had fallen, and only about half of the items sold. In the 1940s, one scholar found their subsequent movements “already well-nigh untraceable” (Christian, p. 179), but some have since resurfaced, and a number of them were either bought for or subsequently donated to the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, so remaining available (Rosenblum and White). Nonetheless, Christine Alexander concluded that for Brontë scholars the disappearance of the Law manuscripts remains a “major stumbling-block,” and reported that “repeated pleas” to Law descendants “have gone unanswered” (Alexander, Manuscripts, xviii-xix).
• Since the 1930s, not only successive Burns scholars, but those doing research on Emily Brontë or Walter Scott, have lamented the disappearance of the Law manuscripts from Honresfield. As the survey above indicates, the situation is not as bleak as it might seem, largely because of the remarkable work in the 1920s by Davidson Cook. But in fact there is published evidence that key portions of the Law collection survive and are still in family ownership. The 1995 Oxford edition of Emily Brontë’s poems had to rely for the Honresfield manuscript (the “E.J.B.” notebook) on the Shakespeare Head facsimile, along with photographs from the notebook in the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth (Roper and Chitham, p. 14; and cf. Alexander and Smith, pp. 291, 315). 

worldcat/DavidsonCook

worldcat/electricscotland.com/familytree/burns_lives

bid.tennants

‘Most important Brontë find in a generation’ goes on sale from lost hoard

The 26-bedroom mock-Gothic pile known as Honresfeld House was once home to the Law brothers, self-made cotton magnates who never married and instead devoted their lives to the honourable Victorian pursuits of industry and the arts. 

• Their collection of original works by the Brontë sisters and Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, has achieved almost mythical status amongst the literati – not least because nothing has been seen of it for nearly a century. But that changed today when the auctioneer Sotheby’s announced that some 500 of the texts they amassed would go under the hammer in the course of the next year
• The Brontë Society – which two years ago raised £85,000 from public donations towards the purchase at auction of one of Charlotte Brontë’s matchbox-sized “little books” of handwritten stories – said Emily’s manuscript also belonged at the Haworth Parsonage that was the family’s home. But it acknowledged that the timing of the sale was “unfortunate”. “We are faced with the very real possibility that this immensely significant collection will be dispersed and disappear into private collections across the globe,” it said in a statement to rally support. “We need to look beyond the narrow commercialisation and privatisation of heritage and work together to protect and share what we all value,” it went on. But it added that revenue from its Parsonage museum had “fallen away to almost nothing” during the pandemic and that “competition for public funds has become fiercer than ever”.

Honresfeld House

Photo from:

itv/news/

• The story of the collection’s safekeeping is as remarkable as any in literature. It was in 1879 that Alfred and William Law built Honresfeld House in Littleborough on the outskirts of Rochdale, where their mill chimney was one of dozens that made up the landscape. They mingled in a world of newly-rich industrialists and bankers, eager to display their wealth and taste, and to assume the social status that a book collection would afford. 
• William, who died in 1901, curated the collection, and when Alfred died 12 years later, his heir was his nephew, the Conservative MP Sir Alfred Law. meant that Honresfeld had one owner continuously from 1913, a period during which many other families, houses, and libraries faced unexpected estate taxes when recent heirs were killed in the trenches or died young of war injuries,” Dr Heaton said. “However, like his uncles, Sir Alfred Law never married, and since his death in November 1939, people lost trace of the library completely.”
• As the treasures were passed down through the extended family, Honresfeld House was turned over for use as a Leonard Cheshire careme, and when that closed in 2016 it fell into disrepair. Three years ago, thieves who stripped out parts of the roof caused damage estimated at £250,000.

sothebys/dr-gabriel-heaton

Dr Gabriel Heaton, English literature specialist at Sotheby’s, said the depth and style of their purchases marked them out as collectors of unusual sophistication, with their choice of Brontë manuscripts perhaps influenced by the Pennine landscape they shared. 

Dr Heaton said the collection once housed there “paints a unique portrait of the passions of one of the greatest and least-known collecting families from a golden age of book collecting”. He added: “When the library went missing from public view in the 1930s, many assumed it had disappeared, and to now play a role in bringing it to a wider audience is a true career highlight.”

• Emily Brontë’s handwritten manuscript of her poems, with revisions from sister Charlotte, is the crown jewel of the collection, and includes her best-known verse, No Coward Soul Is Mine.
• Ann Dinsdale, principal curator at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, said: “We’ve known about the Law collection since it sort of disappeared from view in the 1930s. And if there was one Brontë item. I could have in our collection, this is it. 

yorkshirepost/heritage-and-retro/heritage/most-important-bronte-find-in-a-generation-goes-on-sale-from-lost-hoard

books/The Poems of Charlotte Brontë: A New Text and Commentary

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rutgers.eduInventory to the John Alexander Symington Collection

‘Priceless’ Brontë manuscripts could be lost to private buyer, warn experts

The Brontë Society is calling for immediate government intervention to prevent the “priceless” literary treasures of the Honresfield Library, which include a rare notebook of Emily Brontë’s poetry, from disappearing back into private hands at auction.[...]

But the trustees of the Brontë Society are calling on MPs to take action to save the “unique” collection for the nation. Describing the library as “unrivalled in its holdings of northern British literary treasures”, the society has written to all northern MPs and elected mayors warning that the Sotheby’s auctions will see “trophy items” acquired “at prices beyond the reach of British museums and libraries”, with many liable to “disappear into the bank vaults of international private investors”. 

“This calculated act of heritage dispersal has no regard for matters of curation, conservation, scholarly access or public benefit,” writes chair Trish Gurney. “The Honresfield Library is not just paper and ink, but cultural good.”

Oxford academic Professor Kathryn Sutherland, who is working with the society, warned that “without immediate government intervention in the public interest a national collection hidden for 100 years will soon be scattered piecemeal across the world – perhaps never to be seen”. Sutherland suggested that the library would be “the perfect founding collection for projected developments at British Library North”, which is being planned for Leeds. “We urge its purchase intact and whole in the national interest. Retained as a coherent collection, it will repay scholarly investigation and provide enjoyment for all lovers of literature for the next 100 years,” said Sutherland.

Ann Dinsdale, the principal curator at the Brontë Parsonage Museum where the family lived, described the manuscripts as priceless. “My ideal would be for it all to be kept together and for it to be at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, but the main thing is that it goes to a public collection, where it can be cared for appropriately, and where it will be available for generations to come,” Dinsdale said she found it heartrending to think about the collection returning to private hands. “I’ve heard of wealthy collectors framing literary artefacts and hanging them on the walls where they’re exposed to light,” she said. “There’s nothing to govern how those things are cared for.”

Sotheby’s said that while the material going up for sale had always been in private ownership, it had all been “fully published and the contents are therefore freely available to those interested in the Brontës”.

“The decision was therefore made to offer it at auction, while ensuring that relevant institutions, including the Brontë Parsonage, were given advance notice of the projected sale in order to allow them time to raise funds should they wish to acquire the originals,” it said in a statement. “It is also worth pointing out that when material like this is acquired by collectors abroad, it often ends up on public view, as an ambassador for British culture.” The auction house added that “private collectors can be great custodians of such material, and these items have been very well cared for by a private family for almost 130 years. Often private collectors are very happy to allow scholars access to their holdings, and in this case there has been some scholarly access maintained throughout the long line of ownership.” (Alison Flood)

theguardian/priceless-bronte-manuscripts-could-be-lost-to-private-buyer-warn-experts

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE HONRESFIELD LIBRARY COLLECTION.

• A rare handwritten manuscript of Emily’s poems, mentioned in the preface to Wuthering Heights, with pencil corrections by Charlotte (est. £800,000-1,200,000
• The well-loved Brontë family copy of a book immortalised in Jane Eyre (est. £30,000-50,000
•  Presentation copies of novels gifted to family friend Martha Brown
• An exceptional letter from Charlotte to her publisher George Smith
• Three letters from Charlotte to her oldest friend Ellen Nussey in 1850
• Two letters from Branwell Brontë to Hartley Coleridge, 1840 (est. £6,000-8,000)
• The auction also offers eleven pages worth of letters written by fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell on Charlotte and Haworth in 1853 (est. £3,000-5,000), several of Charlotte’s drawings, including one of their aunt Elizabeth Branwell (est. £5,000-7,000), and charming notes passed between Anne and Emily, including a little sketch of them writing at the table – all of which provide evocative glimpses of life at Haworth parsonage

Read more and see photographs: sothebys/honresfield-library-highlights

The greatest highlight of this first selection from the Honresfield Library is an autograph manuscript volume of poetry by Emily Brontë.

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The greatest highlight of this first selection from the Honresfield Library is an autograph manuscript volume of poetry by Emily Brontë. Written in her miniature hand between 1844 and 1846, this slim volume contains 31 poems, many with pencil revisions by her sister Charlotte, and is the sole manuscript witness to many of her greatest poems. Autograph material by Emily Brontë is exceptionally rare. Very little has appeared at auction in recent decades and this is much the most important manuscript to remain in private hands. 

The sale also includes the finest copy of Emily Brontë’s masterpiece, Wuthering Heights, to have been seen at auction in recent decades: a first edition in original cloth inscribed by the Rev. Patrick Brontë to the family housekeeper Martha Brown.

Other Brontë treasures in the sale include the family copy of Bewick’s History of British Birds – the book that brings solace to the lonely young Jane at the beginning of Jane Eyre – and fascinating letters by Branwell Brontë to Hartley Coleridge. 

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A Lost Brontë Library Surfaces A trove of manuscripts acquired from the Brontë family in the 19th century, all but unseen for the past century, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s.

The book is filled with annotations by Patrick Brontë, the Brontë sisters’ father, noting the tastiness of various species.Credit...via Sotheby’s

A trove of Brontë family manuscripts — all but unseen for a century — will be auctioned by Sotheby’s as part of what the auction house is billing as the sale of a legendary “lost library” of British literature treasures.

The Honresfield Library, a private collection assembled by two Victorian industrialists that vanished from public view in the 1930s, contains more than 500 manuscripts, letters, rare first editions and other artifacts from a number of canonical authors, including the manuscripts of Walter Scott’s “Rob Roy” and Robert Burns’s “First Commonplace Book.” 

The Brontë family copy of Thomas Bewick’s “A History of British Birds,” which has a cameo in “Jane Eyre.”

Credit...via Sotheby’s

But it is the Brontë material — based on hoopla surrounding past Brontë auctions, and the estimates for this one — that is likely to cause the biggest stir. Highlights, which will be exhibited at Sotheby’s in New York from June 5 to 9, include a handwritten manuscript of Emily Brontë’s poems, with pencil edits by Charlotte. It carries an estimate of $1.3 million to $1.8 million.

The trove also includes family letters, inscribed first editions and other relics that offer a glimpse into life in the Brontë household, like the family’s heavily annotated copy of Bewick’s “History of British Birds” (which features in the opening scenes of “Jane Eyre”).

Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby’s specialist in English literature and historical manuscripts, called the Honresfield Library the finest he had seen in 20 years, and the Brontë cache the most important to come to light in a generation.

The Honresfield Library took shape not far from the parsonage at the edge of the West Yorkshire moors, where Charlotte, Emily, Anne and their brother, Branwell (born between 1816 and 1820), grew up creating elaborate shared imaginary worlds. It was assembled starting in the 1890s by Alfred and William Law, two self-made mill owners who had grown up less than 20 miles from the Brontë home in Haworth (which is now the Brontë Parsonage Museum).

The Laws’ collection, held in the library at their home, Honresfield House, included what Heaton called “grand country-house books” like a Shakespeare First Folio (long since sold off). But the brothers, less typically, were also keen collectors of manuscripts, acquiring the Brontë cache from a dealer who had bought them directly from Charlotte’s widower. William, the more serious collector, also paid frequent visits to Haworth to buy family relics that had been saved by neighbors and relatives.

After the deaths of the brothers (who never married), the collection passed to a nephew, who granted access to select scholars, and had facsimiles made of some items. But after his death in 1939, the originals fell out of public view.

The collection, which includes a manuscript of Emily Brontë’s poems with penciled edits by Charlotte Brontë, has gone virtually unseen for nearly a century.Credit...via Sotheby's

Read all: nytimes/bronte-library-sothebys-auction