Interest is expected from all over the world in the collection which includes Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Wilkie Collins, George Eliot and William Thackeray.

One of the biggest private 'gentleman’s libraries' has been revealed, containing first editions from some of Britain's most celebrated authors.

The 4,000 book collection is the result of the life-long passion of lawyer, businessman and historian William Forwood, who died last year aged 84.

Now, other book-lovers will have the chance to admire the library which could fetch up to £200,000 when it goes under the hammer tomorrow.

Look for more beautiful photo's on dailymail/--4-000-books-including--Bronte-editions.

Rare books

Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. Edited by Currer Bell.Publisher: London, Smith, Elder, and Co., 1847
Price: £39,500

First edition of one of the keystone books for any collection of 19th-century literature, Charlotte Brontë's first novel and the first published novel of any of the Brontë sisters.

3 volumes, octavo. Contemporary blond half calf, double green morocco labels, spines gilt in compartments with flower-head tools and lattice work, matching spot-marbled paper sides, endpapers and edges. Housed in a leather entry slipcase made by The Chelsea Bindery. With half-titles. Ownership inscriptions dated 1851 and 1951 to front free endpapers verso. Spines rubbed and evenly darkened, two small inkstains on B1r, vol. I, affecting three letters of one word but not the sense, with offset on the facing page blank but for imprint, a few minor marks elsewhere, but an excellent copy in a strictly contemporary binding.Rare books

And what did I find? An accurate daguerrotyped portrait of a common-place face.

Many of Charlotte’s quotes about Jane Austen are available on the internet, but they are rarely quoted in full and are very rarely explained. The bald truth is that Charlotte Bronte, as a romantic writer, seems to have had very little true sympathy or appreciation of  Jane Austen’s novels. But her antipathy seems to have stemmed from her introduction to Jane Austen, which took place in a correspondence between herself- writing as “Currer Bell” – and the literary critic,  George Henry Lewes.

Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. What induced you to say you would rather  have written “Pride and Prejudice” or “Tom Jones’” than any of the Waverly Novels? I had not seen “Pride and Prejudice” till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book and studied it. And what did I find? An accurate daguerrotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully-fenced, highly cultivated garden with near borders and delicate flowers- but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy- no open country- no fresh air- no blue hill- no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in they elegant but confined houses. These observations will probably irritate you, but I shall run the risk.
austen only
austen only/charlotte-bronte-and-jane-austen-part-two

The Briarfield Chronicles discusses at length Juliet Barker's The Brontës. 

Bronteblog

"I leave you in Paradise!"

In September, 1832, Charlotte left home again on a fortnight's visit to the home of this dear friend. (Ellen Nussey's home in Birstall, Yorkshire ,The Rydings.'Branwell took her there. He had probably never been from home before. He was in wild spirits at the beauty of the house and grounds, inspecting, criticising everything, pouring out a stream of comments, rich in studio terms, taking views in every direction of the old battlemented house, and choosing "bits" that he would like to paint, delighting the whole family with his bright cleverness, and happy Irish ways. Meanwhile Charlotte looked on, shy and dull. "I leave you in Paradise!" cried Branwell, and betook himself over the moor to make fine stories of his visit to Emily and Anne in the bare little parlour at Haworth. Charlotte's friend, Ellen, sent her home laden with apples for her two young sisters. gutenberg. Emily Bronte

visitors/documents/brontesinyorkshire

Happy times for the Bronte Sisters,

It was Emily who, shopping in Bradford with Charlotte and her friend, chose a white stuff patterned with lilac thunder and lightning, to the scarcely concealed horror of her more sober companions. And she looked well in it; a tall, lithe creature, with a grace half-queenly, half-untamed in her sudden, supple movements, wearing with picturesque negligence her ample purple-splashed skirts; her face clear and pale; her very dark and plenteous brown hair fastened up behind with a Spanish comb; her large grey-hazel eyes, now full of indolent, indulgent humour, now glimmering with hidden meanings, now quickened into flame by a flash of indignation, "a red ray piercing the dew."readbookonline

Emily is mentioned as having chosen a rather flashy  fabric for her dress on one trip  ” white stuff patterned  with thunder  and with lighting, in purple splashes (p213 project Guttenberg online edition, Mrs Robinson, based on Ellen Nusseys remembrances.)
Abigails ateliers

Happy times for the Bronte Sisters

It was the household custom among the sisters to sew till nine o'clock at night. At that hour, Miss Branwell generally went to bed, and her nieces' duties for the day were accounted done. They put away their work, and began to pace the room backwards and forwards, up and down,--as often with the candles extinguished, for economy's sake, as not,--their figures glancing into the fire-light, and out into the shadow, perpetually. At this time, they talked over past cares, and troubles; they planned for the future, and consulted each other as to their plans. In after years, this was the time for discussing together the plots of their novels. egaskell-cbronte-

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

For yonder garden, fair and wide,

   With groves of evergreen,

Long winding walks, and borders trim,

   And velvet lawns between—

Restore to me that little spot,

   With gray walls compassed round,

Where knotted grass neglected lies,

   And weeds usurp the ground.

Though all around this mansion high

   Invites the foot to roam,

And though its halls are fair within—

   Oh, give me back my Home!

Poem of  Anne Bronte

Read on Gutenberg

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Weblogs and the Brontes: The Old School Room, Top Withens and the moors

The Old School Room at Haworth, which was built by the Rev Patrick Bronte, father of the sisters

Keighley news

Feedblitz

Bronte_Country

saltaire daily photo/top-withens

tuckdb.org/postcards/

tuckdb.org/postcards/

But lovelier than corn-fields all waving
In emerald, and vermeil, and gold,
Are the heights where the north-wind is raving,
And the crags where I wandered of old.

by Emily Bronte

Yorkshire pudding/emily.html

Bronte Country, 

visit-the-settings-of-great-british-literature

A windswept land of heather and wild moors, it is hardly surprising that this region became the inspiration for the classic works of the Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Geographically, Bronte Country consists of the Pennine hills of West Yorkshire, as well as Kirklees and Calderdale. Unlike the postural limestone valleys of the Yorkshire Dales which begin further to the north, the geology in Bronte Country is predominantly of Millstone Grit, a dark sandstone which lends the crags and scenery here an air of bleakness and desolation. Small wonder then, that this landscape fuelled the imagination of the Bronte sisters in writing their classic novels – including ‘Wuthering Heights’ (which was reputedly inspired by the isolated moorland farmstead of Top Withens) and ‘Jane Eyre’. www.bronte-country.com

Poem Emily Bronte

Alone I sat; the summer day
Had died in smiling light away;
I saw it die, I watched it fade
From the misty hill and breezeless glade.

And thoughts in my soul were rushing,
And my heart bowed beneath their power;
And tears within my eyes were gushing
Because I could not speak the feeling,
The solemn joy around me stealing,
In that divine, untroubled hour.

I asked myself, O why has Heaven
Denied the precious gift to me,
The glorious gift to many given,
To speak their thoughts in poetry?

Dreams have encircled me, I said,
From careless childhood's sunny time;
Visions by ardent fancy fed
Since life was in its morning prime.

But now, when I had hoped to sing,
My fingers strike a tuneless string;
And still the burden of the strain—
I strive no more, 'tis all in vain.
· · · · ·
August 1837.

" This bringing out of our little book was hard work. As was to be expected neither we nor our poems were at all wanted ; but for this we had been prepared at the outset ; though inexperienced ourselves, we had read the experience of others. The great puzzle lay in the difficulty of getting answers of any kind from the publishers to whom we applied. Being greatly harassed by this obstacle, I ventured to apply to the Messrs. Chambers of Edinburgh for a word of advice : they may have forgotten the circumstance, but / have not ; for from them I received a brief and business-like but civil and sensible reply, on which we acted, and at last made a way." *

emilybronte

the Gondal saga

 

In 1831, after Charlotte left for Roe Head School, Emily and Anne began to concentrate their energies exclusively on the Gondal saga, distinct from the Angrian fantasies of their brother and sister, a special form of imaginative play in which the two younger sisters alone engaged for the remainder of their lives. 

• Emily's first mention of Gondal occurs in her diary paper for 24 November 1834, a series of notes written by Emily and Anne about every four years and the earliest piece of Brontë's writing to have survived. The first paragraph of the entry reads, "Taby said just now Come Anne pilloputate (i.e. pill a potato) Aunt has come into the kitchen just now and said where are you feet Anne Anne answered On the floor Aunt papa opened the parlour door and gave Branwell a letter saying here Branwell read this and show it to your Aunt and Charlotte--The Gondals are discovering the interior of Gaaldine Sally Mosley is washing in the back kitchen." In addition to noting the astonishing absence of punctuation conventions in the sixteen-year-old Emily's diary entry, critics uniformly point to her seamless fit of the imaginary Gondal into the fabric of everyday events in the Brontë kitchen. 

Scholars such as W. D. Paden in An Investigation of Gondal (1958) have deftly recovered much of the history of Gondal despite Charlotte's destruction of the plays and prose after her sisters' deaths, from the birthday notes, the undated lists of character names Anne wrote, the list of place names she wrote into a copy of J. Goldsmith's A Grammar of General Geography (1819), and Emily's and Anne's Gondal poems. Most recognize, however, their own creative responsibility in such a reconstruction, for while Brontë wrote almost seventy poems that are undoubtedly part of the Gondal story, the majority of her poems cannot always be attributed to Gondal, and many are clearly more personal lyrics. Scholars therefore find Fannie Ratchford's Gondal's Queen: A Novel in Verse (1955), an attempt to fit the whole of Brontë's poetic output into the Gondal fantasy, an interesting but far-fetched effort. 

• What can be determined is that Gondal, according to Anne, was "a large island in the North Pacific" and that Gaaldine was "a large island newly discovered in the South Pacific." The rigorous scenery of these islands derives much from Scott's fiction and is filled with mountains, heather, and snow. 
• The Gondal stories concern impetuous royalty, political intrigue, love thwarted and abandoned, wars, murders, and assassinations. 
• In a noteworthy article in 1939 Helen Brown was one of the first critics to point out the influence of George Gordon, Lord Byron, on Brontë's Gondal characters and their isolation, passions, dark crimes, and darker thoughts. 
• The main character in Brontë's Gondal poems, the speaker of at least fourteen and the subject of many others, is the passionate, dark-haired queen Augusta G. Almeda, or A.G.A., perhaps based on Mary, Queen of Scots and the young Queen Victoria, in whose accession to the throne Brontë took a good deal of interest. 
• A secondary character is Julius Brenzaida, king of Almedore in Gaaldine. 

Critical reception of the Gondal poems has been uneven. 

• Some critics reject them for their melodrama, formulaic qualities, and simplistic meters and rhymes. 
• Recently, however, feminist critics have taken special note of the prominent role played by the queen, A.G.A. Christine Gallant, for example, calls attention to the fact that Gondal is "a mythic world emphatically excluding the real world" known to Victorian women, controlled by a "dominating presence of female figures." 
• Teddi Lynn Chichester believes that Brontë was continually working through her own loss of significant female figures, that "through Augusta, Brontë could explore, in private, her need to create a powerful, even indestructible" woman, and that A.G.A. "ultimately reinforced the disturbing connection between mortality and the feminine" that is such a potent undercurrent in Western literature. 
• Richard Benvenuto points out that without the years Brontë spent "developing her Gondal imagination, the mature imagination she did attain would have been a considerably different mode of vision." 
• While a knowledge of the facts of Gondal can deepen the reader's understanding of Brontë's creative life, we can still appreciate the poems for their merits apart from their place in the Gondal saga. In writing the Gondal poems Brontë took on different voices and personae, and the themes of imprisonment and death that inform her better-known poetry were first explored therein. The dark and overpowering emotions first manifested in these poems certainly fed her invention of Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. poetryfoundation/bio/emily-jane-bronte

We had very early cherished the dream of one day becoming authors.

This dream, never relinquished even when distance divided and absorbing tasks occupied us, now suddenly acquired strength and consistency: it took the character of a resolve. We agreed to arrange a small selection of our poems, and, if possible, to get them printed. Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because -- without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called "feminine" -- we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise.

The bringing out of our little book was hard work. As was to be expected, neither we nor our poems were at all wanted; but for this we had been prepared at the outset; though inexperienced ourselves, we had read the experience of others. The great puzzle lay in the difficulty of getting answers of any kind from the publishers to whom we applied. Being greatly harassed by this obstacle, I ventured to apply to the Messrs. Chambers, of Edinburgh, for a word of advice; THEY may have forgotten the circumstance, but I have not, for from them I received a brief and business-like, but civil and sensible reply, on which we acted, and at last made a way.

The book was printed: it is scarcely known, and all of it that merits to be known are the poems of Ellis Bell. The fixed conviction I held, and hold, of the worth of these poems has not indeed received the confirmation of much favourable criticism; but I must retain it notwithstanding.

Ill-success failed to crush us: the mere effort to succeed had given a wonderful zest to existence; it must be pursued. We each set to work on a prose tale: Ellis Bell produced "Wuthering Heights," Acton Bell "Agnes Grey," and Currer Bell also wrote a narrative in one volume. These MSS. were perseveringly obtruded upon various publishers for the space of a year and a half; usually, their fate was an ignominious and abrupt dismissal.

At last "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey" were accepted on terms somewhat impoverishing to the two authors; Currer Bell's book found acceptance nowhere, nor any acknowledgment of merit, so that something like the chill of despair began to invade her heart. As a forlorn hope, she tried one publishing house more -- Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. Ere long, in a much shorter space than that on which experience had taught her to calculate -- there came a letter, which she opened in the dreary expectation of finding two hard, hopeless lines, intimating that Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. "were not disposed to publish the MS.," and, instead, she took out of the envelope a letter of two pages. She read it trembling. It declined, indeed, to publish that tale, for business reasons, but it discussed its merits and demerits so courteously, so considerately, in a spirit so rational, with a discrimination so enlightened, that this very refusal cheered the author better than a vulgarly expressed acceptance would have done. It was added, that a work in three volumes would meet with careful attention.

I was then just completing "Jane Eyre," at which I had been working while the one-volume tale was plodding its weary round in London: in three weeks I sent it off; friendly and skilful hands took it in. This was in the commencement of September, 1847; it came out before the close of October following, while "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey," my sisters' works, which had already been in the press for months, still lingered under a different management. 
womens history/brontes

Gondal and Poems

Poems by Currer, Ellis and Action Bell, published in 1846 and paid for by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, contained twenty-one poems by Emily and by Anne and nineteen by Charlotte. Despite the fact that it received two encouraging reviews, only two copies were sold. Charlotte edited Emily's poems and rewrote some for the 1850 edition of her sisters' poems and novels. She included seventeen previously unpublished poems from Emily's manuscripts and one poem not found in Emily's manuscript ("Often rebuked, yet always back returning"). Nothing of the Gondal history remains except Emily's poems, the references in the journal fragments by Anne and Emily, the birthday papers of 1841 and 1845, and Anne's list of the names of characters and locations.

• Emily Brontë has been called one of the great English lyric poets and has found admirers among other poets. Emily Dickinson thought so highly of Emily Brontë's poetry that she chose "No coward soul" to be read at her funeral.
• To Imagination (September 3, 1844). Emily personifies Imagination as a physical presence separate from the individual in several poems, including this one.
• The Two Children (May 28, 1845). Emily's name for these two poems in the Gondal saga was "A. E. and R. C"; it was Charlotte who gave them this title. The image of two children appears a number of times in Emily Brontë's poetry as well as in her novel. In this poem, the "melancholy boy" resembles Heathcliff and Hareton, while the "Child of Delight! with sunbright hair" resembles Catherine Earnshaw and Cathy Linton; the poem hints that they are to redeem the "melancholy boy." The dark-light, male-female pair appears in the novel and in the Gondal saga as well.
• How beautiful the Earth is still ( June 2, 1845). Charlotte Brontë wrote "Never was better stuff penned." in the manuscript of this poem.
• The Prisoner. A Fragment (October 9, 1845) This poem is part of a larger Gondal poem which Emily revised for publication in 1846. She cut lines 1-12, 45-64, and 93-152. She added the concluding stanza, which starts with "She ceased to speak..." The original title of the poem is "Julian M. and A.G. Rochelle," the names of two lovers in the Gondal saga.
• The Visionary (October 9, 1845). This poem is part of the same Gondal poem from which Emily carved "The Prisoner. A Fragment." Charlotte Brontë took lines 1-12 of Emily's original poem, "Julian M. and A.G Rochelle," and added 8 lines of her own. Thus, the positive ending in which the watcher has a spiritual experience is Charlotte's and the watcher may be seen as Emily rather than a Gondal character. In Charlotte's version, it is hard to explain the guiding light in the window of stanze 2.
• Often rebuked, yet always back returning. Harold Bloom calls this Emily Brontë's finest poem; however, C.W. Hatfield, who edited her poems, speculates that Charlotte wrote or revised this poem. It first appeared in the 1850 edition of Emily's novel and poems; no manuscript version of this poem is known. academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/
• Anne's poems are generally divided into two categories: the 'Gondal', and the 'non-Gondal'. The former are the ones that she wrote as part of the fantasy world - Gondal - which she created and developed throughout her childhood and youth with Emily: most of these where written while Anne was in close proximity with her sister. When the two sisters were parted, Anne rarely ever wrote Gondal verses. mick-armitage.staff.shef.ac.uk/anne/poems
• Most of the poems quoted come from the manuscript note-book in the British Museum.  The manuscript of the “Alcona” poem is in the Bonnell Collection at the Parsonage Museum. ingentaconnect
• wiki/Poems_by_Currer,_Ellis,_and_Acton_Bell