The legacy within the Bronte Academy Trust of successful women, who lead and shape young children’s lives, is something we are extremely proud to continue to foster.

 

A PLAQUE has been unveiled in tribute to a Keighley-district pioneer.

The unveiling took place at Oldfield, where Margaret Wintringham was born.

Mrs Wintringham became the first-ever female Liberal MP in 1921 and was the first British woman to take a seat in parliament.

The Yorkshire Society blue plaque has been installed at Oldfield Primary School, where she taught.

James Travers – headteacher at Oldfield Primary, part of the Bronte Academy Trust – said: “We are thrilled to acknowledge that Margaret Wintringham was born here.

“The legacy within the Bronte Academy Trust of successful women, who lead and shape young children’s lives, is something we are extremely proud to continue to foster. Our namesake, the Bronte sisters, are testament to a long history of female accomplishment.” 

Whilst she may not be a household name, the plaque will serve as a testament to her place in history and as encouragement for the future. The ability to break down barriers is one of the most important things in our society and there are many we still need to overcome.”

 Read all the article: thetelegraphandargus

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

Pretty Penny, Haworth.

This was the tourist office until recently. and (long) before that the Yorkshire Penny Bank and the first home of the Bronte Museum. 

Look here for the history of this building: annebronte/treasures-of-the-first-bronte-museums

Owner, Jill Ross, has been a business owner in the village since 2006. She began by opening Cobbles and Clay, a pottery painting café. After success in the café, she opened her first home, fashion and gift shop; Daisy Days. Fast forward a number of years; the café outgrew its premise and moved a few doors up the iconic cobbled Main Street; the shop has since moved into the building that was once the Yorkshire Penny Bank in 1894, hence the name Pretty Penny. The building is steeped in history and we are so pleased to call it ours.

instagram/pretty penny haworth

More great shops of now a days Haworth

busymumlifestyle/haworth

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

The garden is coming to life.

twitter/ann_dinsdale

‘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.

dailymail/Lost-library-including-29-handwritten-poems-Emily-Bront-goes-auction

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. 

sothebys/auction/the-honresfield-library-part-one

Beginning next month, notes BBC News, literary lovers will be able to see items from the private collection at exhibitions in London, Edinburgh and New York.

 “In the last 90 years, only one or two (very discreet) scholars have had access to slivers of the material, so essentially, only two people alive have seen any of it,” a Sotheby’s spokesperson tells the Guardian’s Alison Flood.

Beginning next month, notes BBC News, literary lovers will be able to see items from the private collection at exhibitions in London, Edinburgh and New York. Where the trove will end up after the auction remains to be seen, but as the Brontë Society notes in a statement, it “believes that the rightful home for these unique and extraordinary manuscripts, unseen for a hundred years, is at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where they can be enjoyed by visitors, explored by scholars and shared with Brontë enthusiasts around the world for generations to come.”

Given the financial challenges posed by Covid-19, however, the society acknowledges that it is “faced with the very real possibility that this immensely significant collection will be dispersed and disappear into private collections across the globe.”

smithsonian