Honresfield Library Saved For The Nation!

It’s a rare mid week blog post this week, because I’ve received some great Brontë-related news that I just had to share with you all. I’ve been under strict instructions to keep this under wraps until noon today, but I can finally reveal that the Honresfield Library collection has been saved for the nation!

You may remember that this collection was once the domain of the Law brothers of Honresfield House in Lancashire. They amassed a huge collection of literary treasures, at the heart of which were Brontë manuscripts in all shapes and sizes. Earlier this year Sotheby’s announced that the entire collection would be sold – leading to the very real prospect that they would enter private collections or bank vaults never to be seen again. Thanks to hard work by many organisations and people this has now been averted once and for all. Here’s a press release from Friends Of The National Libraries:

In short – these incredible literary treasures (I’ve added pictures of just a short selection from the Laws’ collection) are saved for the nation, and they are now safe forever. Not only are they saved, they will be put on display and available for public view in perpetuity. Further details of that will be announced in full course, but the Brontë related material will be shared between three very deserving organisations: the Brontë Parsonage Museum, the British Library and the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds (rather fittingly, as Brotherton, like the Laws, was a self-made Lancashire-born industrialist with a huge passion for collecting Brontë material).

Anne and Emily’s 1841 diary paper – saved!

The patron of Friends Of The National Libraries has expressed his delight. HRH Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, said: “It is tremendous news for our country that Friends of the National Libraries, a charity of which I am proud to be Patron, has raised £15 million in just five months to save one of the most significant collections, including manuscripts by Charlotte Brontë, Walter Scott and Robert Burns. I can only congratulate the Chairman, Geordie Greig, and his team for saving the Blavatnik Honresfield Library for the nation, with its treasures now to be owned by some of our greatest national libraries across the U.K. Our literary heritage is our cultural D.N.A. and this preserves it for students, teachers, academics and ordinary readers in perpetuity.”

Letter from Branwell Bronte to Hartley Coleridge – saved!

You may have noticed that the collection has a new name – it’s no longer the Honresfield Library but the Blavatnik Honresfield Library. A deserving tribute, as one man in particular has made a huge contribution to this happy outcome. Sir Leonard Blavatnik agreed to match all other funding raised to ensure that the appeal reached whatever target was needed; to this end, he personally has given over seven and a half million pounds so that these items can be saved for the nation, and by extension for literature lovers across the world.

Charlotte Bronte juvenilia – saved!

So what will we soon be able to see? Well, we have Emily and Anne Brontë’s 1841 diary paper, a collection of Brontë little books, letters from Branwell Brontë to Hartley Coleridge, and a huge treasure: Emily Brontë’s secret poetry manuscript which inspired the Brontë sisters to seek a publisher for their work. It’s surely one of the most important handwritten literary treasures in the world today – and until the auction was announced it had been thought lost for over 80 years.

Emily Bronte’s poetry manuscript – saved!

Our beloved Brontës are at the centre of the collection, but that’s by no means all that’s being saved. We also have, amongst other things, the handwritten manuscript of Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott. That would please Charlotte Brontë who famously declared in a letter to Ellen Nussey: ‘For Fiction – read Scott alone, all novels after his are worthless.’

Rob Roy – saved!

We also have the first English edition of Don Quixote, dating from 1620, and a collection of poetry by Robbie Burns – a great favourite of Anne Brontë. Perhaps most importantly, alongside Emily’s poetry, is a letter written from one sister to another – but this time we’re talking not of the Brontë sisters but the Austen sisters.

In January 1796 Jane Austen wrote to Cassandra Austen about a ball she was due to attend – and at which she was expecting a proposal from the love of her life, Tom Lefroy. This is not only a letter of great significance in Jane’s life, it is also the earliest letter of Jane Austen which is known to exist. It’s a particularly appropriate date for this letter to be saved, as today marks the 246th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen.

Jane Austen’s letter to Cassandra – saved!

I find this whole news very moving, and it’s great news towards the end of what has been a very trying year for us all. Alongside Sir Leonard Blavatnik, other philanthropists such as the Vogel-Denebeim family and big cultural institutions, this announcement has been made possible because of the time and money given by huge numbers of ordinary people like you and I – and out of adversity has come triumph.

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre and Passion

Charlotte Brontë and her sisters were among the greatest writers of the Victorian era, and many would select Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre as the greatest novel of the century. In their own lives, however, we can see that the Brontë siblings were influenced by the societal norms of the time, but they were far from bound by them. In today’s post we’re going to look at one word which Charlotte Brontë certainly possessed, although many at the time would have thought that to be entirely unbefitting to a woman: passion.

Passion is at the heart of ‘Jane Eyre’

Only a genius could have written Jane Eyre, but only a special kind of genius: one who knew the power of longing, the driving force of passion. One reason for the novel’s great success is its protagonists. Rochester is not a typical romantic hero, but nor is he a pantomime villain. It is this complexity which makes him compelling and believable, and which Charlotte elucidated upon in a letter sent to W. S. Williams at her publisher:

Rochester, at least as far as his creator is concerned, is a man both sinned against and sinning; he made mistakes in his youth but atones for them in his adulthood. He has made mistakes but atones for them. The great thing about the novel, and about any great novel, is that readers are free to make their own judgements on the character.

What is clear is that Rochester was highly influenced by a man who had been in Charlotte’s own life: Constantin Heger. A powerful man with undoubted faults, but whose personality drew Charlotte inexorably to him, just as Rochester does to Jane. Charlotte’s letters to Monsieur Heger after leaving Brussels are incredibly sad as we know that he never responded to them – they are also incredibly passionate, as in this extract from a letter dated 18th November 1845:

‘In a word, tell me what you will, my master, but tell me something. Writing to a former assistant teacher (no – I don’t want to remember my position as an assistant teacher, I disown it) well then, writing to an old pupil cannot be a very interesting occupation for you – I know that – but for me it is life itself. Your last letter has sustained me – has nourished me for six months – now I need another and you will give it me… To forbid me to write to you, to refuse to reply to me – that will be to tear from me the only joy I have on earth… when day after day I await a letter and day after day disappointment flings me down again into overwhelming misery, when the sweet delight of seeing your writing and reading your counsel flees from me like an empty vision – then I am in a fever – I lose my appetite and sleep – I pine away.’

Constantin Heger
Constantin Heger inspired some of Charlotte’s greatest work

In an earlier letter to Heger (24th July 1844), Charlotte had written of the driving force behind her writing dream:

‘My sight is too weak for writing – if I wrote a lot I would become blind. This weakness of sight is a terrible privation for me – without it, do you know what I would do, Monsieur? I would write a book and I would dedicate it to my literature master – to the only master that I have ever had – to you Monsieur.’

Alas for Charlotte, Heger, like Rochester, was already married, but there was to be no happy ending for the lovelorn woman in Haworth. Without Heger would there have been a Rochester, or a Paul Emanuel in Villette, would there have been any Charlotte Brontë novels? Probably not. The publication of Jane Eyre transformed Charlotte’s life, and the lives of readers ever since, but it also brought her into contact with another man she developed a passion for: George Smith.

Smith was younger then Charlotte, and from a very different background: he had inherited his father’s publishing business of Smith, Elder & Co at a young age, and was both wealthy and well connected, not to mention handsome.

George Smith became more than a publisher to Charlotte Brontë, he became a close friend. Charlotte was often invited to visit him in London, and they even holidayed in Scotland together. He frequently sent a supply of books to Haworth for Charlotte to read (an expensive commodity at the time), but on 6th December 1853 Charlotte wrote a sad, short letter to the publishing house saying that she wished to receive no more:

 

A month earlier Charlotte had heard the news that George Smith had become engaged to an Elizabeth Blakeway and she was once more heartbroken. Four months later Charlotte finally accepted the suit of Arthur Bell Nicholls and became engaged herself, but despite short lived attempts at starting new work she wrote no more for Smith, Elder & Co.

Charlotte’s passionate nature was at the heart of her creative genius, and for that we can all be thankful. I hope you can join me next week for another new Brontë blog post, but for now I leave you with a poem that Charlotte Brontë wrote on this day in 1841. It’s title? ‘Passion’.

Patrick Brontë Arrives In Yorkshire

The best laid plans of mice and men, and you know the rest. I had intended today’s post to be about the Brontës and torchlight, filled with pictures of yesterday’s torchlight parade in Haworth (it’s on today at 5 as well if you can make it). Alas, bad weather and a bus strike put an end to those plans, but there is an important anniversary to mark today: in today’s new post we’re going to look at Patrick Brontë in Dewsbury.

Young Patrick Brontë
Portrait of a young Patrick Brontë

On the 5th of December 1809, the 32 year old Patrick began his curacy at Dewsbury All Saints Church (now Dewsbury Minster); it’s an especially significant date in the Brontë story as this marked Patrick Bronte’s arrival in Yorkshire. From thereon he moved parishes to Hartshead-cum-Clifton, and then Thornton, and finally Haworth. Let’s not run ahead of ourselves, for Patrick’s time as an assistant curate at Dewsbury was a fascinating one and gives us a remarkable insight into Patrick as a man rather than merely as a father.

Dewsbury is today an unassuming town which is overshadowed by the nearby urban areas of Huddersfield, Wakefield and Leeds, but at the time Patrick arrived it was a town on the move. In the first half of the nineteenth century its population trebled to over 90,000 (compared to around 70,000 today), and the reason for this is that it had become an important hub on the wool processing trail – a town at the very heart of the industrial revolution.

Dewsbury’s minister was the Reverend John Buckworth. He had met Patrick before as they both belonged to the evangelical wing of the Church of England. Buckworth’s fame as a preacher was widespread, and he was also known as a hymn writer and the headmaster of a school for the poor – a ground breaking idea at the time. By 1809, however, he was increasingly in ill health, and in search of an energetic young priest to assist in his parochial duties. Patrick Brontë was his choice, and as 1809 neared its close he made the journey north from Shropshire to the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Dewsbury Minster
Dewsbury Minster, where Patrick Bronte served as Assistant Curate

Patrick’s two years at Dewsbury were eventful ones, and he had to fight (quite literally) to win the respect of his new parishioners. The story is told of how one Sunday evening when Patrick was in sole charge of the church (Reverend Buckworth being away from the parish temporarily) he was astonished to hear the church bells ringing again after his services had ended.

Unbeknownst to Patrick the parish bell ringing team had entered a competition and had popped into the bell tower for some extra practise. They must have been rather surprised when a furious Patrick burst in on them, accused them of ‘desecrating the Sabbath’ and drove them from the building. He was brandishing a shillelagh, a traditional Irish walking stick and club that few bell ringers would want to find themselves on the wrong end of.

A shillelagh and its maker (picture courtesy of Irish Farmers Journal)

His fiery temperament, and solid sense of what was right and wrong, was also shown at the 1810 Whitsun walk. Whitsuntide is also known as Pentecost and is traditionally the seventh Sunday after Easter. It was a long-standing tradition in Dewsbury for the churchgoers to march on Whit Tuesday (two days later) from the church to the village green of Earlsheaton where they would sing hymns.

On this particular march Patrick strode out with the choirboys beyond him, but their path was soon blocked by a large man making oaths. Without thinking twice, Patrick picked up the man by his collar and threw him into some nearby bushes. Some were worried that the man, notorious for his violence in the area, would be waiting for them on the return journey. He was, but when Patrick fronted him up once more he stepped aside. One of the choirboys later recalled the incident:

‘The bully came from Gawthorpe, near Osset, and was a notorious cockfighter and boxer, and much addicted to drinking… what happened was talked about for many a Sunday.’

A modern day Whitsun walk

It must have been talked about within the family for many years after as well, for it found its way into Charlotte Brontë’s novel Shirley as two Whitsuntide marches clash:

‘Old Helstone moved on. Quickening his step, he marched some yards in advance of his company. He had nearly reached the other sable leaders, when he who appeared to act as the hostile commander-in-chief – a large, greasy man, with black hair combed flat on his forehead – called a halt. The procession paused. He drew forth a hymn book, gave out a verse, set a tune, and they all struck up the most dolorous of canticles.

Helstone signed to his bands. They clashed out with all the power of brass. He desired them to play “Rule, Britannia!” and ordered the children to join in vocally, which they did with enthusiastic spirit. The enemy was sung and stormed down, his psalm quelled. As far as noise went, he was conquered.

“Now, follow me!” exclaimed Helstone; “not at a run, but at a firm, smart pace. Be steady, every child and woman of you. Keep together. Hold on by each other’s skirts, if necessary.”

And he strode on with such a determined and deliberate gait, and was, besides, so well seconded by his scholars and teachers, who did exactly as he told them, neither running nor faltering, but marching with cool, solid impetus – the curates, too, being compelled to do the same, as they were between two fires, Helstone and Miss Keeldar, both of whom watched any deviation with lynx-eyed vigilance, and were ready, the one with his cane, the other with her parasol, to rebuke the slightest breach of orders, the least independent or irregular demonstration – that the body of Dissenters were first amazed, then alarmed, then borne down and pressed back, and at last forced to turn tail and leave the outlet from Royd Lane free. Boultby suffered in the onslaught, but Helstone and Malone, between them, held him up, and brought him through the business, whole in limb, though sorely tried in wind.

The fat Dissenter who had given out the hymn was left sitting in the ditch. He was a spirit merchant by trade, a leader of the Nonconformists, and, it was said, drank more water in that one afternoon than he had swallowed for a twelvemonth before. Mr. Hall had taken care of Caroline, and Caroline of him. He and Miss Ainley made their own quiet comments to each other afterwards on the incident. Miss Keeldar and Mr. Helstone shook hands heartily when they had fairly got the whole party through the lane. The curates began to exult, but Mr. Helstone presently put the curb on their innocent spirits. He remarked that they never had sense to know what to say, and had better hold their tongues; and he reminded them that the business was none of their managing.’

Patrick’s reputation in Dewsbury was further enhanced when he saved the life of a local boy. Patrick loved taking long walks, something his children would also later delight in, and one of his favourite stretches was by the side of the River Calder. On one of these perambulations he saw a group of local boys playing on the bank but then disaster struck and one of them fell (or was pushed in). Patrick sprang into action and leapt into the river, plucked the boy out of the water and swam him back to the shore before taking him home to his family. Drowning was a very common form of death in the early nineteenth century, but thankfully that was one child saved from becoming a statistic.

Patrick Brontë’s time in Dewsbury was not only tumultuous for the town, but for the country as a whole. Britain was engaged in the Napoleonic Wars and young men were being recruited into the army in large numbers, being given ‘the King’s shilling’ in return. This led to a notorious court case in which Patrick played a major part.

Recruiting officers often cajoled drunken men into the army

On 25th November 1810 a Dewsbury man named William Nowell was arrested for desertion. A soldier called James Thackray had testified that he had recruited Nowell into his regiment at the Lee Horse Fair but that he had not reported for duty. Nowell insisted that he had not been at the horse fair and produced witnesses to swear this, but the judge refused to accept this evidence and Nowell was confined to prison.

Dewsbury was in uproar at this miscarriage of justice, and Patrick Brontë was one of four local men who spoke to magistrates on Nowell’s behalf, to no avail. Patrick then wrote to the Secretary of War, Lord Palmerston, to plead the case and a delegation including William Wilberforce travelled to the ministry to add their support. Palmerston (and Wilberforce) had been at Cambridge with Patrick, but we can’t know whether that influenced his decision or not. A full hearing was arranged at which Patrick, and 25 other witnesses, spoke on Nowell’s behalf. Nowell was released from prison, but a year later Thackray was found guilty of perjury and transported to Australia for seven years.

Palmerston
Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, was twice Prime Minister

On 15th December 1810 a jubilant Patrick gave a full account of the case to the Leeds Mercury, opening it with a quote from Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure: “’Tis excellent to have a giant’s strength: but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.”

Extract from Leeds Mercury, 15th December 1810

In his time at Dewsbury Patrick had saved a child’s life, dispatched a bully into a ditch, righted a miscarriage of justice, and stood up, with a shillelagh, for the church doctrines which meant so much to him. It’s a real insight into his character: Patrick Brontë was certainly not a man to be messed with. Within three years of his arrival in the county he had met and married another incomer to Yorkshire: Maria Branwell. The rest is history. I hope to see you again next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.

The Passing Of Ellen Nussey, Loyal Brontë Friend

This week has marked a sad anniversary in the Brontë story (there seem to be so many of those, but remember there’s a corresponding happy anniversary for each one) as Ellen Nussey passed away on the 26th November 1897. Ellen was the great friend of Charlotte Brontë, and Ellen paid this glowing tribute to the qualities which mattered to her most:

In today’s new post we’re going to look at Ellen Nussey’s death, but we’re going to lighten the mood with some glorious pictures of Ellen too. Let’s begin with a picture of Ellen Nussey that Charlotte herself drew in their youth:

Ellen Nussey, by Charlotte Bronte
Ellen Nussey, drawn by Charlotte Bronte

Charlotte Brontë and Ellen Nussey first met at Roe Head School, Mirfield in January 1831, and Ellen later recalled their first meeting:

‘Turning to the window to observe the look-out I became aware for the first that I was not alone; there was a silent, weeping, dark little figure in the large bay window; she must, I thought, have risen from the floor. As soon as I had recovered from my surprise, I went from the far end of the room, where the book-shelves were, the contents of which I must have contemplated with a little awe in anticipation of coming studies. A crimson cloth covered the long table down the centre of the room, which helped, no doubt, to hide the shrinking little figure from my view. I was touched and troubled at once to see her so sad and tearful.

I said shrinking, because her attitude, when I saw her, was that of one who wished to hide both herself and her grief. She did not shrink, however, when spoken to, but in very few words confessed she was “home-sick”. After a little of such comfort as could be offered, it was suggested to her that there was a possibility of her too having to comfort the speaker by and by for the same cause. A faint quivering smile lighted her face; the tear-drops fell; we silently took each other’s hands, and at once we felt that genuine sympathy which always consoles, even though it be unexpressed. We did not talk or stir till we heard the approaching footsteps of other pupils coming in from their play.”

This photograph of Ellen Nussey has been spectacularly restored and colourised by Michael O’Dowd – thank you!

A firm friendship was made, and a lasting one. Ellen it was who served as Charlotte’s chief bridesmaid and it was also Ellen, alongside Charlotte, who accompanied Anne Brontë on her final journey to Scarborough; even the reserved Emily Brontë took Ellen as a friend, a friendship that Ellen repaid by later remembering Emily as the greatest genius of the first half of the nineteenth century.

Ellen Nussey lived to be eighty years old. She never married; her one true, unending relationship was with the Brontës who had long predeceased her. It is thanks to her ripe old age (for the time) that we have so many photographs of Ellen, and a portrait of her. Ellen loved to talk about the Brontës, and she was never short of people willing to listen. There was a regular stream of visitors, Brontë fans, to her homes in Birstall and Gomersal in her later life, and one of these was the American-English artist Frederic Yates. He painted this beautiful portrait of Ellen in later years:

Ellen Nussey by Frederic Yates

We have a record of perhaps the last visit to Ellen Nussey, and a fascinating one it is too. It appeared in the Yorkshire Post on 29th November 1897:

Ellen Nussey in later life, pencil drawing

This same Yorkshire Post, two days earlier, had carried news of Ellen’s death:

Two days later, alongside the report of the visit by the unnamed West Riding lady, we hear a report of Ellen’s final moments:

Ellen’s funeral took place on the 30th November 1897. We hear that the Brontë Society sent a wreath, but that her funeral was sparsely attended due to terrible weather. She lies now in St. Peter’s churchyard, Birstall (that’s it at the head of this post), not far from another woman who was central to the Brontë story: Margaret Wooler.

Ellen Nussey, aged 65

There’s a further sad incident to reflect upon, I’m afraid, that came two years after Ellen’s death. Ellen had a great love for the church, and she was always ready to help the church, its clergy, and wider society in general. She was generous both with her time and money, and in her will she had made provision for ‘the benefit of the poor of Birstall.’ Alas, as this report in the Manchester Evening News of 21st April 1899 reveals, legal wrangling and complications ate up all the money that Ellen left, and the poor and needy were left with nothing:

Nevertheless Ellen was remembered fondly by all who knew her and by those in the area as a whole. Today she is known to a wider world of Brontë lovers as the woman who preserved the Brontë legacy in the decades after their passing. It is thanks to the hundreds of Charlotte Brontë’s letters which Ellen kept that we know so much about the Brontës today. That’s a legacy that can never be diminished.

Charlotte loved Ellen dearly. It was to Ellen that she wrote frankly, ‘It is from religion that you derive your chief charm and may its influence always preserve you as pure, as unassuming and as benevolent in thought and deed as you are now. What am I compared to you? I feel my own utter worthlessness when I make the comparison.’ Now that’s a tribute! I hope to see you all again next week for another new Brontë blog post.

Ellen Nussey old
Ellen Nussey photographed in old age

Oh, before I go, there’s another picture I want you to look at that you won’t have seen before. This late Victorian photograph was found in a West Yorkshire antique shop – to me it bears more than a resemblance to earlier photographs of Ellen Nussey, although this is of an older woman. Could this be the very last photograph of Ellen Nussey? It hangs proudly now on my wall.

Charlotte Brontë and Charles Dickens

I don’t mean to frighten anyone, but it’s just over a month until Christmas. The cold nights are definitely making themselves felt, and every television ad break seems to be accompanied by jingling bells. There’s one writer above all others who has become associated with Christmas, and he has been very much on my mind recently for reasons I will come to later: Charles Dickens. In today’s blog post, we’re going to look at Dickens and the Brontës.

We can’t in the space of a single blog post give anything approximating to a precis of the life of Dickens. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Portsmouth in February 1812, making him four years older than Charlotte Brontë. His life could have descended into poverty in 1824 when his father was incarcerated in a debtor’s prison, and the 12 year old Charles had to leave school and begin work in a factory. It is perhaps this experience that gave Dickens his sympathy with the impoverished and downtrodden of 19th century society. Nevertheless, as we know, Dickens elevated himself greatly through the force of his talent and personality; he is today perhaps the most famous novelist of them all, and was one of the most celebrated men in Victorian England.

Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens in a typically confident pose

Dickens was connected to most of the great novelists of the century, many of whom he serialised and published in his hugely influential magazine ‘Household Words’. Today, however, let’s focus on one particular writer who is always of interest to us. I mentioned Dickens and the Brontës earlier, but it is Charlotte Brontë to whom we turn, for it was she who has left her opinion on his works.

In May 1849, she wrote to W. S. Williams to explain that she could never write a serialised novel of the kind that Dickens had made so popular:

‘I verily believe that the “nobler sex” find it more difficult to wait, to plod, to work out their destiny inch by inch, than their sisters do. They are always for walking so fast and taking such long steps, one cannot keep up with them. One should never tell a gentleman that one has commenced a task till it is nearly achieved. Currer Bell, even if he had no let or hindrance, and if his path was quite smooth, could never march with the tread of a Scott, a Bulwer, a Thackeray, or a Dickens. I want you and Mr. Smith clearly to understand this.’

The Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth

In her letters Charlotte proclaimed herself particularly impressed by David Copperfield, but she took issue with one particular character in Bleak House:

‘Is the 1st. no. of Bleak House generally admired? I liked the Chancery part – but where it passes into the autobiographic form and the young woman who announces she is not “bright” begins her history – it seems to me too often weak and twaddling – an amiable nature is caricatured – not faithfully rendered in Miss Esther Summerson.’

So, we have seen that Charlotte Brontë held the work of Charles Dickens in some esteem but was critical of some aspects of it, but what did she think of the man? Did their paths ever cross? For an answer to that we turn to an obscure edition of an obscure magazine. ‘The Free Lance’ of 14th March 1868 contained an article by the author John Stores Smith. It is entitled ‘Personal Reminiscences: A Day With Charlotte Brontë’, so of course it’s of great interest to us.

Stores Smith explains in great, almost Dickensian, detail how he came to travel to Haworth one day in 1850 with the intention of meeting Charlotte Brontë. Haworth failed to impress him: ‘By the time I reached the end of its steep hill, my body was wearied, and my high spirits had all given way to an oppressive numbness of the soul. How anyone could live a life-time there, and not grow morbid, was incomprehensible.’ Neither was he taken by the parsonage: ‘The parsonage was a low stone house, which occupied one corner of the grave yard. A field had evidently been set apart, and the founders of the church had said: “In three-fourths of it we will inter the dead, and in that other fourth we will bury the living”… The stone of the house was of the same melancholy tint as the flags of the walk; a small door was in the centre, and a window on either side; in the only storey above were three windows, I think. Of all the sad, heart-broken looking dwellings I had passed throught this looked the saddest. A great sinking of spirit came over me, and I wished I had not come.’

Main Street, Haworth is very steep, but not as dispiriting today as it once was.

Nevertheless, safely inside, Stores Smith was impressed by Charlotte Brontë, or at least by the hypnotic power of her eyes (something that just about everyone who ever met Charlotte commented on): ‘She was diminutive in height, and extremely fragile in figure. Her hand was one of the smallest I have ever grasped. She had no pretensions to being considered beautiful, and was as far removed from being plain. She had rather light brown hair, somewhat thin, and drawn plainly over her brow. Her complexion had no trace of colour in it, and her lips were pallid also; but she had a most sweet smile, with a touch of tender melancholy in it. Altogether she was as unpretending, undemonstrative, quiet a little lady as you could well meet. Her age I took to be about five-and-thirty. But when you saw and felt her eyes, the spirit that created Jane Eyre was revealed at once to you. They were rather small, but of a very peculiar colour, and had a strange lustre and intensity. They were chameleon-like, a blending of various brown and olive tints. But they looked you through and through – and you felt they were forming an opinion of you, not by mere acute noting of Lavaterish physiognomical peculiarities [Joahnn Kasper Lavater was the author of a groundbreaking book on physiognomy], but by a subtle penetration into the very marrow of your mind, and the innermost core of your sole. Taking my hand again she apologised for her enforced absence, and, as she did so, she looked right through me. There was no boldness in the gaze, but an intense, direct, searching look, as one who had the gift to read hidden mysteries, and the right to read them.’

A young Charles Dickens. He found huge fame in his early 20s, despite his troubled upbringing

A fascinating portrait of Charlotte Brontë, but it is a few simple lines later in the account that are particularly relevant to today’s post: ‘In 1850, shortly after her visit to London as a literary lioness, she pictured her impressions of metropolitan literary life in most forbidding colours, and with clear, cutting, intense distaste of it; I may even say contempt. Dickens she had met, and admired his genius, but did not like him. Her homely thrift, and unpretending, retiring nature, shrunk from him, from an idea she had acquired of ostentatious extravagance on his part.’

This is the only account of Charlotte Brontë and Charles Dickens meeting. Some have cited the lack of corroborative evidence as proof that Stores Smith was wrong, but in my opinion it’s almost certain to be true. The account of both Charlotte Brontë’s reaction to literary London rings true with what we know of her character and tastes, and the account of Dickens’ extravagance fits perfectly with his character too. Charlotte was in London in the summer of 1850 and attended a number of literary parties thrown by her friend and publisher George Smith – Dickens was in London too at the time and was known for attending such parties, so it would seem unlikely that a chance for a meeting hadn’t presented itself. It could be that Charlotte had indeed mentioned meeting Dickens in letters of the time, but that these letters are now lost as so many sadly are. Finally, there would be no reason at all for Stores Smith to invent the meeting, and as we see from his description of Charlotte he was possessed of an excellent memory.

George Smith
George Smith – did Charlotte and Charles meet at one of his literary salons?

I’m confident in saying that Charlotte Brontë and Charles Dickens, these two enduring titans of Victorian literature, did meet. They were very different people, but they have both left a wonderful legacy for book lovers. Back to the start of my post: I said that Dickens had particularly caught my attention this week. That’s because a newly discovered letter on Tavistock House notepaper, presumed to be written by Dickens, has been placed before the world (Tavistock House was his London home from 1851 until 1860). The problem is that it is written in a code, in a type of shorthand that nobody has yet been able to decipher. The Dickens Project is offering £300 to anyone who can decode, or even partially decode it, but it has eluded my decoding skills so far. I reproduce the letter below, see if you can work out just what Charles Dickens was saying. I hope to see you again next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.

The Death And Obituaries Of Elizabeth Gaskell

On this Remembrance Sunday let us start by remembering and honouring all those who gave their today for our tomorrows; men like the fellow officers of Captain Arthur Branwell captured in this photograph not far from the French front. This first cousin of the Brontës once removed (his father Thomas Brontë Branwell travelled to Haworth and met his cousin Charlotte Brontë) was the only one of these five officers to make it home alive. There were many other such stories then, and still wars rage around the world stoked up by men who are safe in the knowledge that there will never be a front line that they themselves will serve at.

Arthur Branwell in World War 1

We also remember a writer who became a great friend of Charlotte Brontë and the great chronicler of her: Elizabeth Gaskell whose anniversary is this week; she died aged 55 on 12th November 1865. Elizabeth never met Anne Brontë, and so most of her pronouncements on Anne within her biography of Charlotte are based upon conversations with Charlotte and others. Nevertheless, her The Life Of Charlotte Brontë introduced Anne Brontë to the world as a person and not merely as the name on a book cover. In today’s post we look at the strange circumstances of the death of Elizabeth Gaskell, and at the tributes paid to her at the time.

We will be turning to the archives and to the newspapers of the day, before finishing with a very special letter. Firstly, let’s take a look at the simple obituary included in the London Illustrated News of 18th November 1865:

The Bury Times of 18th November 1865 gave the first details of the circumstances of Elizabeth’s death:

“Mrs. Gaskell, the authoress and biographer, was suddenly struck by death on Sunday last, while in the act of reading to her daughters. She has thus passed away in the midst of that domestic life out of which her literary talent grew and flourished. It is not many years ago that it was suggested to her to attempt to divert her mind from a deep household sorrow by the exercise of her imagination in the composition of a work of fiction, and Mary Barton was then written – much of it on backs of letters, and on other scraps of paper that fell in her way, probably with no intention of publication, and certainly with no hope of fame. The book was received with great interest and sympathy by the public, and with some hostility by the chief employers of labour in the Manchester district, who were displeased that their relations with the work-people should be discussed in this fashion, and perhaps not altogether satisfied with the spirit of entire justice with which Mrs. Gaskell treated some burning questions of social economy. From that time Mrs. Gaskell has written continuously and well.”

Elizabeth Gaskell by George Richmond (1851). Richmond also painted Charlotte Bronte

The deep household sorrow referenced above was the death of Elizabeth’s baby son William in 1844. It was indeed this that provided the catalyst for her first novel Mary Barton: A Tale Of Manchester Life. Elizabeth was mourned particularly in the Manchester and greater Lancashire area, and this next obituary, from the Ulverston Advertiser and General Intelligencer of 16th November 1865 gives a fitting tribute to her life and work:

“On Monday evening, the melancholy intelligence reached Manchester of the death of Mrs. Gaskell, the wife of the respected minister of the Unitarian Chapel, Cross-Street. She was visiting in London, where probably the death of Mr. Justice Crompton (whose son married Miss Gaskell) somewhat prolonged her stay. Her death was very sudden, and that there could have been no expectation of so speedy a termination of her life-work, nor even a thought of danger, is shown by the fact that Mr. Gaskell was preaching in his own chapel on Sunday, and was at home when the news of her decease reached him.

Mrs. Gaskell, whose maiden name was Stevenson, was born about the first year of this century [she was actually born in 1810]. She was brought up by some aunts, named Holland, at Knutsford. It was shortly after Mr. Gaskell’s settlement at Manchester, as co-pastor with the late Mr. Robberds, that the deceased lady met her future husband while she was visiting with Mr. Robberds. Their marriage took place about the year 1832, and four daughters were born to them. Mrs. Gaskell lived the honoured and useful life of a minister’s wife for many years before her name became known as an authoress. Doubtless during all those years she was maturing the powers which enabled her to take so high a place among modern novelists and biographers. With the modesty of doubt in her own gift, she issued her first work, Mary Barton, anonymously in 1848. It attracted great interest from the fact that its scene was laid in this neighbourhood, and that it revealed a new phase of life in a style of novel as it was entertaining.

The Gaskell Memorial Tower in Knutsford bears the titles of all her books

Since 1848 Mrs. Gaskell has written much, and not many publishing scenes have passed without some work from her pen. Indeed, considering the lateness of the harvest the wonder is that it has been so bountiful. Ruth appeared about 1852: and although not so striking a work as its predecessor, Mrs. Gaskell’s reputation lost nothing by it. Another of the popular novels was North And South, in which the painful incidents of a strike in the manufacturing districts were narrated with great vigour. Besides these Mrs. Gaskell wrote many less elaborate stories for the leading serials, some of which were subsequently published in a collected form.

But her greatest work and that by which she will be longest known, is her Life Of Charlotte Brontë, of which it has been said that no biography has equalled it since Boswell’s “Johnson”. In the earlier editions of this now standard work, some personal references were made which created much discussion, and which were omitted from subsequent editions…

Her conversational powers were of no mean order, and she was at all times an important acquisition to the social circle. Of late years she has travelled much abroad; but her inspiration was always found in English life and character. Her death leaves a blank that will not be easily filled.”

It is interesting to note that in obituaries of the time, Elizabeth Gaskell is most known for her biography of Charlotte Brontë. As reported above, Elizabeth’s husband, Reverend William Gaskell, was not with Elizabeth when she died. This it seems set some tongues wagging, and it was widely believed that Elizabeth and William were in fact separated and living apart at the time of her death. This was refuted by Reverend Hawkes who had known Elizabeth in Hampshire, and his account of her death appeared in the Westmorland Gazette of 25th November 1865:

The fact is that Reverend Gaskell did not even know that his wife had bought this property 190 miles from their Manchester home, still less that she often spent time there. We shall read later, however, that her plan was to eventually persuade her husband to retire there with her.

Reverend Hawkes’ report also confirms Elizabeth’s final word: ‘when’. Elizabeth’s body was transported from Hampshire to the Cheshire town of Knutsford for her funeral (her grave is at the head of this post). Although born in London, she had come home to the beautiful town in which she had been raised by her aunts. As this account from the Pall Mall Gazette of 18th November 1865 shows, her funeral was sparsely attended but the merchants of Manchester had gathered to pay tribute – any enmity now seemingly set aside:

It is sad to note that all in attendance were men, the daughters of Elizabeth Gaskell were not allowed to attend their mother’s funeral. This was a common practise at the time. It is to one of Elizabeth’s daughters that we turn for the final word on her death though. Ellen Nussey, great friend of Charlotte Brontë, came to know Elizabeth Gaskell and her family when she provided assistance with Elizabeth’s biography of Charlotte. After reading of Elizabeth’s passing, Ellen wrote to her daughter Meta Gaskell to express her condolences and ask for more information. The letter that Meta sent to Ellen in January 1866 is beautiful and melancholic:

Letter from Meta Gaskell to Ellen Nussey (with picture of Elizabeth Gaskell)

‘Noble beyond words’ is a fine tribute to Elizabeth Gaskell and to all who we remember today. The Cross-Street chapel in Manchester where William preached last night hosted an event to celebrate the life of Anne Brontë, and I hear from those in attendance that it was a great success. Well done to all who organised it! I hope you can join me again next week for another new Brontë blog post.

Charlotte Brontë’s Letters: Burn After Reading?

I love reading Brontë novels and poems of course, but I also love reading about their lives. Modern biographers can’t follow in Elizabeth Gaskell’s footsteps by interviewing people who knew the Brontës but they can still find some fascinating first hand accounts hidden away in archives. The primary source for our information on the Brontës, however, is undoubtedly the letters of Charlotte Brontë. Things could have been very different if an instruction given by Arthur Bell Nicholls in October 1854 had been followed, so in today’s post we’re going to look at why.

Charlotte’s main correspondent was her great friend Ellen Nussey. The letters to Ellen provide much of the information we know about the Brontës today, from details of their everyday lives to their writing endeavours and finally to accounts of the final days of Charlotte’s siblings. Charlotte was a frequent and brilliant letter writer, and each letter was written with a complete frankness and openness. It was this, it seems, that worried Arthur, by then Charlotte’s husband, as we see in this latter dated 20th October 1854:

To Arthur, the frank nature of Charlotte’s letter made them as dangerous as lucifer matches – the white phosphorous headed matches which could be deadly not only to the match girls who made them but also because of the fires they could potentially cause. Perhaps Arthur was looking to the future? Convinced of his wife’s genius, he could see that her life story would one day be in demand, and that the letters she was writing now could potentially be read by others in the future.

Charlotte’s reaction was an interesting one in that she laughs off Arthur’s suggestion, saying that it is simply that men don’t understand the female art of letter writing. Nevertheless, she insists that Ellen sends a promise to burn her letters, if only to appease Arthur.

How did Ellen respond? Let’s take a look at a letter of two weeks later, dated on this day, 167 years ago, 7th November 1854:

At the start of the second paragraph, Charlotte writes, ‘Arthur thanks you for the promise’, before going on to explain that his purpose is not to prevent old friends from communicating freely but rather he is worried about them being seen by eyes they were not intended to be seen by.

Arthur Bell Nicholls
Arthur Bell Nicholls was worried about who would see Charlotte’s letters in the future

So, Ellen has made a promise to burn Charlotte’s letters after reading, so what happened? It seems that Ellen herself was ashamed of the promise she had made. In fact, when Ellen gave a copy of this letter to Clement Shorter for use in a biography he was preparing, Ellen had deleted the start of the second paragraph and there is no mention of the promise at all.

The manuscript of this letter is now in the hands of the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and it tells a very interesting story as Ellen has written a running commentary, in pencil, alongside it. Her commentary reads ‘promise’, ‘conditional’, and ‘not complied with’, and at the foot of the letter Ellen has written, ‘he never did give the pledge.’

We also have the note that Ellen supplied to Arthur; it’s now in the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, and is in fact the only correspondence we have from Ellen to either Charlotte or Arthur (although there are many other letters from her extant). Here is a transcript of Ellen’s note:

Once again, however, Ellen’s pencil has later been used to interesting effect, as she has added the words: ‘Mr N continued his censorship so the pledge was void.’

The censorship talked of here indicates that Arthur had censored some of Charlotte’s letters before sending them on to Ellen. This practice seems abhorrent today, quite rightly, but it would have been nothing out of the ordinary at that time.

At the heart of the dispute over Charlotte’s letters was a great dislike between two of the most important people in Charlotte Brontë’s life: Arthur Bell Nicholls and Ellen Nussey, her husband and her best friend. In my view both of these people were kind and honest and both loved Charlotte deeply, but to say they didn’t get on is an understatement. Each believed the other to be monopolising Charlotte’s love, and Ellen’s bitterness at having to share Charlotte can be seen after the announcement of her engagement to Arthur; so angry was Ellen that she broke off all communication with Charlotte, and this estrangement stretched from July 1853 to February 1854. It was Margaret Wooler, who had once been headmistress to them both, who eventually brought them together again – in time for Ellen to serve as Charlotte’s bridesmaid.

Ellen Nussey
Ellen Nussey thankfully preserved hundreds of Charlotte’s letters

Charlotte’s untimely passing in 1855 did little to reconcile Arthur and Ellen, in fact Ellen unfairly blamed Arthur for her friend’s death. One of the final letters we have from Ellen was written to Clement Shorter in 1895, two years before her own passing and forty years after Charlotte’s but her enmity for Arthur was far from forgotten. She writes:

‘I am also sadly grieved that you will not give an hour for special information [i.e. will not visit Ellen] when you can go all the way to Ireland to see that selfish man [Arthur] who certainly shortened C.B.’s life, none of the sisters liked him, least of all Emily, who probably saw deeper into character than C. and A. She used to walk into the room for anything she wanted without casting a look on him… His poor wife left to his ignorant nursing when better aid was proposed. He evaded all her wishes for one weeks change ere her illness began when it was her purpose to make a will free of his influence. It was made in her dying moments on half a sheet of paper under his eye. Who could complain of the last if he had been other than he was.’

Ellen later goes on to say that Arthur was responsible for Charlotte’s death because he should have known that she was too small and frail to have children. In truth, of course, Charlotte died because of hyperemesis gravidurum, a condition neither she nor Arthur could have anticipated.

The enmity between these two important people in Charlotte’s life is sad, especially as they were both people who loved Charlotte dearly. On the other hand, it could have brought great benefits for the world of literature. Mary Taylor, Charlotte’s other great friend, destroyed most of the letters Charlotte had sent her: perhaps Arthur had given her the same instruction, but she had complied with it, or perhaps she was simply following the convention of the time after Charlotte’s death? Ellen, however, preserved Charlotte’s letters for posterity because of her dislike and distrust of Arthur Bell Nicholls. It is thanks to that that we have so many of Charlotte’s wonderful letters available to us today, and so much Brontë history at our fingertips.

I hope you can join me next week for another new Brontë blog post, but I must also bring to your notice a special event to mark 200 years of Anne Brontë being held at Cross Street Chapel, Manchester next Saturday the 13th of November, starting at 7.30. Filled with music and poetry it should be a special night in honour of a very special woman.

I leave you now with one of Charlotte’s earliest letters to Ellen Nussey. Typically frank, typically loving, typically humorous, it burns brighter than any lucifer match.

Brontë Halloween: The Grey Lady Of Haworth

It’s that time of year again. Whether you call it Halloween, Samhain, All Saint’s Eve or just an excuse to carve out a pumpkin and eat lots of sweets, today is a unique day within the calendar and one to be celebrated. In previous years on this blog we’ve looked at some spooky Brontë-related stories, from Mrs Baines the ghost of Penzance to the gytrash of Ponden Hall and reports of Anne Brontë haunting a staircase on Long Island.

We see ghostly apparitions throughout the works of Charlotte and Emily Brontë; only Anne seems to shun the supernatural in her works, possibly because she was more motivated by the pursuit and telling of the truth: she was more interested in the physical than the metaphysical.

From Charlotte we have the haunted red room to which a young Jane Eyre is consigned, the spooky fragments of an unfinished novel Willie Ellin, and of course the phantom nun of Villette:

Emily gives us one of the most famous ghost scenes in all literature as Catherine’s ghostly hands scratch at Lockwood’s window. We also get Emily’s statement delivered from Heathcliff’s mouth: ‘I pray one prayer – I repeat it till my tongue stiffens – Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you – haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth.’

In today’s new Halloween post we’re going to look at reports that a very famous ghost still wanders the earth of Haworth: that of Emily Brontë herself!

Let me in!

In the early nineteenth century, weaving was the main employment of the Haworth workforce. Eventually large factories and machine driven looms dominated the area and the West Riding of Yorkshire as a whole, but hand loom weavers could still be found who followed the old traditions of warp and weft. A line of old weaver’s cottages can still be seen in Haworth today on West Lane not far from the parsonage itself; dating from the mid-eighteenth century they would have been well known to the Brontë siblings, and on occasion may have been visited by them if they were accompanying their father on parochial visits.

One such cottage, beautiful and evocative, is now Weaver’s Guesthouse, although it has formerly been Weaver’s Restaurant and a Toby Jug restaurant. What stories it could tell. What stories it possibly continues to tell?

Weaver's cottages Haworth
Who could be haunting these Haworth weaver’s cottages?

For much of the twentieth century there were reports of a ghostly lady making a regular appearance. This grey lady was always dressed in a long grey dress with a bonnet and shawl, and carrying a basket on her arm as if she was making a visit.

In 1974 Keith Akeroyd, owner of the Toby Jug restaurant in the old weaver’s cottage, described one of the visitations, and made an appeal for an exorcism:

Birmingham Daily Post 300974
Birmingham Daily Post, 30th September 1974

Here we see the name that has long been associated with the grey lady: Emily Brontë! It is said that the ghost appears annually on 19th December, the anniversary of Emily’s tragic passing. Could this really be Emily Brontë’s ghost? Further descriptions always describe the grey lady as laughing and giggling; this is not how we usually think of Emily Brontë today, but in fact a letter from Ellen Nussey to Elizabeth Gaskell describes how Emily loved to play practical jokes and then laugh uproariously.

On the other hand, the grey lady is also invariably described as small and frail in stature. Emily would undoubtedly have been very frail by her end, but she was also the tallest in her family. Her sisters, on the other hand, were small in stature. Could these annual appearances be Emily’s final practical joke, or is it another spirit? If so, why does it choose the day of Emily’s death to appear? Another thing to consider is that the death rate in Haworth was so high at this time that there could well have been another woman from the area who passed away on that date, perhaps someone small and frail who carried a basket?

Weaver’s Guesthouse is a magnificent place to stay in that I recommend to anyone, so don’t let tales of ghosts put you off! Ghosts can be found, they say, in just about every building of age in Haworth. It’s a liminal village where spirits seem to wander easily, particularly at Halloween when the veil between this world and others is said to be at its slightest.

Oh, by the way, as the Birmingham Daily Post of October 2nd 1974 points out, the exorcism didn’t take place. If you hear a giggling, see a grey haze, or hear a rustling noise the next time you’re in Haworth you could have encountered a very special person indeed. I hope to see you all next week for a new Brontë blog post; have a Happy Halloween, and try not to be too scared as you turn out the lights!

Charlotte Brontë’s Love Of The French Language

Charlotte Brontë has become known, quite rightly, as one of the greatest prose writers the English language has ever seen. Along with the works of her sisters Emily and Anne Brontë her works continue to be read across the globe, and Jane Eyre alone has been translated into at least 57 languages (it could be 58 by now if a Klingon version has appeared). There was one language Charlotte loved more than any other, however, so today we’re going to look at Charlotte Brontë’s love of French (and don’t worry, you won’t need to understand a word of it to read this post).

One reason for the timing of today’s post is that this week marks the anniversaries of two very different letters that Charlotte Brontë wrote in the French language, the first of which is one of the earliest letters from Charlotte which remains extant.

One of many French versions of Jane Eyre

On 18th October 1832 16 year old Charlotte was writing to Ellen Nussey, the great friend she had made upon her entrance to Roe Head school near Mirfield a year earlier. Charlotte has by this time left the school (although she will soon return as a teacher there) but she is still keeping up with her lessons, and insisting that Ellen does too:

A sweet, loving letter in the aftermath of a visit to Ellen’s home, and although Charlotte begs Ellen to at least try to use the ‘universal language’ in her reply I’m placing the English translation below:

We see then that the love of French was ingrained in Charlotte from her youth onwards, and it never really left her. It was this that made Charlotte long to enter school in a French speaking country in 1842, so that she could hone her skills in this language and then pass them on to pupils in the school she was then planning on setting up with her sisters. Eventually Charlotte and Emily Brontë ended up at the Pensionnat Heger in Brussels, but at one point they were destined to attend a school in Lille in northern France. On 20th January 1842 she wrote to Ellen:

‘We expect to leave England in less than three weeks – but we are not yet certain as to the day as it will depend upon the convenience of a French lady now in London Madame Marzials under whose escort we are to sail. Our place of destination is changed. Papa received an unfavourable account from Mr or rather Mrs Jenkins of the French schools in Bruxelles – representing them as of an inferior caste in many respects. On further inquiry an institution in Lille in the north of France was highly recommended by Baptist Noel & other clergymen – and it is to that place it is decided that we are to go.’

Baptist Noel
Baptist Wriothesley Noel who advised Charlotte Bronte to go to Lille

Despite the advice of Mrs Jenkins and Baptist Noel (an Anglican priest of aristocratic stock who was seen as one of the leaders of the evangelical movement) Charlotte and Emily left for Brussels, not Lille, three weeks later. It was in Brussels, of course, that Charlotte encountered her great unrequited love Constantin Heger, a man who did little to dampen her admiration of the French language.

Thus we find French used in all her novels, and extensively so in The Professor and Villette. Her publisher George Smith begged her to allow the use of translated passages after her French ones, but Charlotte stood firm and insisted on French only in the passages she had so written. Like Ellen Nussey in 1832, her readers must learn to be more proficient in the ‘universal language’. Fortunately for readers such as myself whose French is more ‘sacre bleu!’ than ‘ooh la la!’ we can now buy versions that do contain English translations, such as in my 1973 copy of Villette below. Even so, most editions still adhere to Charlotte’s instruction, which can lead to readers wishing that Charlotte was rather less enamoured of the French language:

We come now to Charlotte’s second letter with an anniversary this week – in fact it was on this day 1844 that Charlotte Brontë wrote the following letter to Constantin Heger:

And in English (courtesy of brilliant Brontë editor and expert Margaret Smith): ‘Sir, I am full of joy this morning – something which has rarely happened to me these last two years – it is because a gentleman of my acquaintance will be passing through Brussels and has offered to take charge of a letter to you – which either he or else his sister will deliver to you, so that I shall be certain you have received it.

I am not going to write a long letter – first of all I haven’t the time, it has to go immediately – and then I am afraid of boring you. I would just like to ask you whether you have heard of me at the beginning of May and then in the month of August? For all those six months I have been expecting a letter from you, Monsieur – six months of waiting. That is a very long time indeed! Nevertheless I am not complaining and I shall be richly recompensed for a little sadness if you are now willing to write a letter and give it to this gentleman – or to his sister – who would deliver it to me without fail.

However short the letter may be I shall be satisfied with it – only do not forget to tell me how you are, Monsieur, and how Madame and the children are and the teachers and pupils.

My father and sister send you their regards – my father’s affliction is gradually increasing, however he is still not completely blind; my sisters are keeping well but my poor brother is always ill.

Goodbye Monsieur, I am counting on soon having news of you – this thought delights me for the remembrance of your kindness will never fade from my memory and so long as this remembrance endures, the respect it has inspired in me will endure also.

Your very devoted pupil, C. Brontë

I have just had bound all the books that you gave me when I was still in Brussels. I take pleasure in looking at them – they make quite a little library. First there are the completed works of Bernardin de St. Pierre, the Pensees of Pascal, a book of verse, two German books, and (something worth all the rest) two speeches, by Professor Heger – given at the Prize Distribution of the Athénée Royal.’

Constantin Heger
Constantin Heger inspired some of Charlotte’s greatest work

A letter full of hope and joy, but in retrospect full of sadness as not only did this letter receive no reply it was one of the missives which were ripped up, presumably by Monsieur Heger, and then stitched back together by his wife. Without Charlotte’s love of the French language she may never have been inspired to go to Brussels, never have met Constantin Heger and never have written the characters he inspired such as Paul Emanuel and Edward Rochester.

Whatever language you read your Brontë books in I hope you enjoy them, and I hope you can join me next week for another new Brontë blog post.

Charlotte Brontë After The Publication Of Jane Eyre

This weekend saw the anniversary of a very special day in the Brontë story, and in the story of English literature as a whole. On 16th October 1847 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë was published by Smith, Elder & Co. Its success was instant and yet has proven enduring, so in today’s post we’re going to look at Charlotte’s comments in the aftermath of the book’s publication, accompanied by some beautiful illustrations from my two volume edition illustrated by Edmund Dulac.

19th October 1847, to Smith, Elder and Co.

‘Gentlemen, the six copies of “Jane Eyre reached me this morning. You have given the work every advantage which good paper, clear type and a seemly outside can supply. If it fails, the fault will lie with the author – you are exempt. I now await the judgement of the press and the public.’

28th October 1847, to W. S. Williams

‘Dear Sir, your last letter was very pleasant to me to read, and is very cheering to reflect on. I feel honoured in being approved by Mr. Thackeray because I approve Mr. Thackeray. This may sound presumptuous perhaps, but I mean that I have long recognized in his writings genuine talent such as I admired, such as I wondered at and delighted in… One good word from such a man is worth pages of praise from ordinary judges.

You are right in having faith in the reality of Helen Burns’s character: she was real enough: I have exaggerated nothing there: I restrained from recording much that I remember respecting her, lest the narrative should sound incredible. Knowing this, I could not but smile at the quiet, self-complacent dogmatism with which one of the journals lays it down that “such creations as Helen Burns are very beautiful but very untrue.”

The plot of “Jane Eyre” may be a hackneyed one; Mr. Thackeray remarks that it is familiar to him; but having read comparatively few novels, I never chanced to meet with it, and I thought it original…

I would still endeavour to keep my expectations low regarding the ultimate success of “Jane Eyre”; but the desire that it should succeed augments – for you have taken much trouble about the work, and it would grieve me seriously if your active efforts should be baffled and your sanguine hopes disappointed.’

6th November 1847, to W. S. Williams

‘Dear Sir, I shall be obliged if you shall direct the enclosed to be posted in London, as at present I wish to avoid giving any clue to my place of residence, publicity not being my ambition.

It is an answer to the letter I received yesterday, favoured by you; this letter bore the signature of G. H. Lewes, and the writer informs me that it is his intention to write a critique on “Jane Eyre” for the Decbr. number of Frazer’s Magazine – and possibly also, he intimates, a brief no for the Westminster Review. Upon the whole he seems favourably inclined to the work though he hints disapprobation of the melo-dramatic portions.

Can you give me any information respecting Mr. Lewes? What station he occupies in the literary world and what works he has written? He styles himself “a fellow-novelist”. There is something in the candid tone of his letter which inclines me to think well of him.’

6th November 1847, to G. H. Lewes

‘Dear Sir, your letter reached me yesterday; I beg to assure you that I appreciate fully the intention with which it was written, and I thank you sincerely both for its cheering commendation and valuable advice.

You warn me to beware of Melodrame and you exhort me to adhere to the real. When I first began to write, so impressed was I with the truth of the principles you advocate that I determined to take Nature and Truth as my sole guides and to follow in their very footprints; I restrained imagination, eschewed romance, repressed excitement; over-bright colouring too I avoided, and sought to produce something which should be soft, grave and true. My work (a tale in 1 vol) being completed, I offered it to a publisher. He said it was original, faithful to Nature, but he did not feel warranted in accepting it, such a work would not sell.’

10th November 1847, to W. S. Williams

‘Dear Sir, I have received the Britannia and the Sun, but not the Spectator, which I rather regret, as censure, though not pleasant, is often wholesome. Thank you for your information regarding Mr. Lewes. I am glad to hear that he is a clever and sincere man; such being the case, I can await his critical sentence with fortitude: even if it goes against me, I shall not murmur; ability and honesty have a right to condemn where they think condemnation is deserved. From what you say, however, I trust rather to obtain at least a modified approval.

Your account of the various surmises respecting the identity of the brothers Bell, amused me much: were the enigma solved, it would probably be found not worth the trouble of solution; but I will let it alone; it suits ourselves to remain quiet and certainly injures no one else.’

17th November 1847, to W. S. Williams

‘Dear Sir, the perusal of the Era gave me much pleasure, as did that of the People’s Journal. An author feels particularly gratified by the recognition of a right tendency in his works; for if what he writes does no good to the reader, he feels he has missed his chief aim, wasted, in a great measure, his time and labour. The Spectator seemed to have found more harm than good in “Jane Eyre”, and I acknowledge that distressed me a little.

I am glad to be told that your are not habitually over-sanguine: I shall now permit myself to encourage a little more freely the hopeful sentiment which your letters usually impart, and which hitherto I have always tried to distrust. Still I am persuaded every nameless writer should “rejoice with trembling” over the first doubtful dawn of popular good-will; and that he should hold himself prepared for change and disappointment: Critics are capricious, and the Public is fickle; besides one work gives so slight a claim to favour.’

1st December 1847, to Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co.

‘Gentlemen, the Examiner reached me to-day; it had been missent on account of the direction which was to Currer Bell, Care of Miss Brontë. Allow me to intimate that it would be better in future not to put the name of Currer Bell on the outside of communications; if directed simply to Miss Brontë they will be more likely to reach their destination safely. Currer Bell is ‘not’ known in this district and I have no wish that he should become known.

The notice in the Examiner gratified me very much; it appears to be from the pen of an able man who has understood what he undertakes to criticise; of course approbation from such a quarter is encouraging to an Author and I trust it will prove beneficial to the work. I am Gentlemen, yours respectfully, C Bell.’

We can see, as always, what a wonderful letter writer Charlotte Brontë was, but we can see much more as well. There are practical matters, such as the fact that Charlotte didn’t know who G. H. Lewes was and had to enquire as to his character and writing prowess. Lewes is much better known today not for his own literary output, or his work as a critic, but as the common law husband of Mary Ann Evans – the writer George Eliot. When Charlotte finally met Lewes, after the death of her siblings, she wrote that she was moved to tears because of his facial resemblance to Emily Brontë.

We also get a glimpse into Charlotte’s emotions after the publication of Jane Eyre; it seems incredible to us today, but Charlotte was worried about whether it would be a success, and whether it was good enough to justify the time and money her publishers had invested in it. She was beset by doubts even at the height of her success, the ‘imposter syndrome’ that so many writers and artists have to struggle with.

Winter draws near, so there’s never been a better time to re-read Jane Eyre or re-watch one of its brilliant adaptations. Nevertheless I hope you can find time to join me next week for another new Brontë blog post.