Christmas draws ever closer, so I hope you and your loved ones are nearly ready for the big day and are full of the joys of this festive time of year! It was a special day in the Brontë Parsonage on this day in 1847 as it was December 14th of that year when Emily and Anne Brontë received their six author copies of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey – published jointly by Thomas Cautley Newby.
Their delight was dampened a little when they discovered that the book contained many printing errors, but nothing could stop the lasting success of these fabulous books. 1847 was a year of triumph in the parsonage, for earlier that year Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre had been published making its author Currer Bell (as the world thought then) an overnight success.
The future looked bright as Christmas 1847 approached, and I want to help brighten up the approach of Christmas 2025 for all you fabulous readers of this blog. At nearly a quarter of a million readers every month, your continued support means the world to me – especially at a time which has brought challenges for me and my family.
That’s why I’ll be doing a 12 Days Of Brontë Christmas countdown every day until the day Santa himself arrives. That means I’ll be doing a simple post every day in keeping with the song we all know, meaning that the 12th day will fall on Christmas Day itself. So without further ado, let’s see what day one brings:
On the first day of Brontë Christmas the Brontës brought to me, a merlin on a bare tree.
Emily Brontë found an injured merlin hawk on the moors she loved to roam, and nursed it back to health. Emily named the hawk Nero and immortalised it in this very fine portrait. What happened to Nero? Emily gave this sad update after returning from her 1842 journey to Brussels: “lost the hawk Nero, which, with the geese [Adelaide and Victoria], was given away, and is doubtless dead, for when I came back from Brussels, I inquired on all hands and could hear nothing of him.”
I hope you can join me tomorrow for another 12 Days Of Brontë Christmas post!
Delightful reading
Thank you Maria.
What a beautiful painting she did! This will be such a delight, your plan of writing something each day for the next 12 days. I’m so looking forward to the one tomorrow!
Thank you very much Lucy!
What a lovely idea!
I look forward to reading the following days…..