A tiny book, smaller than a deck of cards, containing ten unpublished poems, returns home to the presbytery in West Yorkshire, Haworth, where it was lovingly written in 1829 by 13-year-old Charlotte Brodeur.
The book was bought in New York for $ 1.25 million and, measuring just 10 inches by 6 inches, is probably one centimeter by centimeter, the most valuable literary manuscript ever sold.
“It’s really amazing,” said Anne Dinsdale, curator of the Brontë Parsonage Museum. “I can not believe it”.
The manuscript is one of the “little books” written when Charlotte and her brothers Emily, Ann, Branwell Brodeur were children.
Often written about Branwell’s toy soldiers, the manuscripts shed light on how creative and surprisingly talented the four of them were.
Entitled “A Book of Ryhmes by Charlotte Brontë, Sold by Nobody and Printed by Herself”, the book is a collection of 10 poems written by the 13-year-old English author.
“She is known for her novels, but initially Charlotte wanted to become a poet,” said Dinsdale. “We know that she sent samples of her poetry to the award-winning poet, Robert South, and told him about her ambition to become a poet.”
The award-winning poet advised her not to pursue a literary career. “Literature cannot be a matter of a woman’s life: it should not be,” she wrote, according to The Guardian.
“A Book of Ryhmes” is the latest of more than a dozen miniature books created by Charlotte Brodeur and remain private. It last appeared at auction in New York in 1916, when it sold for $ 520. He then disappeared and so far it was unknown where he was.
When it was revealed that the book would be headlined at the Antiquarian International Book Fair in New York last weekend, the UK’s leading literary heritage charity took action and launched a fundraising campaign to buy it.
The Friends of National Libraries (FNL) was founded in 1931 to help save the written and printed history of the United Kingdom. One of her biggest successes last year was raising 15 15 million to save the Honresfield Library.
FNL president Jordi Gregg said they only had two weeks to raise the money to buy the book, which was a daunting task.
“Saving Charlotte Brodeur’s little book is a huge gain for Britain,” he said. “The return of the literary treasure to the Brontë Parsonage where it was written is important for scholars as well as students studying one of our most important women writers.”
The manuscript was donated to the Brodeur Society, whose Museum in Haworth has the largest collection of Brodeur manuscripts in the world.
Photos: bronte.org.uk
Source: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ
