A letter of Charlotte to be auctioned in Sotheby's

Next July 1514, at Sotheby's there will be an auction with interesting Brontë items: English Literature, History, Children's Books & Illustrations:

LOT 36
Property removed from Dunecht House, Aberdeenshire
Charlotte Brontë Autograph Letter Signed, to Ellen Nussey

Estimate 15,000-20,000 GBP
17500 GBP SOLD to the Brontë Society.

"...I know my own sentiments because I can read my own mind, but the mind of the rest of man and woman-kind, are to me sealed volumes, hieroglyphicked scrolls which I cannot easily either unseal or decipher; yet time, careful study, long acquaintance overcome most difficulties, and in your case, I think they have succeeded well in bringing to light and Construing that hidden language whose turnings, windings, inconsistencies, and obscurities, so frequently baffle the researches of the honest observer of human Nature..."
A remarkable, intense letter by the young Charlotte Brontë to one of her closest friends. The two young women had met in 1831 when both were students at Margaret Wooler's school near Dewsbury (some 15 miles from Haworth). By the time of this letter she was 18 and back living at the parsonage with her siblings, the four of them together deeply immersed in writing about their imaginary kingdoms of Gondal and Angria. Her letters to Ellen through the early months of 1834 show the deep impression made on her by her friend's first trip to London. This letter reveals the extraordinary contrast between Brontë's wide-ranging and free imagination - her talk of "hieroglyphicked scrolls" and observations of human nature - and the constraints of her domestic life, which made London an almost-unimaginably distant place of fascination and sin.
A partially unpublished letter. Although included in ed. Smith, Letters of Charlotte Brontë Vol I, 1829-1847 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), where it is cited as an untraced manuscript, the published text has elisions and includes a number of textual anomalies which the original manuscript can correct.

LOT 57 Wuthering Heights + Agnes Grey
[Brontë, Emily and Anne Brontë.]

8vo (193 x 120mm.), 3 volumes, first edition, p.342 in volume one misnumbereed "242", p.382 in volume 2 misnumbered "282", p.313 in volume 3 misnumbered "213" (all points listed by Smith), without the advertisements sometimes present at the end of volume 3, nineteenth-century half calf by E. Riley and son, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt, spines in six compartments decorated in gilt with morocco labels lettered in gilt, bookplates removed from upper paste-downs, very occasional minor spotting and
browning to edges of some leaves.

Estimate 90,000-130,000 GBP
241,250 GBP SOLD

The very rare first edition (issued with her sister's novel Agnes Grey) in near fine condition of Emily Brontë's classic romantic work, consistently among the three best-selling novels in the English language. Almost universally rejected by uncomprehending reviewers upon publication (sales were not even of an order to justify any publisher's payment to either Emily or Anne Brontë) Wuthering Heights has since become established as one of the most extraordinary novels of the nineteenth century, combining passionate and vindictive characters, a moorland setting, casual violence, self-destructive love and a vengeful theme, all held together with "the complete absence of any moral tone or purpose—a quality almost unique in Victorian fiction" (Juliet Barker, Oxford
DNB).

LOT 53
Jane Eyre
[Brontë, Charlotte.]
8vo (195 x 121mm.), first edition, 3 volumes, half-titles, publisher's 32pp. catalogue dated June 1847 and one leaf advertising The Calcutta Review at the end of volume 1,
contemporary polished calf, spines in six compartments decorated in gilt, maroon and olive green morocco labels lettered in gilt, top edges gilt, dark blue endpapers, original reddish-brown cloth spines bound in at the end, bookplates removed, some slight spotting to endpapers (particularly volume 3), minor marks to binding, very slight edge-wear

Estimate 12,000-18,000 GBP
27,500 GBP SOLD

First edition of Charlotte's Brontë's first published novel, the inspiration for countless further literary works and later cinematic adaptations.

[BRONTË, ANNE.]
LOT 52
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. By Acton Bell. London: T.C. Newby, 1848

12mo (193 xﾠ120mm.), 3 volumes,ﾠfirst edition,ﾠhalf-title in volume 1, without the publisher's advertisement at the end of volume 1, nineteenth-century half polished calf by E. Riley and son, marbled boards and endpapers, spines in six compartments gilt with maroon and green morocco labels lettered in gilt, top edges gilt, later endpapers, some very minor browning and spotting to leaves and binding, minimal wear to edges of binding

Estimate 15,000-20,000 GBP
18,750 GBP SOLD
LOT 54
[BRONTË, CHARLOTTE.]

Shirley. A Tale by Currer Bell. SMith, Elder & Co., 1849
8vo (193 x 120mm.), first edition, 3 volumes, without the publisher's advertisements at the end of volume 1, signature *U1.8 in volume 3 a cancel ("patronizingly" hyphenated on p.289 with "n" carried over to next line and line 1. on p.304 in corrected state), 3pp. of advertisements at the end of volume 3, nineteenth-century half polished calf, spines in six compartments decorated in gilt, black and olive green morocco labels lettered in gilt, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt, some slight spotting to early and late leaves and edges

Estimate 1500-2000 GBP
1,875 GBP SOLD

Categories: Brontëana, Charlotte Brontë