It’s a thrill to see Brontë’s own handwriting close up: it brings you so close to her.Īh, well – it’s interesting you say that. They were given to the museum by Sir Clifford Albutt, Miss Wooler’s great nephew. The pattern was established here at the Fitz by Sydney Cockerell, who was Director for much of the first half of the twentieth century, when the letters came into the museum’s collection.

It’s not what you would find if they were housed in archives or even the British Library they would be preserved as separate leaves. It’s a very Fitzwilliam thing to do, and it’s a museum way of treating literary remains.

The binding: Suzanne notes that it’s “very feminine” with its floral design They have been bound in such a way, on Japanese paper, that they’re very easy to take one out without harming them. It’s really for reasons of preservation – letters are very ephemeral, and it’s very easy for them to “escape” – and the decision to bind them comes from their museum setting. This group of letters was only bound about ten years ago. Is it normal for letters to be bound like this?

We met with Suzanne Reynolds, Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts and Printed Books, to find out more… Hello Suzanne. Missing pages suggest that, after her death, traces of her struggles with severe depression and mental ill-health were removed from her official biography. The physical state of the letters reveal how contested Brontë’s legacy was. They have strongly influenced how we think about Charlotte Brontë, thanks to their use by Elizabeth Gaskell as a source for her biography: the first full-length biography of a female novelist written by one of her fellows.Īnd yet they may have been subject to censorship. They cover the tragic deaths of Brontë’s sisters, authors Emily and Anne, and brother Branwell her struggles with her publishers skirmishes with fellow writer Harriet Martineau and her eventual, conflicted decision to marry. The Fitzwilliam’s letters unlock a network of women, all of them – in different ways – wrestling with the problem of having a voice as authors and thinkers in their own right. “My dear Miss Wooler”… Bronte begins a letter in her neat, precise handwritingīrontë, the author of Jane Eyre, is one of the giants of nineteenth-century literature. This beautiful high-ceilinged room is full of treasures – including a set of personal letters from author Charlotte Brontë to her friend and former headmistress Margaret Wooler. The Her Story project’s latest venture takes us to the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Founder’s Library.

Villette bronte