The first page of the Bronte manuscript, dated 1830. (Click on image to enlarge). Image copyright Sotheby's. UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £690,850.
AN unpublished notebook by Charlotte Brontë, the most important Brontë manuscript to appear at auction in more than thirty years, will highlight Sotheby’s sale of English Literature in London on December 15. Set in ‘Glass Town’, the earliest fictional world that the four Brontë siblings created, and written by a fourteen-year-old Charlotte in miniature magazine format, The Young Men’s Magazine, Number 2, is dated August 1830.
The Bronte manuscript held in the palm of a hand. (Click on image to enlarge). Image copyright Sotheby's.
The story within contains a colourful tale of murder and madness which includes a precursor to one of the most famous scenes in Jane Eyre – the moment when Bertha, Mr Rochester’s insane wife seeks revenge by setting fire to the bed curtains in her husband’s chamber.
Containing more than 4,000 words painstakingly crammed on to 19 pages, it is estimated to make £200,000-300,000.
UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £690,850. This is a new record for at auction for a manuscript by Charlotte Bronte and a record at auction for any work by the Bronte sisters. It was bought by La Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits, Paris, where it will be exhibited in January.