GASKELL AND THE BRONTËS

Literary Manuscripts of Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) and the Brontës from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds

Publisher's Note

This project brings together two outstanding collections for the study of Victorian Literature from the holdings of the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds.

The collection of Elizabeth Gaskell’s correspondence is the largest in the world.  There are many letters to her daughters, Marianne (Polly), Margaret (Meta), Florence (Flossy) and Julia, and to her sisters-in-law, Eliza Holland and Nancy Robson.  These tell us much about her concerns, her views of literature, and her life at home with the Rev William Gaskell.  They feature a host of observations of human behaviour and personal relationships of the type that she captured so elegantly in Cranford and Wives and Daughters.

Her concern for the working classes and  ‘Factory Girls’ crops up frequently in the correspondence and a letter to Lord Lansdowne of 16 October 1862 concerns the plight of Lancashire cotton workers at the time of the American Civil War.  There is also a fascinating interchange with John Forster, friend and biographer of Dickens, requesting that he use his influence to get Tennyson to present a copy of his poems to Sam Bamford, the poor, aged, Lancashire weaver-poet.  A subsequent letter describing the reception of the gift is a polished cameo of emotional observation. Other correspondents include John Ruskin, Caroline Clive, and the Swedish novelist, Frederika Bremer, who addresses her as “Dear Sister in Spirit.”

A brief but revealing manuscript journal kept by Elizabeth Gaskell from 1835 to 1838 is also included.  This was kept for the benefit of her daughters and starts when Marianne was almost six months old. “I wish I had begun my little journal sooner,” she declares at the outset, before providing a charming account of motherhood and family life.   In addition we cover the autograph manuscript of Sylvia’s Lovers – a story of press-gangs, the whaling industry, a duplicitous husband, and sexual jealousy - which was formerly in the possession of her publishers, Smith, Elder & Co, and has printer’s marks as well as many revisions by the author.  

Finally there is the Family Commonplace Book kept by Jane Adeane and family, containing a collection of anecdotes, stories, limericks, and supernatural tales.  This includes a letter from Gaskell to Lady Hatherton.

The Brontë collection is equally rich and diverse.  Maria Brontë, mother of Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, is represented by an essay on “The advantages of poverty in religious concerns.”

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) is represented by a significant body of manuscripts.  Pride of place must go to the Poems, written out and dated by her husband, A B Nicholls, containing ‘Memory,’ ‘St John on the island of Patmos,’ ‘'tis the siesta’s languid hour,’ ‘when thou sleepest,’ ‘this ring of gold,’ ‘she was alone that evening,’ and 12 other items. This also features a ‘Discussion of the Truth of the Bible’ in dialogue form, attributed to Anne.  There are also two exercise books used by Charlotte when travelling in Europe, 1842-1844, and written in French.   Important correspondence by Charlotte and her close friends includes letters between Charlotte and W S Williams, the reader at Smith, Elder & Co; a substantial body of letters and notes to and from Ellen Nussey; and letters of A B Nicholls to Clement Shorter and Ellen Nussey.

The particular strength of the Brontë collection is in the prose works of (Patrick) Branwell Brontë (1817-1848), who is now attracting increasing scholarly attention.  They include his Letters from an Englishman, in six miniature volumes, his translation of the Odes of Horace, numerous ‘Angrian’ prose fragments, and his extraordinary illustrated letters to J B Leyland.  Much of the Angrian material only resurfaced in 1980.  The Angrian tales are wonderful in form and content and represent a fine example of the imaginary lands, lives and societies created by the Brontë children in secret for their own amusement.  Over 300 folios of material describe the coronation of the King of Angria, the opening of the first Angrian Parliament, the Massacre of Dongola, the adventures of Charles Wentworth, the Angrian Revolution, and the death of Mary, wife of Northangerland.  There are also autograph poems by Branwell.

There were, of course, real connections between Gaskell and the Brontës.  Elizabeth Gaskell was both a close friend and Charlotte’s first biographer.  Her depiction of parental strictness and the loneliness of life on the moors have done much to shape subsequent perceptions of the Brontës and their works.  These connections are fully reflected in the collections.  One item – a fine memorial volume created for Sir Edward Brotherton – comprises a letter from the author of Jane Eyre describing a visit paid to Mrs Gaskell, and an autograph manuscript from the latter giving a lengthy account of her return visit to Charlotte Brontë at Haworth.  

Thanks are due to Chris Sheppard, Head of Special Collections, the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, and to our Consultant Editor, Francis O’Gorman, Senior Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Leeds, for their support.

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