Brontë family manuscripts in Special Collections
Literary Gothic in Special Collections
Brontë family manuscripts in Special Collections
Oscar Wilde in Special Collections
Twentieth century gothic: Dennis Wheatley & Sophie Hannah
Special Collections holds a substantial collection of manuscripts and letters relating to members of the Brontë family, with a particular focus on Branwell and Charlotte. These have all been digitised and are available online. The image seen here is of one of Charlotte Brontë's exercise books from her time in Brussels at the beginning of the 1840s and is the beginning of a meditation, in French, titled 'L'Immensité de Dieu'.
Francis O'Gorman, former Professor of Victorian Literature at the University of Leeds, has written an Editorial Introduction to the collection.
We also hold a substantial collection of related Bronteana: first and other early editions of works by the Brontë sisters, their father Patrick and their brother Branwell, together with critical and biographical studies of them, mostly dating from the 1930s and earlier. The rarest item is a copy of the Aylott and Jones first edition of the Brontë sisters' poems. The printed books accompany the collection of manuscripts and correspondence of the Brontës.
