Brontës

by Juliet Barker

  34. Ibid., 31 Dec 1846 p.8.Though it is possible Patrick was aligning himself with Scoresby’s opponents (Morgan and Boddington both declined to attend) it is more likely that distance and bad weather prevented him attending so soon after his cataract operation.

  35. HG, 6 Mar 1847 p.4.

  36. PB, LI, 27 Mar 1847 p.8[LRPB, 186–7].

  37. PB, marginal notes in his copy of Graham, Modern Domestic Medicine): HAOBP:bb210 contents page, BPM.

  38. PB, LM, 5June 1847 p.7 [LRPB, 188]. Later in the year Charlotte told Ellen that she ‘had always consoled myself with the idea of having my front teeth extracted and rearranged some day’ under the influence of ether but, having heard of its effect on Ellen’s friend, Catherine Swaine, she would ‘think twice before I consented to inhale; one would not like to make a fool of oneself’: CB to EN, [?29 Oct or early Nov 1847]: MS 24456 p.4, Huntington [LCB, i, 556].

  39. PB, LI, 25 Sept 1847 p.6[LRPB, 190]. Patrick had conducted a personal crusade on behalf of clever, pious young men in his parish for many years, offering William Hodgson a curacy, for example, and supporting their applications for preferment: see, for example, his testimonial for Revd W. R. Thomas who wished to become an emigrant teacher: PB to the Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 22 June 1850: MS file DOS 1961, USPG [LRPB, 199].

  40. PB, Church Reform, Nov 1847: MS pp.1–2, in private hands. This copy, in Patrick’s hand, was preserved by Nicholls: another copy in an unidentified hand, is MS BS x, H, BPM.

  41. CB to EN, 28 Dec 1846: MS HM 24451 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, i, 509].

  42. CB to EN, 19 Jan 1847: MS BS 57.5, pp.2–4, BPM [LCB, i, 511]. Ellen has deleted her sister-in-law’s name in the ms.

  43. CB to EN, 1 Mar 1847: MS pp.2–3, Law, photograph in MCP, BPM [LCB, i, 518].

  44. Ibid, p.3[LCB, i, 520].

  45. The Robinsons finally left Thorp Green on 3March 1847, Mrs Robinson to go ‘among her relations’, the children into lodgings in York until 10 March when they joined their mother at Great Barr Hall: Hibbs, Victorian Ouseburn, 25(e), 26(f). According to Whitehead, the Misses Robinson had been on a protracted visit ‘among their relations’; from 16 November 1846 to 8February 1847: ibid., 24(a).

  46. CB to EN, 1Mar 1847: MS p.3, Law, photograph in MCP, BPM [LCB, i, 518].

  47. CB to EN, 12 May [1847]: MS p.3, Berg [LCB, i, 524].

  48. CB to EN, [?14 May 1847]: MS pp.2–3, Columbia [LCB, i, 525]; BO, 18 Mar 1847 p.4. Two of Branwell’s friends, Francis Grundy and George Gooch, were engineers on this new line: HG, 6Mar 1847 p.4.

  49. CB to EN, [?17 May 1847]: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 526].

  50. CB to EN, 20 May [1847]: MS Bon 192 pp.1–3, 4 crossed, BPM [LCB, i, 527]. Ellen eventually stayed at Haworth 20 July–12 August 1847, her visit being memorable only for her involvement in a carriage accident at its close: CB to EN, [12 Aug 1847]: MS Bon 193 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 536]. I am grateful to Margaret Smith for identifying the period of Ellen’s visit which must have coincided with Charlotte’s receiving a letter from Smith, Elder & Co about The Professor: see below, p.620–1.

  51. CB to EN, [?25 May 1847]: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 527–8]; CB to EN, 5June 1847: MS HM 24453 p.4, Huntington [LCB, i, 529].

  52. PBB to JBL, [16 July 1847]: MS p.1, Brotherton [L&L, ii, 137].

  53. HG, 5 June 1847 p.6. The first draft of this poem is PBB, ‘Upon that dreary winters night’, 15 Dec 1837: MS Bon 151, BPM [VN PBB, 518–21]. There is a particularly poignant change in the first verse where the poet’s anticipated suffering ‘through many an hour’ is changed to ‘not hours, but years’.

  54. See, for example, PBB, ‘The westering sunbeams smiled on Percy Hall’, [May–June 1847]: MS n.l. [Leyland, ii, 259–63; VN PBB, 291–2]; PBB, ‘Might rough rocks find neath calmest sea’, [1847]: MS in Brotherton [VN PBB, 294].

  55. CB, Biographical Notice, 361; G. Larken, ‘The Shuffling Scamp’, BST:15:80:400; CB to GS, 18 Sept 1850: MS SG 40 p.1, BPM [LCB, ii, 473]. According to Charlotte, Newby mentions ‘in his letter to my sister that “the sale of 250 copies would leave a surplus of 100£ to be divided”‘. In another letter, Charlotte claimed Newby had undertaken to print 350 copies of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey but then declared he had only printed 250: Emily and Anne’s deposit of £50 should therefore have been returned to them but they never received a penny: CB to WSW, 13 Sept 1850: MS MA 2696 R-V p.1, PM [LCB, ii, 465].

  56. CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 15 July 1847: MS SG 1 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 533]. The fact that this was her seventh attempt to find a publisher is mentioned in CB to G.H. Lewes, 6 Nov 1847: MS Add 39763 p.2, BL [LCB, i, 559].

  57. George Smith, A Memoir, with Some Pages of Autobiography (London, 1902), 84; CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 2 Aug 1847: MS SG 2pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 534–5]. Smith later gave a more colourful account of this incident: ‘Before … our letter was despatched, there came a letter from “Currer Bell” containing a postage-stamp for our reply, it having been hinted to the writer by “an experienced friend” that publishers often refrained from answering communications unless a postage-stamp was furnished for the purpose!’: Smith, A Memoir, 85. Charlotte’s letter makes no mention of advice from ‘an experienced friend’ (which is intrinsically unlikely as she had no one to consult and had already been in communication with publishers for the last 18 months) and merely states as a postscript, ‘I enclose a directed Cover for your reply.’

  58. Ibid., 84–5.

  59. CB, Biographical Notice, 361.

  60. CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 7 Aug 1847: MS SG 3 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 535].

  61. Ibid., p.3[LCB, i, 535].

  62. CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 24 Aug 1847: MS in private hands [LCB, i, 537]; Smith, A Memoir, 87.

  63. Ibid., 87–8; ECG, Life, 258–9.

  64. CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 12 Sept 1847: MS SG 1B p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 540]; ECG, Receipt for £800, 10 Feb 1857: MS SG 105b, BPM and see also, Smith, Elder & Co. Publication Ledgers, vol. i, 369, JMA. Gaskell received a further £50 for the continental copyright on 4 April 1857 and another £200 on publication of the single volume fourth edition: ibid., 369, 477.

  65. CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 12 Sept 1847: MS SG 1B p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 540].

  66. Ibid., pp.1–2[LCB, i, 539–40].

  67. Ibid., pp.3–4[LCB, i, 540]. Charlotte’s request for the return of her ms of The Professor caused consternation at Smith, Elder & Co., as it was thought she might try to send it elsewhere: CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 18 Sept 1847: MS SG 3B p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 541].

  68. Ibid., p.1[LCB, i, 541]; ECG, Life, 258.

  69. CB to EN, [?24 Sept 1847]: MS MA 2696 R-V, PM [LCB, i, 542–3].

  70. AB to EN, 4Oct 1847: MS BS 3pp.1–5, BPM [LCB, i, 544–5]. Crab-cheese, a kind of apple curd or jam, was reputed to have medicinal qualities. Charlotte later apologized to Ellen for having ‘inoculated you with fears about the east wind’: CB to EN, 7Oct 1847: MS HM 24455 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 547].

  71. Ibid., p.3[LCB, i, 547]. Nicholls was in the throes of evicting the washerwomen from the churchyard which may account for his unpopularity at this time.

  72. CB to EN, [?15 Oct 1847]: MS pp.1–2, WYAS, Kirklees [LCB, i, 551]. For the possibility of Nicholls leaving Haworth see CB to EN, 29 June 1847: MS HM 24454 p.4, Huntington [LCB, i, 532].

  73. CB to EN, [?4Apr 1847]: MS pp.2–3, Princeton [LCB, i, 521]. Anne’s novel is built around a letter from Gilbert Markham which is dated 10 June 1847, so it is possible that this was the date Anne began to write it: AB, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, 471.

  74. CB, Biographical Notice, 362.

  75. CB to MW, 30 Jan 1846: MS FM 2pp.3–4, Fitzwilliam [LCB, i, 448].

  76. AB, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, 31.

  77. AB, Preface to the Second Edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, 22 July 1848 [Ibid., 4].

  78. CB, Biographical Notice, 363.

  79. AB, Preface to the Second Edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, 22 July 1848 [AB, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, 3–4].

  80. CB
to EN, 7Oct 1847: MS HM 24455 pp.1–2, Huntington [LCB, i, 547].

  81. CB, Biographical Notice, 363.

  82. T.C. Newby to Ellis Bell, 15 Feb 1848: MS Bon 1, BPM [JB ST no.43; LCB, ii, 26]. The letter, which fits exactly into the accompanying envelope addressed to Ellis Bell, was found in Emily’s writing desk with 5 reviews of Wuthering Heights.

  83. Unsigned review, Examiner, Jan 1848 pp.21–2 [Allott, 221]; John Hewish, ‘Emily Brontë’s Second Novel’, BST:15:76:28. For further evidence, see below, p.649, 684.

  84. CB, Biographical Notice, 364. See also CB, Editor’s Preface to Wuthering Heights, [1850] [EJB, Wuthering Heights, 365–9].

  85. CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 24 Sept [1847]: MS SG 4 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 542]. See also CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 29 Sept 1847: MS SG 5p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 544].

  86. CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 8 Oct 1847: MS SG 6 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 549]; CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 12 Sept 1847: MS SG 1B p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 540].

  87. CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 19 Oct 1847: MS p.1, Princeton [LCB, i, 552].

  88. CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 26 Oct 1847: MS SG 7p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 552].

  89. W. M. Thackeray to WSW, 23 Oct 1847 [Gordon N. Ray, The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray (Cambridge, Mass., 1945–6), ii, 318–9].

  90. CB to WSW, 28 Oct 1847: MS MA 2696 R-V pp.1–2, PM [LCB, i, 553].

  91. Ibid., p.4[LCB, i, 554]; [G.H. Lewes], review in Westminster Review, Jan 1848 pp.581–4[Allott, 87]. Charlotte’s unusually deprecatory remarks about her novel, ‘It has no learning, no research, it discusses no subject of public interest’, may have been prompted by the comment in the Athenaeum review that Jane Eyre ‘deserves high praise, and commendation to the novel-reader who prefers story to philosophy, pedantry, or Puseyite controversy’: Allott, 72.

  92. Unsigned review, Critic, 30 Oct 1847 pp.277–8[Allott, 73]; [A.W. Fonblanque], Examiner, 27 Nov 1847 pp.756–7[Allott, 76]; unsigned review, Era, 14 Nov 1847 p.9 [Allott, 78–9]. ‘The perusal of the “Era” gave me much pleasure’: CB to WSW, 17 Nov 1847: MS p.1, Princeton [LCB, i, 564].

  93. CB to WSW, 11 Dec 1847: MS p.2, Harvard [LCB, i, 571].

  94. Unsigned review, Era, 14 Nov 1847 p.9[Allott, 79]; unsigned review, Spectator, 6Nov 1847 pp.1074–5[Allott, 75]; CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 13 Nov 1847: MS SG 8pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 563].

  95. CB, Jane Eyre (Clarendon Edn), xiv, xvii, xix. The Smith, Elder & Co. Publication Ledgers are missing for the period of the publication of Jane Eyre but the print runs for the first editons of The Professor and ECG, Life, were both in the region of 3,500: Smith, Elder & Co., Publication Ledgers, ii, 882; i, 369, JMA.

  96. CB to WSW, 10 Nov 1847: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 561].

  97. Smith, A Memoir, 3–14; L. Huxley, The House of Smith, Elder (London, 1923), 22–4. Most of these works were known and read at the parsonage, so the name of the firm would not have been unfamiliar to the Brontës.

  98. Smith, A Memoir, 85–7. Smith described Williams’s skills as a book-keeper as ‘most primitive’, citing the way he used to strike a balance at the bottom of each page in his ledger to avoid the necessity of having to carry his figures forward.

  99. Larken, ‘The Shuffling Scamp’, BST:15:80:400, 406.

  100. Trollope, An Autobiography, London, 1883, 74–5.

  101. Ibid., 75.

  102. CB to WSW, 17 Nov 1847: MS p.2, Princeton [LCB, i, 564].

  103. CB to WSW, 14 Dec 1847: MS p.3, Princeton [LCB, i, 575].

  104. Unsigned reviews, Spectator, 18 Dec 1847 p.1217, and Athenaeum, 25 Dec 1847 pp.1324–5[Allott, 218]. Williams, who had worked as theatre critic for the Spectator, found himself hampered by the ‘chilly temperament’ of the editor who used to declare impressively ‘The “Spectator” is not enthusiastic, and must not be’: Smith, A Memoir, 86.

  105. Unsigned review, Atlas, 22 Jan 1848 p.59 [Allott, 231]. See also unsigned review, Britannia, 15 Jan 1848 pp.42–3 [Allott, 224–5]. Copies of both reviews were among those found in Emily’s writing desk: Bon 1, BPM.

  106. See, for example, unsigned review, Britannia, 15 Jan 1848 pp.42–3[Allott, 224–5]. [G.W. Peck], American Review, June 1848 pp.572–85 objected most strongly to the profanity which ‘offends against both politeness and good morals’: [Allott, 236]. Curiously he also attacked the one instance where Emily substituted a dash or what she herself, in the actual text of the book, called ‘an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep, but generally represented by a dash’. Clearly not appreciating that this was intended as a humorous remark, Peck declared that it showed ‘a conscious determination to write coarsely’, the author ‘knew the word to be a low word, though not an immodest one, and he determined to show his bold independence by using and defending it’: Allott, 238. Stung by such criticism, Charlotte leapt to Emily’s defence in her editorial preface to Wuthering Heights [1850]: ‘The practice of hinting by single letters those expletives with which profane and violent persons are wont to garnish their discourse, strikes me as a proceeding which, however, well meant, is weak and futile. I cannot tell what good it does – what feeling it spares – what horror it conceals’: EJB, Wuthering Heights, 365–6.

  107. Unsigned review, Britannia, 15 Jan 1848 pp.42–3 [Allott, 225]. See also unsigned review, Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper, 15 Jan 1848 p.77 [Allott, 228].

  108. Unsigned review, Britannia, 15 Jan 1848 pp.42–3[Allott, 224]; unsigned review, LiteraryWorld, Apr 1848 p.243 [Allott, 234].

  109. Unsigned review, Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper, 15 Jan 1848 p.77 [Allott, 228]; [G.W. Peck], American Review, June 1848 pp.572–85 [Allott, 241].

  110. Unsigned review, Britannia, 15 Jan 1848 pp.42–3[Allott, 226]; unsigned review, Atlas, 22 Jan 1848 p.59 [Allott, 233].

  111. CB to WSW, 11 Dec 1847: MS p.2, Harvard [LCB, i, 571]; CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 10 Dec 1847: MS BS 60 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 570].

  112. CB, Preface to Jane Eyre, 21 Dec 1847: MS in Rosenbach [CB, JaneEyre, 3–4].The emendations included the change in title from ‘edited by Currer Bell’ to ‘by Currer Bell’ which was intended to stop press speculation that Currer Bell was one and the same as Ellis and Acton Bell: CB to WSW, 31 Dec 1847: MS p.1, Princeton [LCB, i, 587].

  113. Ibid., pp.1–2. ‘I read my preface over with some pain: I did not like it: I wrote it when I was a little enthusiastic, like you about the French Revolution’: CB to WSW, 11 Mar 1848: MS p.3, Harvard [LCB, ii, 41].

  114. CB, Preface to Jane Eyre, 21 Dec 1847: MS in Rosenbach [CB, Jane Eyre, 5]. Charlotte had earlier drafted another preface which, on second thoughts, she withdrew because ‘I fear it savours of flippancy’: CB to WSW, 21 Dec 1847: MS p.1, Pforzheimer [LCB, i, 520].

  115. CB to WSW, 28 Jan 1848: MS p.2, Berg [LCB, ii, 22].

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE SHADOW IN THE HOUSE

  Title: referring to Branwell: ECG, Life, 257.

  1. AB to EN, 26 Jan 1848: MS BS 4 pp.1–2crossed, BPM [LCB, ii, 19]. Anne’s underlining of ‘nothing to speak of’ is suggestive: it indicates Anne knew that Ellen was aware of the sisters’ authorship but, in deference to Emily, preserved the show of secrecy.

  2. CB to EN, [?15 Oct 1847]: MS p.1, WYAS, Kirklees [LCB, i, 551]; CB to EN, 11 Mar 1849: MS p.3, Law, photograph in MCP [LCB, ii, 8]; J.B. Grant to JBL, 24 Dec 1847: MS HAS B21/38 p.3, WYAS, Calderdale, acknowledging receipt of the bosses which are ‘rather large’ and promising payment the following week.

  3. PBB to JBL, [c.9 Jan 1848]: MS p.3, Brotherton [LCB, ii, 6]. Branwell sent his apologies to the landlady of the Talbot ‘if I did anything, during temporary illness, to offend her’.

  4. ibid., p.1 [A&S no.303]. Branwell himself is ‘St Patrick’ since he also signed himself ‘Sanctus Patricius Branuellius Brontëio’, ie St Patrick Branwell Brontë in PBB to JBL, [Jan 1847]: MS p.1, Brotherton [L&L, ii, 121]. Phidias, Leyland’s pseudonymn, was a 5th century Greek sculptor regarded as the greatest of the ancient world; a firedrake is a meteor or, in German mythology, a fiery dragon but the significance of this appellation is lost
on me as I have been unable to identify Drake. Patrick Reid was a 20-year-old Irishman convicted, with his accomplice Michael McCabe, of the robbery and hor-rific murders of an elderly couple James and Ann Wraith, and their 20-year-old servant Caroline Ellis, who were found with their throats slashed by a razor. The case was not only notorious for the shocking nature of the crime but also because it roused anti-Irish feeling. Despite this, the first jury acquitted Reid and a second had to be empanelled to convict him. On the gallows he confessed his guilt but confirmed McCabe’s innocence; the latter’s sentence was therefore commuted to transportation for life. The case was covered by all the papers: see, for example, LM, 24 July 1847 p.7; 31 July 1847 p.14; 24 Dec 1847 p.5; 15 Jan 1848 supplement p.11; 5 Feb 1848 p.5. A wax-work depicting the triple murder was displayed in Bradford at the end of January, shortly after Reid’s execution: ibid, 29 Jan 1848 p.9.

  5. CB to EN, 11 Jan 1848: MS p.3, Law, photograph in MCP [LCB, ii, 8]; John Greenwood, Diary: MS in private hands, photocopy of relevant page in MSS Copy Docs, BPM [Albert H. Preston, ‘John Greenwood and the Brontës’, BST:12:61:37–8].

  6. CB to EN, 11 Jan 1848: MS p.3, Law, photograph in MCP [LCB, ii, 8]; ECG, Life, 227, 525.

  7. PB, annotations in his copy of Graham, Modern Domestic Medicine: HAOBP:bb210 pp.392–3, BPM; CB to EN, 11 Jan 1848: MS p.3, Law, photograph in MCP [LCB, ii, 8].

  8. HG, 30 Oct 1847 p.5; Burials, Haworth (29 Oct 1847). Patrick’s taking the service was unusual as Nicholls took virtually all the duties at this time; as a suicide, Charnock could have been refused church burial.

  9. ECG, Life, 263; CB to Smith, Elder & Co., 1 Dec 1847: MS SG 11 p.1, BPM [LCB, i, 568].

  10. ECG to Catherine Winkworth, [25 Aug 1850] [C&P, 126].

  11. Ibid, 126. ECG, Life, 263–4 embroidered her original account, making Patrick say ‘My dear! you’ve never thought of the expense it will be! It will be almost sure to be a loss, for how can you get a book sold? No one knows you or your name’ and having him describe the book as ‘much better than likely’. Though Gaskell assumes only the girls were told, it is possible Patrick told Branwell too.