A tiny miniature book of poems written by 13-year-old Charlotte Bronte sells for Rs 9.59 crore, returns home

on Apr 27, 2022

A 15-page tiny book of poems, titled 'A Book of Rhymes by Charlotte Bronte, written by 13-year-old Charlotte Bronte was recently sold for $1.25 million (Rs 9.59 crore) at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. The unpublished manuscript was sold to the Friends of the National Libraries who will donate it to the Bronte Parsonage Museum. It is returning home to the West Yorkshire parsonage where it was written in 1829.

The book, measuring just 10 centimetres by 6 centimetres, is returning home to the West Yorkshire parsonage where it was written in 1829 by 13-year-old Bronte. The poems were written over a three-month period on 15 pages.
Ann Dinsdale, Principal Curator of the Bronte Parsonage Museum expressed her excitement, "It is phenomenal really," "I can’t quite believe it. I haven’t been able to take it all in yet."

Some of the poem titles are ‘On Seeing the Ruins of the Tower of Babel’, ‘Songs of an Exile and Meditations While Journeying in a Canadian Forest’.

The book went for $520 at an auction in New York in 1916 after which it disappeared from public view. It was recently rediscovered in an envelope tucked into a book.

The Friends of the National Libraries had only two weeks to raise the money to buy the book. "Saving Charlotte Brontë’s little book is a giant gain for Britain. To return this literary treasure to the Brontë Parsonage where it was written is important for scholars and also students studying one of our greatest women writers," Geordie Greig, the chair of Friends of the National Libraries, said.

The Bronte Parsonage Museum has the largest collection of Bronte manuscripts in the world. It already has nine little books and seven more from the Honresfield Library will be added to the collection soon.