Wednesday 23 January 2013

Preview: Brontë Manuscripts

As part of the Re-Visioning the Brontës conference, Sarah Prescott of the Leeds University Special Collections will be presenting on the role of the Brontë Manuscripts in constructing and deconstructing the Brontës' mythologies. In anticipation of her paper, we have been given exclusive access to this short letter from Branwell Brontë to a friend, where he jokingly describes 'the best epitaph ever written'.

Dear Sir,
I only enclose the accompanying fragment, which is so soiled I would have transcribed it if I had the heart to exert myself, in order to get from you as to whether, when finished, it would be worth sending to some respectable period-ical like Blackwood's Magazine.
I trust you got safely home from rough Haworth and am,

Dear Sir, 
Yours most sincerely, 
P.B.Brontë

[P.S.] The best epitaph ever written - it is carved on a rude cross in Spain over a murdered traveller, and simply means "Poor Fellow!"

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