The lost library of the Brontë sisters to be auctioned at Sotheby's

Going up for auction at Sotheby’s on July 2 is the lost library of the Brontë sisters: manuscripts of poems and rare volumes by the famous writers that are part of the Honresfield Library, the private collection of two Victorian-era English industrialists, William and Alfred Law, which has remained inaccessible for nearly a century, as it seemed lost since the late 1930s.

The collection includes treasures of British literature, but highlights include the works of the three Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne.

Prominent among them is a copy of the original first edition of Wuthering Heights: it features a cloth cover and is dedicated by Reverend Patrick Brontë, the writers’ father, to the family’s housekeeper, Martha Brown. Then there are notes exchanged between Anne and Emily, with a small sketch, and a letter from Charlotte to her publisher George Smith, in which she talks about the reviews of Jane Eyre. Also, a notebook with poems written between 1844 and 1846 by Emily: she had written them secretly, with no intention of publishing them, but in 1845 Charlotte accidentally discovered them and persuaded her sister to include them in the self-financed volume of poems for which the three sisters used male pseudonyms. A mini-book created by then 14-year-old Charlotte sparked a collectors’ battle in 2011 that raised the final price of the volume to more than $1 million.

Among the lots that will be sold at auction are first editions of Jane Austen’s novels Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Emma.

William and Alfred Law had acquired the main core of the Hornesfiels Library from Charlotte’s widower, Arthur Bell Nichols; after their passing, the collection was inherited by their grandson, and since his death in 1939 the collection seemed lost.

The lost library of the Brontë sisters to be auctioned at Sotheby's

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