Loading...
Creator
Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855
Call number
Pforz MS
Physical description
7 items
Language
English
Preferred Citation
Charlotte Brontë manuscript material, Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, The New York Public Library
Repository
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Access to materials
Restricted access. Request an in-person research appointment.
Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online.

Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet. The collection consists primarily of correspondence dating between 1847 and 1854. It also includes one short story.

Biographical/historical information

Charlotte Brontë, novelist and poet. The eldest of the three Brontë sisters, she is most remembered for her novels Jane Eyre (1847), Shirley (1849), Villette (1853), and The Professor (1857), all published under the pseudonym Currer Bell.

Scope and arrangement

The Charlotte Brontë manuscript material in the Pforzheimer Collection consists of writings and correspondence. The writings comprise one holograph short story, "The Adventures of Ernest Alembert," written when Brontë was fourteen years old. The six pieces of correspondence date between 1847 and 1854 and deal with Brontë's personal life, including her engagement and marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls, and her writing, including the preface to her novel Jane Eyre and the composition of her novel Shirley. One letter comments on Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey. Correspondents include her lifelong friend Ellen Nussey and her publisher William Smith Williams of Smith, Elder and Company.

The Charlotte Brontë manuscript material is arranged in two series:

Administrative information

Custodial history

Carl H. Pforzheimer (1879-1957) began collecting Brontë's published work in 1918. He acquired the juvenile short story "The Adventures of Ernest Alembert," the two letters to William Smith Williams, and three of the four letters to Ellen Nussey at the auction of English bibliographer and forger Harry Buxton Forman in March 1920 through the dealer Gabriel Wells. The 11 April 1854 letter to Ellen Nussey was acquired by Pforzheimer at a Sotheby's auction sometime between 1918 and 1922. Because the Pforzheimer Collection collects actively, its holdings may grow in the future as items become available.

Processing information

Finding aid created and imported into ArchivesSpace by Timothy Gress in June 2025.

Related Material

The Pforzheimer Collections holds a representative collection of Brontë's published work. The Library's Berg Collection holds a significant collection of Charlotte Brontë manuscripts, books, and other material written by or relating to Brontë's family and friends. Some Brontë manuscripts are also held by the Manuscripts and Archives Division.

Note

All of the items listed in Series II: Correspondence have been published in The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends, edited by Margaret Smith (Clarendon Press, 1995-2004; 3 volumes), and are listed with reference. "The Adventures of Ernest Alembert" was published in An Edition of The Early Writings of Charotte Brontë Volume I: The Glass Town Saga 1826-1832, edited by Christine Alexander (Published for the Shakespeare Head Press by Basil Blackwell, 1987).

Using the collection

Location

Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Third Floor, Room 319

Access to materials

Restricted access. Request an in-person research appointment.