A Fairy Tale by Charlotte Brontë. Now first printed from the Original Manuscript. Edited by Thomas J. Wise.
London, Printed for private circulation only, 1896
First edition limited to 30 copies. The first edition of Charlotte Brontë's (1816-1855) posthumously published novella, The Adventures of Ernest Alembert, printed from the sole-surviving manuscript of the text (Pforz A-RU 04, NYPL) by the editor Thomas Wise (1859-1937).
Wise came into possession of the source, a work of juvenilia signed and dated 'C. Brontë, May 25, 1830', as part of a collection of wider Brontë ephemera purchased via his agent Clement Shorter, the Brontë biographer, from Charlotte's husband Arthur Bell Nicholls (1819-1906) in 1892. As the sole surviving member of the family, Nicholls had inherited virtually all the Brontë family manuscripts upon the death of Patrick Brontë in 1861.
The original manuscript bears the bookplate of Harry Buxton Forman (1842-1917), Wise's frequent collaborator, suggesting that the history of the ownership of Ernest Alembert in its unprinted format is more complex. Although it is now known that Wise and Forman produced several fraudulent works together, including editions of Swinburne, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and George Eliot, Ernest Alembert does appear to be a genuine work of Brontë's youth.
First edition, private circulation limited to 30 copies; 8vo (22 x 16 cm); half-title, 2 facsimile plates of the original MS, woodcut device to rear endpapers; original cream boards, edges untrimmed, endpapers with offsetting, minor soiling, edges slightly rubbed; 37, [3]pp.
Wise came into possession of the source, a work of juvenilia signed and dated 'C. Brontë, May 25, 1830', as part of a collection of wider Brontë ephemera purchased via his agent Clement Shorter, the Brontë biographer, from Charlotte's husband Arthur Bell Nicholls (1819-1906) in 1892. As the sole surviving member of the family, Nicholls had inherited virtually all the Brontë family manuscripts upon the death of Patrick Brontë in 1861.
The original manuscript bears the bookplate of Harry Buxton Forman (1842-1917), Wise's frequent collaborator, suggesting that the history of the ownership of Ernest Alembert in its unprinted format is more complex. Although it is now known that Wise and Forman produced several fraudulent works together, including editions of Swinburne, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and George Eliot, Ernest Alembert does appear to be a genuine work of Brontë's youth.
First edition, private circulation limited to 30 copies; 8vo (22 x 16 cm); half-title, 2 facsimile plates of the original MS, woodcut device to rear endpapers; original cream boards, edges untrimmed, endpapers with offsetting, minor soiling, edges slightly rubbed; 37, [3]pp.
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