The Letters of Charlotte Brontė: With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends, Volume III: 1852-1855 - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198185995 ISBN 13: 9780198185994

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 2004

Synopsis

This volume covers the period from 1852 until Charlotte Brontės tragically early death in March 1855. We read of her long struggle to complete Villette, and her indignation when Harriet Martineau finds in it evidence that her mind is "full of the subject of one passion-love." Complete texts of many letters to Mrs. Gaskell illuminate Charlotte's friendship with the fellow-novelist who was to be her biographer. Subsequent letters touchingly reveal her love for her husband, her "tenderest nurse" during her last illness.

About this title

About the Author

Margaret Smith is Honorary Fellow for the Institute of Advanced Research in Arts and Social Sciences, University of Birmingham.

Review

"The appearance of this third and final volume...marks the culmination of a monumental publishing achievement.... [Smith] deserves the highest praise for the sheer doggedness with which she has pursued bits and pieces of letters through salesrooms and private collections.... She is also a model editor. The standard of her annotations is superb, and no worthwhile cross-reference to the Brontės' lives or works is allowed to slip through her net.... This wonderful collection does allow us clearly to hear the impassioned voice of one of the greatest letter-writers in the language. Three cheers for Margaret Smith and the Clarendon Press for an immaculate edition."--Mark Bostridge, The Independent on Sunday

"This third volume of Charlotte Brontė's letters completes Smith's gift to Brontė scholars and enthusiasts. In combination with volumes 1 and 2, it contains the most reliable information on which Brontė's biographies and studies are based.... Essential."--Choice

"Of the hundreds of books I have reviewed in the last half century only two could be classified as definitive. Margaret Smith's three volumes of Charlotte Brontė's correspondence are a model of conventional scholarship, unassailably definitive. They will survive as long as the serious study of English literature survives the efforts of postmodernist critics to reduce it to a jargon-ridden wasteland."--Raymond Carr, The Spectator

"This third volume of Charlotte Brontė's letters completes Smith's gift to Brontė scholars and enthusiasts. In combination with volumes 1 and 2, it contains the most reliable information on which Brontė's biographies and studies are based.... Essential. All libraries should own this set."--Choice

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0198185995
• ISBN 13: 9780198185994
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 440
• Editor: Smith Margaret