LITERARY ARCHIVES: European Authors Collection

Reference: LIT/EUR/1847/BRONTË
Date Range: 1847-1855
Repository: Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, West Yorkshire

PUBLICATION RECORDS:
"Jane Eyre" by Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë) published by Smith, Elder & Co., 65 Cornhill, London, on 16 October 1847. First print run of 2,500 copies sold out within three months.

THE BRONTË FAMILY:
- Patrick Brontë, Perpetual Curate of Haworth from 1820 until his death in 1861
- Charlotte Brontë, born 21 April 1816 at Thornton, married Arthur Bell Nicholls on 29 June 1854
- Emily Jane Brontë, author of "Wuthering Heights," died 19 December 1848
- Anne Brontë, author of "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," died 28 May 1849 in Scarborough

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS:
The Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, Lancashire, attended by Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, and Emily from 1824-1825. Charlotte later attended Miss Wooler's school at Roe Head, Mirfield, from January 1831.

CONTINENTAL TRAVELS:
Charlotte and Emily studied French and German at the Pensionnat Heger, Rue d'Isabelle, Brussels, from February 1842. Proprietor: Constantin Heger, professor of rhetoric. Charlotte returned alone in January 1843.

CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS:
- William Makepeace Thackeray, to whom Charlotte dedicated the second edition of "Jane Eyre"
- Elizabeth Gaskell of Manchester, author of "The Life of Charlotte Brontë" (1857)
- Charles Dickens, editor of "Household Words," published from Wellington Street, London
- George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) of Nuneaton, Warwickshire

MANUSCRIPT HOLDINGS:
Original manuscript of "Jane Eyre" held at the British Library, London (Add MS 43474-43476). Letters to Constantin Heger held at the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, Brussels, donated by Paul Heger in 1913.