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Unpublished Bronte book to be released
LONDON, England (AP) -- For many years, the kingdom of Angria has been known only to scholars who struggled through a manuscript crammed with tiny spidery writing. Now, Charlotte Bronte's novella "Stancliffe's Hotel," set in a fictional land she and her brother created, will be published for the first time, shedding new light on one of Britain's most famous writers, Bronte scholar Heather Glen said Friday. "I think it will change the way in which she's still seen, rather patronizingly, as a woman writer who wrote only about her own concerns," said Glen, who teaches at Cambridge University. "It's very humorous and racy, there's something almost modernist about it with the odd juxtaposition of scenes." Written in 1838, when Bronte was 23, "Stancliffe's Hotel" is a series of ironic vignettes that debunk some of the manners and fashions of 1830s England, Glen said. Edited by Glen, it will be published by Penguin in June and later this year in a volume with four other novellas set in the fictional kingdom of Angria, created by Charlotte and her brother Branwell. The others have been published before, but Glen is editing them for the new edition. A U.S. publication date was not immediately available. Ann Dinsdale, librarian of the Bronte Parsonage Museum in northern England, said the novellas "have been in our collection for many years." She said most of the work was in the minute handwriting that originated when the Brontes were children, and readers needed a magnifying glass. "They used to compile little books that were designed to be small enough to be read by a set of toy soldiers Branwell had been given," she said. "It was also a way of keeping the material from adults and an economy measure. They carried on the tiny writing after they grew up." Glen said "Stancliffe's Hotel" had not been published before "because there's been a mystique about it because it alludes to this fictional country. So there was a feeling that it was inaccessible and many people regarded it as juvenilia." Bronte is best known for "Jane Eyre," the tale of a poor governess who survives traumatic events to marry the master of the house. Her sister, Emily, wrote "Wuthering Heights" and another sister, Anne, produced "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall." In "Stancliffe's Hotel," the story is told in a series of disconnected episodes and there are sudden changes in mood and scene. The narrator, Charles Townsend, is a dandy who confesses that he takes "a full half-hour to dress and another half-hour to view myself over from head to foot." Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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