The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends, Volume II: 1848-1851

The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends, Volume II: 1848-1851

This is the second volume in the critically acclaimed Letters of Charlotte Brontë . During the important four years covered in this volume, Charlotte witnessed the success of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights , but also endured the deaths of Branwell Brontë and Emily, followed by Anne's in May 1849. Haunted by the fear that she also would succumb, Charlotte found salvation in writing Shirley , published in October 1849, and comfort in her friendship and correspondence with Ellen Nussey, with her publishers--especially George Smith--with Mrs. Gaskell, and (for a time) Harriet Martineau. She may also have received a proposal of marriage from Smith, Edler's manager, James Taylor. This volume is fully annotated and introduced by eminent Brontë scholar Margaret Smith. "Margaret Smith's comprehensive and meticulous edition of The Letters of Charlotte Brontë appears like a banquet of rich and wholesome food for those hitherto condemned to meagre and contaminated scraps. . . . Smith's editorial apparatus is amazingly thorough . . . [it] gives us not only a complete and reliable text, but also an extraordinary wealth of annotation. . . . Volume 2 of Smith's edition of Charlotte Brontë's Letters more than fulfils the expectations raised by volume 1. At last we can read Charlotte's words in as reliable a text as is humanly possible, together with all the contextual information necessary to bring the letters alive with contemporary resonances."-- Victorian Studies Margaret Smith is Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Research in Arts and Social Sciences, University of Birmingham