It was just announced by the Bronte Society that a poem penned by a young Charlotte Bronte has been uncovered. Hiding inside a book that belonged to Marie Bronte the author’s mother, a bit of prose by the young author was also found inside.
The book was one of the few items that survived a shipwreck in the early 1800s. It has been in the possession of an American family since 1916. The date of the poem has not been confirmed, but members of the Bronte Society suggest it was written near the same time as Jane Eyre when the author was just 17.
Poem and prose work are both roughly 70 lines long, and focus on characters from Bronte’s Angria work about a fictional kingdom written with her brother Branwell. “It’s quite romantic, quite dramatic language written by a teenage girl who even at that age had the ambition to be forever known as a poet,” said Ms. Disdale of the Bronte Society.
The society is acquiring the book along with the poem and prose for the sum of 200,000 pounds/$300,000.
