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Charlotte Bronte

Stories to Tell: Selections from the Harry Ransom Center

February 27, 2019 - Jennifer Tisdale

Through August 18, the exhibition Stories to Tell: Selections from the Harry Ransom Center features materials that provide insight into the creative process while also establishing meaningful, personal connections between the past and the present.

[Read more…] about Stories to Tell: Selections from the Harry Ransom Center

Filed Under: Exhibitions + Events, Featured1 Tagged With: Arthur Miller, Aubrey Beardsley, Charlotte Bronte, Norman O. Dawn, Thomas Lodge

Digital collection features more than 8,000 items

November 11, 2013 - Alicia Dietrich

Poster from magicians collection for “Kellar in His Latest Mystery/Self Decapitation” printed by Strobridge Lithographing Company in 1898.

The Ransom Center has launched a new platform of freely available digitized images of collection materials on its website. The new site contains more than 8,000 items and will continue to grow as newly digitized images are added on a regular basis.

Presently the collection includes photographs by Lewis Carroll, manuscripts by Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Harry Houdini’s scrapbooks, works by artist Frank Reaugh, and items from the Ransom Center’s extensive circus collection, which includes materials related to showmen such as P. T. Barnum, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.

The digital collections platform provides access to the Ransom Center’s collections for students, scholars and members of the public who are unable to visit the Center. It also provides a way for visitors to access fragile materials or collections that exist in challenging formats, such as personal effects and costumes. One example is a collection of glass plate negatives that documents theater performances in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The fragile collection was previously inaccessible, but the negative plates were digitized and converted to positive images for the digital collection.

Visitors to the Ransom Center’s website can search within collections or across collections, often revealing related materials.  Additional tools provide users with the ability to virtually flip through books, enlarge images and compare page images with accompanying transcripts, which are text-searchable.

Collections are being added on an ongoing basis, and planned digitization projects include the photographs of nineteenth-century photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and photographs and ephemera from the Fred Fehl dance collection.

This project was made possible with funding from the Booth Heritage Foundation.

Please click on thumbnails below to view larger images.

Signed title page of Charlotte Brontë's "The Green Dwarf." September 2, 1833.
Signed title page of Charlotte Brontë’s “The Green Dwarf.” September 2, 1833.
Sherlock Holmes’s inauspicious first appearance was in the 1887 Beeton’s Christmas Annual. The 27-year-old Doyle wrote the novel in three weeks and received only £25 for the full rights.
Sherlock Holmes’s inauspicious first appearance was in the 1887 Beeton’s Christmas Annual. The 27-year-old Doyle wrote the novel in three weeks and received only £25 for the full rights.
Alfred Junge's set designs of Mother Dorothea's office for "Black Narcissus," 1946.
Alfred Junge’s set designs of Mother Dorothea’s office for “Black Narcissus,” 1946.
Poster from magicians collection for “Kellar in His Latest Mystery/Self Decapitation” printed by Strobridge Lithographing Company in 1898.
Poster from magicians collection for “Kellar in His Latest Mystery/Self Decapitation” printed by Strobridge Lithographing Company in 1898.
Page from “Bouts Rimés,” with poems by John Tenniel and illustrations by Tenniel pasted into a bound volume, with some sheets attached so as to fold out.
Page from “Bouts Rimés,” with poems by John Tenniel and illustrations by Tenniel pasted into a bound volume, with some sheets attached so as to fold out.

Filed Under: Digital Collections, Research + Teaching Tagged With: Art, Charles Dodgson, Charlotte Bronte, circus collection, digital collections, digital humanities, Emily Brontë, Film, Frank Reaugh, Harry Houdini, Lewis Carroll, magic collection, Manuscripts, Norman Dawn, Performing Arts, Photography

There really is “Something About Arthur”: A peek into Charlotte Brontë’s childhood

March 6, 2012 - Kelsey McKinney

Signed title page of Charlotte Brontë's "The Green Dwarf." September 2, 1833.

The daughters of Patrick Brontë built a literary empire. Combined, the three women published seven novels and two books of poetry. In 1847 alone, Charlotte published Jane Eyre, Emily published Wuthering Heights, and Anne published Agnes Grey. For the Brontës, literature was a way of life that started young. Charlotte’s unpublished juvenilia book “Something About Arthur,”—housed at the Ransom Center—provides an active look into the childhood imagination of a woman who would become a major part of the Western literary canon.

Charlotte Brontë wrote “Something About Arthur” at the age of 17 shortly after returning from boarding school. The text is 25 pages long and includes a 42-line poem. It is the story of a struggling artist who battles an arrogant aristocrat for the heart of the heroine, Lady Emily Chalwort. Like many of Charlotte’s juvenilia books, “Something About Arthur” is small enough to fit in one hand, measuring only 5.7 cm by 9.5 cm (2.5 inches by 3 5/8 inches). Charlotte’s handwriting is microscopic and barely legible.

Charlotte’s motivation for creating such small books is debated. Patrick Brontë was by no means a poor man, though it is suspected that he may not have wanted to fund the paper cost of his children’s fantasies. The distance from the Brontë house to the nearest store to buy paper could be a reason. Some suspect that the small words kept the stories secret from adult eyes or that Charlotte was merely trying to imitate newspaper print. The most common theory, however, is that the books were originally created for a group of toy soldiers. In 1826, the year the first small manuscript was created, Patrick Brontë returned from a conference toting a set of 12 wooden soldiers for Branwell, the second eldest and only male child. Eventually, each child chose his or her favorite soldier. The stories in these juvenilia manuscripts, it is speculated, were not about the soldiers, but created for them. Thus, the size of the book would need to be in direct proportion to the size of the soldier.

When creating the worlds for their toy soldiers, the Brontë children were divided. Charlotte played primarily with the next eldest, Branwell, leaving Emily to play with Anne. Charlotte and Branwell created an imaginary kingdom and filled it with the characters of their imagination. They named the imaginary world Verdopolis. They created characters with names, occupations, and motivations. Charlotte transcribed their fantasies in her tiny, illegible hand. These fantasies became “Something About Arthur” and what is known as the “Glass Town” series. The majority of Charlotte’s juvenilia novellas are set in Verdopolis. “Something About Arthur” was written three years later, and Charlotte stopped writing about the characters of Verdopolis by her mid-20s.

The Brontë sisters’ fiction has long been the subject of biographical interpretation. The Brontë children were known to be social recluses. Charlotte especially was timid and often struggled to cope with her surroundings. Some scholars claim that because the Brontës spent the majority of their lives secluded, the fiction they produced must be the product of their own circumstances. Yet others dispute this claim. We may not see Charlotte herself in the characters of “Something About Arthur,” but we do see Charlotte’s evolution as a writer. This tiny book shows her love for strong heroines, current events, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Her writing mimics gothic literature and the adventure novel, two devices she would discard in her later works. “Something About Arthur” is the beginning of a craft that would be skillfully and carefully honed.

The Ransom Center acquired “Something About Arthur” in 1952 through the Nelda C. and H. J. Lutcher Stark Foundation. Fannie Ratchford, esteemed figure in the Ransom Center’s history, orchestrated the entire affair.  Miriam Lutcher Stark pledged her entire library to the university in 1925. Knowing that his library contained a similar Brontë juvenilia piece titled “The Green Dwarf,” Miss Ratchford prompted Mr. Stark to acquire “Something About Arthur” in 1952 when she found it on the market. He did just that. Today both juvenile manuscripts, and Miss Ratchford’s correspondence with Lutcher Stark, can be found in the Ransom Center’s collections.

In December 2011, another of Charlotte’s juvenilia books sold at auction to Le Musee des Lettres et Manuscrits in Paris. This book was the first in the “Glass Town” series. It too is believed to have been written for the wooden soldiers.

Click on thumbnails below for larger images.

First page of Charlotte Brontë's manuscript for "Something About Arthur." The size of the manuscript papers is 5.7 cm by 9.5 cm (2.5 inches by 3 5/8 inches).
First page of Charlotte Brontë’s manuscript for “Something About Arthur.” The size of the manuscript papers is 5.7 cm by 9.5 cm (2.5 inches by 3 5/8 inches).
Second page of Charlotte Brontë's manuscript for "Something About Arthur." The size of the manuscript papers is 5.7 cm by 9.5 cm (2.5 inches by 3 5/8 inches).
Second page of Charlotte Brontë’s manuscript for “Something About Arthur.” The size of the manuscript papers is 5.7 cm by 9.5 cm (2.5 inches by 3 5/8 inches).
Third page of Charlotte Brontë's manuscript for "Something About Arthur." The size of the manuscript papers is 5.7 cm by 9.5 cm (2.5 inches by 3 5/8 inches).
Third page of Charlotte Brontë’s manuscript for “Something About Arthur.” The size of the manuscript papers is 5.7 cm by 9.5 cm (2.5 inches by 3 5/8 inches).
Last page of "Something About Arthur," signed by Charlotte Brontë and dated 1833.
Last page of “Something About Arthur,” signed by Charlotte Brontë and dated 1833.
Leather case for Charlotte Brontë's manuscript of "Something About Arthur." The size of the manuscript papers is 5.7 cm by 9.5 cm (2.5 inches by 3 5/8 inches). Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.
Leather case for Charlotte Brontë’s manuscript of “Something About Arthur.” The size of the manuscript papers is 5.7 cm by 9.5 cm (2.5 inches by 3 5/8 inches). Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.
Signed title page of Charlotte Brontë's "The Green Dwarf." September 2, 1833.
Signed title page of Charlotte Brontë’s “The Green Dwarf.” September 2, 1833.
Manuscript page of Charlotte Brontë's "The Green Dwarf." September 2, 1833.
Manuscript page of Charlotte Brontë’s “The Green Dwarf.” September 2, 1833.
Seller's description of the manuscript of Charlotte Brontë's "The Green Dwarf."
Seller’s description of the manuscript of Charlotte Brontë’s “The Green Dwarf.”
Seller's description of the manuscript of Charlotte Brontë's "The Green Dwarf."
Seller’s description of the manuscript of Charlotte Brontë’s “The Green Dwarf.”

Filed Under: Authors, Books + Manuscripts Tagged With: Authors, Books, Bronte family collection, Bronte sisters, Charlotte Bronte, juvenile books, Lutcher Stark, Lutcher Stark Foundation, Manuscripts, permanent collection, Something about Arthur

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