The amazing teeny tiny books by the Brontes
July 3, 2014 1:57 PM Subscribe
The amazing teeny tiny books by the Brontes. In 1829-30, Charlotte Bronte was 13 and her brother Branwell Brontë 12. Creating fantasy worlds they called Angria and Glass Town, the siblings made teeny tiny books.
A few years ago I did the conservation work on a Bronte manuscript (she was about 17 at the time she wrote it), and can attest that it seems she just really liked to write in a amazingly small script. Here's an article with some images: Mysterious Manuscript.
posted by Shadan7 at 2:19 PM on July 3, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by Shadan7 at 2:19 PM on July 3, 2014 [4 favorites]
Ah that's a great link Shadan7. I get a headache trying to read the tiny script but it is indeed so cute, and I love the attention to detail they put into these.
posted by sweetkid at 2:21 PM on July 3, 2014
posted by sweetkid at 2:21 PM on July 3, 2014
I have had the pleasure of seeing these in person, and they are super cool, but big props to this blog post for linking directly to our digitized versions, which are actually much better for really appreciating them, especially with my crummy eyesight.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 2:31 PM on July 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 2:31 PM on July 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
My wife has a Ph.D. in English with a specialization in Charlotte Brontë. She would love to see these in person!
Although she's a college professor, she doesn't have any current scholarly reason to see them. What sort of requirements are there for getting a gander at these?
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 3:20 PM on July 3, 2014
Although she's a college professor, she doesn't have any current scholarly reason to see them. What sort of requirements are there for getting a gander at these?
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 3:20 PM on July 3, 2014
See also Emily Brontë's Gondal poems, digitized by the British Library. (Not such a teeny-tiny manuscript, but equally teeny-tiny writing.)
posted by verstegan at 3:20 PM on July 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by verstegan at 3:20 PM on July 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
Karlos, I'm writing a book about the Brontës. The stuff at the Houghton is not available for the public or academic researchers since there are such great facsimiles. There is juvenilia at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, but you've got to go through a process to become a reader there.
posted by mynameisluka at 3:30 PM on July 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by mynameisluka at 3:30 PM on July 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
What sort of requirements are there for getting a gander at these?
99% of the stuff at Houghton Library is totally fine for anyone to see for pretty much any reason if they come in and show some ID (MeMail me for details if you're interested). As you can imagine though, tiny, delicate books by super-famous authors are in the category of things that require advance curatorial permission to look at, and given that they've been digitized, you would have to articulate a specific research need that can't be satisfied by the online version to get that permission. If they were in my time period (1600-1800), I'd totally hook you up, but I can't help you in this case.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:34 PM on July 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
99% of the stuff at Houghton Library is totally fine for anyone to see for pretty much any reason if they come in and show some ID (MeMail me for details if you're interested). As you can imagine though, tiny, delicate books by super-famous authors are in the category of things that require advance curatorial permission to look at, and given that they've been digitized, you would have to articulate a specific research need that can't be satisfied by the online version to get that permission. If they were in my time period (1600-1800), I'd totally hook you up, but I can't help you in this case.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:34 PM on July 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
Aw, too bad. Thanks for the info anyway, mynameisluka and Horace.
"As I suspected," says my wife. She tried to check out the tiny books at the Haworth Parsonage in 2000 but didn't get to do that, either.
(She did accidentally end up in their kitchen, though. When no one was looking, she touched the table.)
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 3:37 PM on July 3, 2014
"As I suspected," says my wife. She tried to check out the tiny books at the Haworth Parsonage in 2000 but didn't get to do that, either.
(She did accidentally end up in their kitchen, though. When no one was looking, she touched the table.)
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 3:37 PM on July 3, 2014
Thanks for the clarification, Horace, by "the stuff" I naturally meant "the little Brontë books" since really, what other stuff is there?
posted by mynameisluka at 4:47 PM on July 3, 2014
posted by mynameisluka at 4:47 PM on July 3, 2014
How neat! I just today read The Return Of The Twelves, a book for children about the little stories Branwell and his sisters wrote about his wooden toy soldiers. I don't know if this collection includes any of them, but it's good news for Brontyfans.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 8:26 PM on July 3, 2014
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 8:26 PM on July 3, 2014
How on earth is Angria not the name of some sort of mallcore band?
posted by Wolfdog at 4:35 AM on July 4, 2014
posted by Wolfdog at 4:35 AM on July 4, 2014
I'm reading this on my teeny tiny iPod Touch and the only word I can make out is KLUKS.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:29 AM on July 4, 2014
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:29 AM on July 4, 2014
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