The Twelve Adventurers, and Other Stories by Charlotte Brontë
The Adventures of Ernest Alembert
First printed, from the original manuscript, in 1896, in an edition limited to thirty copies for private circulation only. Edited by Thomas J. Wise. This volume contains facsimiles of two pages of the manuscript. Reprinted in Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll, M.A., and Thomas J. Wise, vol. ii., 1896, pp. 47-79.
In the Preface to the privately printed volume we are informed by Mr. Wise, that—
The manuscript of ‘The Adventures of Ernest Alembert’ consists of sixteen octavo pages, measuring 7 1/4 by 4 1/2 inches, stitched in a wrapper of coarse brown paper, with the following title written in Charlotte’s hand upon the front: ‘The Adventures of Ernest Alembert. A Tale by C. Brontë. May 25, 1880.’ The book is written in a free running hand, far more readily deciphered than the minute characters employed in the majority of these early books. Unlike most of these it has no title-page save that on the wrapper, but a large portion of the final page is occupied by an inscription, after the manner of a colophon.
C. W. H.
A TALE BY C. BRONTË
May 25, 1830.