Tartarus Press

publishers

A Book of Ryhmes

by

Charlotte Brontë

 

With an Introduction by Patti Smith

and essays by Barbara Heritage and Henry Wessells

 Published in association with the Brontë Society

 

Charlotte Brontë wrote her miniature book of poems, A Book of Ryhmes, in 1829, when she was aged only thirteen. Dated 17th December 1829, the hand-stitched book is one of the famous miniature books produced by the Brontës in childhood.

 

A Book of Ryhmes (the word rhymes is misspelt) was for many years thought to be lost, but in April 2022 it was announced as for sale at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair. It was sold to the Friends of the National Libraries for $1.25 million, and has since been donated to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, which holds the world’s largest collection of Brontë manuscripts.

 

This first ever publication of A Book of Ryhmes reproduces the original handwritten pages in facsimile at their original size, as well as enlarged, alongside a transcription of the poems.

 

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She is best known for the novel Jane Eyre, which she published under the pseudonym Currer Bell.

 

Patti Smith (born 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, author, and visual artist. Her debut album Horses (1975) made her an influential member of the New-York-City-based punk rock movement. See the Financial Times.

 

Barbara Heritage is the Miranker Family Director of Collections, Exhibitions & Scholarly Initiatives at Rare Book School, University of Virginia. A specialist in rare books and manuscripts, her work has been discussed in The Atlantic, Forbes, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and on PBS.

 

Henry Wessells is an antiquarian bookseller and author of Another Green World (short fiction), The Private Life of Books (poetry), and A Conversation larger than the Universe. He lives in New Jersey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Review:

"The Brontë Parsonage Museum partnered with a local publisher and asked the musician, author and poet Patti Smith to write the foreword. In it, she writes that Brontë’s teenage writing transported her back to her own childhood, when imagination offered her an escape from reality. The poems show a cleareyed writer determined to wield invention 'as a benevolent weapon,' Smith writes.  'It is not simply a handful of juvenile verses,' she adds, 'but the manifestation of an ambitious dreamer.'  The New York Times

 

Featured:

On the BBC website.

By Michael Dirda in The Washington Post.

In the Independent newspaper, Patti Smith's Introduction to A Book of Ryhmes can be read for free here.