The Works of Patrick Branwell Bronte: 1834-1836

by Patrick Branwell Brontë, Victor A. Neufeldt

This is the first complete and reliable edition of the works of Patrick Branwell Bront' (excluding the letters), and fills the last remaining gap in providing reliable editions of the works of the Bront' family. Less than half of the prose, totaling over 500,000 words, has been previously published, and much of what has been published is textually unreliable or has appeared in largely unreadable facsimile reproductions. The edition increases the number of poems Branwell is known to have published to nineteen, eighteen of them before his more famous sisters ever appeared in print. In addition to the text itself, reproduced as Branwell left it, the edition provides (a) bibliographical information on the manuscripts; (b) glossing of names and literary and historical references; (c) textual information. The reproduction of the text as Branwell left it allows the reader to trace Branwell's adoption of various authorial personae-magazine/newspaper editor and publisher, travel writer, poet, dramatist, critic, chronicler, historian, military man, for example-as well as his "mode of composition" and development as a writer.
Volume I, covering 1827-33, appeared in 1997. This volume covers 1834-36, the period in which Branwell, focusing on the growing conflict between Alexander Percy, Earl of Northangerland, and Arthur Wellesly, Duke of Zamorna and King of Angria, produced the largest, most sustained body of written work of any comparable period in his literary life, totaling approximately 308,500 words of prose and 42 (37 extant) poems. Of the prose, approximately 241,000 words are published here for the first time. Volume III, covering 1837-47, is due to appear in 1999.

720 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1997

Reviews

[Amber Elby · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent scholarly source, but not entirely accessible for the average reader.