The Project Gutenberg eBook, Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle, by Clement
K. Shorter

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Title: Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle

Author: Clement K. Shorter

Release Date: August 8, 2006 [eBook #19011]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLOTTE BRONTE AND HER CIRCLE***

Transcribed from the 1896 Hodder and Stoughton edition by Les Bowler.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE AND HER CIRCLE

BY CLEMENT K. SHORTER

LONDON

HODDER AND STOUGHTON

27 PATERNOSTER ROW

1896

[Picture: CHARLOTTE BRONTE]

PREFACE

It is claimed for the following book of some five hundred pages that the
larger part of it is an addition of entirely new material to the romantic
story of the Brontes. For this result, but very small credit is due to
me; and my very hearty acknowledgments must be made, in the first place,
to the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, for whose generous surrender of
personal inclination I must ever be grateful. It has been with extreme
unwillingness that Mr. Nicholls has broken the silence of forty years,
and he would not even now have consented to the publication of certain
letters concerning his marriage, had he not been aware that these letters
were already privately printed and in the hands of not less than eight or
ten people. To Miss Ellen Nussey of Gomersall, I have also to render
thanks for having placed the many letters in her possession at my
disposal, and for having furnished a great deal of interesting
information. Without the letters from Charlotte Bronte to Mr. W. S.
Williams, which were kindly lent to me by his son and daughter, Mr. and
Mrs. Thornton Williams, my book would have been the poorer. Sir Wemyss
Reid, Mr. J. J. Stead, of Heckmondwike, Mr. Butler Wood, of Bradford, Mr.
W. W. Yates, of Dewsbury, Mr. Erskine Stuart, Mr. Buxton Forman, and Mr.
Thomas J. Wise are among the many Bronte specialists who have helped me
with advice or with the loan of material.