Ashley MS 159

''The foundling'': a tale written at the age of seventeen by Charlotte Brontë; 1833. Autograph fair copy with revisions and deletions, written in minute characters in imitation of print on both sides of nine octavo leaves of white laid paper. No watermark. The leaves have been bound by Charlotte to form one gathering of ten (10 is a stub) in brown sugar-paper wrappers. The title-page (f. 1) is signed ''Charlotte Brontë'', and bears the note ''This Book was begun May 31st 1833 and finished June the 27th 1833''. The Preface (f. 1b), attributed to Captain Tree, the pseudonymous author of the tale, is in Charlotte''s normal hand. At the foot of f. 2 is the note ''begun May 31st 1833'', while the end of the tale (f. 9b) is signed and dated ''Charlotte Brontë/Haworth June 27th - 1833''. The tale includes the following verses: burlesque verses, beginning ''Eaniala is a gurt bellaring bull'', f. 2b; ''The Swiss Emigrant''s Return'' (first printed, by Wise, in The Swiss Emigrant''s Return and Other Poems, 1917), 5b; ''Seranade'' (sic) (first printed in The Swiss Emigrant''s Return), ff. 5b-6; ''O wind that o''er the ocean'' (first published in The Complete Poems of Charlotte Brontë, 1923, as ''Destiny''), ff. 6b-7; ''Sound a lament in the halls of his father'' (first printed in The Swiss Emigrant''s Return as ''A Lament''), ff. 8b-9. The whole tale was first published in The Shakespeare Head Brontë, Miscellaneous and Unpublished Writings of Charlotte and P. B. Brontë, i, pp. 220-295. Ashley Library Catalogue, i, p. 70 (facsimile of ff. 1 and 7).

Octavo; ff. ii+9.

Tales: Charlotte Brontë, author: ''The Foundling'': a tale by Charlotte Brontë: 1833: Autogr. fair copy.