# The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë

THE
COMPLETE WORKS OF
EMILY BRONTË
IN TWO VOLUMES
Vol. I.
POETRY
This edition is limited to 1000 copies in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, its Colonies and Dependencies, and the United States of America
THE
COMPLETE POEMS
OF
EMILY BRONTË
EDITED BY
CLEMENT SHORTER
WITH INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY
W. ROBERTSON NICOLL
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
NEW YORK AND LONDON
A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The admirer of Emily Brontë and her work has known her poetry up to the present through only some thirty-nine poems. There were twenty-two poems in the little volume entitled Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, which was the first venture of the three Miss Brontës, and there were yet another seventeen in the Posthumous Poems that Charlotte Brontë printed after Emily's death. These thirty-nine poems have been reprinted many times, usually at the end of The Professor. No less than one hundred and thirty-eight additional poems are included in the present volume. Although it cannot be pretended that any one of these is equal to 'The Old Stoic,' that gave so much distinction to the first volume, or to the 'Last Lines,' that were the unforgettable glory of the second, it will scarcely be disputed that these newly printed verses are of profound interest.
There is no incident in the profoundly pathetic story of the Brontës better known than that of the publication of the poems by the three sisters through the firm of Aylott and Jones of Paternoster Row. The little book bears the date 1846. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë here courted public favour for the first time. Only two copies were sold, as we learn from a letter that Currer Bell sent to certain eminent contemporaries—to Tennyson, to Lockhart, to De Quincey, and to others. Here is the letter in question:—
June 16th, 1847.
Sir,—My relatives, Ellis and Acton Bell, and myself, heedless of the repeated warnings of various respectable publishers, have committed the rash act of printing a volume of poems.
The consequences predicted have, of course, overtaken us: our book is found to be a drug; no man needs it or heeds it. In the space of a year our publisher has disposed but of two copies, and by what painful efforts he succeeded in getting rid of these two, himself only knows.
Before transferring the edition to the trunkmakers, we have decided on distributing as presents a few copies of what we cannot sell; and we beg to offer you one in acknowledgment of the pleasure and profit we have often and long derived from your works.—I am, sir, yours very respectfully,
Currer Bell.
It is a curious irony of circumstance that this little volume, which so failed of recognition when that would have heartened its authors beyond measure, now sells, on the rare occasions that it turns up in the sale-rooms, for more money than the whole issue cost Charlotte Brontë and her sisters when they had it published at their own expense.
The additional poems which form, as may be seen, the larger part of this volume (pp. 85-333) were contained in note-books that Charlotte Brontë had handled tenderly when she made her Selection after Emily and Anne had died. These little note-books were lent to me by Mr. Nicholls, her husband, some forty years afterwards, with permission to publish whatever I liked from them. No one to-day will deny to them a certain bibliographical interest.
Clement Shorter.
April 24th, 1908.
CONTENTS
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1926, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 97 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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