Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

Poems was the first book of poetry of the Brontë sisters. He appeared in May 1846 under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

Content

The volume contains the first edition of 61 poems, each of which 21 by Anne Brontë ( Acton Bell) and Emily Brontë ( Ellis Bell) were written; Charlotte Brontë ( Currer Bell ) contributed 19 poems in the collection.

Edition history

The first edition of the poem was printed bands at 1846 Aylott and Jones in London on behalf of the Brontë sisters, who paid for the publication of £ 38 10s. Of the 1,000 copies of the first edition only two volumes were sold in the year after publication.

By mid-year 1848 left a total of 39 copies of this edition the publisher, a substantial proportion of them as gifts. Then the publisher Smith, Elder & Company acquired the remaining 961 specimens, in the hope that the success of the 1847 published novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë demand would increase according to the book of poems. The books were given new covers, but sold still slow; average about 50 copies a year were sold. Only after the publication of the biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell in 1857 increased the demand, so that the first edition was sold out in 1860.

Breakdown of pseudonyms

The pseudonyms are easy to decipher: the initials of the first names of the sisters meet the initials of their pseudonyms. Charlotte Brontë corresponds Currer Bell, Anne Brontë 's Acton Bell, and Emily Brontë Ellis Bell.