Biographical Notes on the Pseudonymous Bells

Biographical Notes on the Pseudonymous Bells collects two short pieces by Charlotte Brontë, one of them a “Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell.” The notice says it has been thought that all the works published under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell were, in reality, the production of one person, a mistake the writer tried to rectify with a few words of disclaimer prefixed to the third edition of “Jane Eyre.” The notice adds that, on the occasion of a reprint of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, the writer is advised distinctly to state how the case really stands.

One day, in the autumn of 1845, the writer accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in her sister Emily’s handwriting. The writer thought the verse condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine, with, to the ear, a peculiar music, wild, melancholy, and elevating. A passage says a woman who was religious found support through her most painful journey by leaning on Christian doctrines in which she firmly believed, and that she died May 28, 1849.