A long-lost short story written by Charlotte Brontë has been published for the first time online. The story, entitled L’Ingratitude, was written as a homework assignment and was submitted to a tutor that was known to have inspired Brontë’s Villette. The story can be read in full at the London Review of Books’ website here, though it’s written entirely in French. Fortunately for us Anglo-Brontë fans the Daily Mail has an English-translated excerpt at the end of their article on the story found here.
And how could we not comment on the manuscript itself, given our obvious interest in the subject of original artist manuscripts? This is the first known piece of homework written by any of the Brontë sisters and the original manuscript contains the tutors’ notes on a few misspellings and grammatical errors – “although [the manuscript] has no corrections on it.” No question, it’s an interesting document! To see a re-production Paperblanks has done of an original Brontë manuscript, go here.
