Tales of Angria

by Charlotte Brontë

In 1834 Charlotte Brontë and her brother Branwell created the imaginary kingdom of Angria in a series of tiny handmade books. Continuing their saga some years later, the five 'novelettes' in this volume were written by Charlotte when she was in her early twenties, and depict an aristocratic beau monde in witty, racy and ironic language. She creates an exotic, scandalous atmosphere of intrigue and destructive passions, with a cast ranging from the ageing rake Northangerland and his Byronic son-in-law Zamorna, King of Angria, to Mary Percy, Zamorna's lovesick wife, and Charles Townshend, the cynical, gossipy narrator.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Victorian, 19th Century, Historical Fiction

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1839

About the author

Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist, the eldest out of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. See also Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë.

Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, the third of six children, to Patrick Brontë (formerly "Patrick Brunty"), an Irish Anglican clergyman, and his wife, Maria Branwell. In April 1820 the family moved a few miles to Haworth, a remote town on the Yorkshire moors, where Patrick had been appointed Perpetual Curate. This is where the Brontë children would spend most of their lives. Maria Branwell Brontë died from what was thought to be cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters and a son to the care of her spinster sister Elizabeth Branwell, who moved to Yorkshire to help the family.

In August 1824 Charlotte, along with her sisters Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth, was sent to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire, a new school for the daughters of poor clergyman (which she would describe as Lowood School in Jane Eyre). The school was a horrific experience for the girls and conditions were appalling. They were regularly deprived of food, beaten by teachers and humiliated for the slightest error. The school was unheated and the pupils slept two to a bed for warmth. Seven pupils died in a typhus epidemic that swept the school and all four of the Brontë girls became very ill - Maria and Elizabeth dying of tuberculosis in 1825. Her experiences at the school deeply affected Brontë - her health never recovered and she immortalised the cruel and brutal treatment in her novel, Jane Eyre. Following the tragedy, their father withdrew his daughters from the school.

At home in Haworth Parsonage, Charlotte and the other surviving children — Branwell, Emily, and Anne — continued their ad-hoc education. In 1826 her father returned home with a box of toy soldiers for Branwell. They would prove the catalyst for the sisters' extraordinary creative development as they immediately set to creating lives and characters for the soldiers, inventing a world for them which the siblings called 'Angria'. The siblings became addicted to writing, creating stories, poetry and plays. Brontë later said that the reason for this burst of creativity was that:

'We were wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the enjoyments and occupations of life. The highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure we had known from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition.'

After her father began to suffer from a lung disorder, Charlotte was again sent to school to complete her education at Roe Head school in Mirfield from 1831 to 1832, where she met her lifelong friends and correspondents, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. During this period (1833), she wrote her novella The Green Dwarf under the name of Wellesley. The school was extremely small with only ten pupils meaning the top floor was completely unused and believed to be supposedly haunted by the ghost of a young lady dressed in silk. This story fascinated Brontë and inspired the figure of Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre.

Brontë left the school after a few years, however she swiftly returned in 1835 to take up a position as a teacher, and used her wages to pay for Emily and Anne to be taught at the school. Teaching did not appeal to Brontë and in 1838 she left Roe Head to become a governess to the Sidgewick family -- partly from a sense of adventure and a desire to see the world, and partly from financial necessity.

Charlotte became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to biographer Elizabeth Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness." She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855.

Reviews

[K Rochester · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rented this book from the library mainly to see how Charlotte Brontë's writing style developed as a young woman; from her time as a teacher and governess to her time in Belgium as a student, and finally, to the period of the publication of her novels. (Especially Jane Eyre) The manuscript "Henry Hastings" was incredible in that regard--so many JE related things. Resurgam, a dog named Carlo, a gentleman with an open book sitting while waiting for a governess, etc. I was like O_O, lol. However, I have to say that I loved these tales simply for themselves.
As these were never meant to be published, they are definitely not as polished as her other work, nor as deep and profound; but they were very much enthralling, with a myriad of memorable characters. (the Duke of Zamorna..*wolf whistle* ;-)
Although she most definitely perfected the art of writing in Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë's innate talent shines through in the Tales of Angria, even at this young age. I'd personally really love to see this as a miniseries or soap opera; granted, a lot of work would have to be put into polishing it up, and actually tying up the very many loose ends, but I found it VERY entertaining. I wish Charlotte had written more...and that more manuscripts had survived.
The only problem with this is that I found myself 'dumped in the middle.' While the sidenotes were very helpful to me as far as familiarizing myself with the plot and characters, I wish there was a collection with ALL the available tales of Angria, so I could follow the general story much better.

P.S. Zamorna--you're a heartbreaker, dreammaker, don't you mess around with me :)

[mae]

I love charlotte brontë it is that simple

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall it was very interesting to see Charlotte's early work. It was however not at all what I expected. When I learned several years ago that the Brontes created imaginary worlds and wrote stories from them, I pictured something more fantastical. Instead it's pretty straightforward high society in a very England-like Africa. I at least pictured something more like a fairy tale, with supernatural characteristics, especially since their most well known officially published works had themes of the supernatural.

I also really wish I could read the equivalent of Emily's Gondal, since Wuthering Heights is so dear to me.

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gets 5 stars all around. Major kudos to the editor Heather Glen. Her introduction, endnotes, and appendices were very well written and informative.

This tome is another part of the Angrian Saga by the Brontes. Heather Glen assembled a wonderful narrative out of some of Charlotte's existing and known manuscripts. After reading the last story in this collection I want to find out what happens. So it is back to the library to find more parts.

[Belen (f.k.a. La Mala ✌) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mucho valor emotivo.

[S.B. Barnes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading this leaves you with the unambiguous belief that it was never meant for publication, at least not in this form. The stories are disjointed; they presuppose a greater familiarity with characters and setting than I could have had - especially in an edition with no introduction and no dramatis personae, which I think is a huge mistake, because some of the characters are referred to by about four different names. Doing some research enlightens you in some regard: Knowing that the fantasy world of the Very Very White Angria which apparently is supposed to be in Africa? was something the Brontës developed together and played together helps. Especially in the sense you get that these stories were just transcribed out of Charlotte's notebooks without having an underlying background text.

But it doesn't help that much. It took me till about the third story to understand who the narrator was and that each story had the same narrator - who is occasionally a character and occasionally omniscient. It's certainly interesting that there is so much adultery and dissolution going on, but, well, it's a little repetitive? It kind of reads like how playing Barbies used to work: you spend absolute ages developing a setting and backstories and plot points - but your Barbie always does pretty much the same stuff. There is something to be said for Charlotte's witticisms and pithy dialogues, but so much of the book is really dense and nigh-on incomprehensible that it's really hard to figure out what.

I literally just finished this book, and I don't remember the narrator's name. I did kind of find the stories Henry Hastings and Caroline Vernon memorable. The former follows a disgraced soldier and his sister, who tries to protect him; the second an illegitimate girl being brought into society and realising her love for what might be Angria's antagonist, or possibly protagonist, it's really hard to say. At its core, this is not a collection of short stories. It's a scrapbook of bits of a longer story that should by rights either be sold as an annotated edition for scholars or, with the use of a ghostwriter who adds in some introductory stuff, smooths out the chronology and figures out what to do with the narrator, sold as a novel. It worked for Sanditon, didn't it?

[Cat · Rating 2 out of 5]

After finishing "The Roe Head Journal Fragments", the last and very confusing tale, I finally completed this book. I thought today would never come, for I was really tired of the book.

Apart from one tale, the fifth, I didn't like this book. Charlotte Brontë was an incredible writer, but that's not the point here. I couldn't enjoy the tales and found them very confusing. And I kept having the general feeling that I had landed on a scene that was already happening and no one had bothered to explain to me what was going on.

So... no, really not my cup of tea.

[Bettie]

Gifted from Brazilliant Laura - thankee.

1. Mina Laury
Opening: The last scene in my last book concluded within the walls of Alnwick House, and the first scene in my present volume opens in the same place. I have a great partiality for morning pictures.

[Joseph Sciuto · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Tales of Angria" by Charlotte Bronte is a book comprised of five 'novelettes' connected with the imaginary kingdom of Angria and a couple of characters who appear, or are at least mentioned, in all five tales, such as 'The Duke of Zamorna'and 'The Earl of Northangerland.'

The first two tales are extremely difficult, and to put it more bluntly, nearly intolerable to read. The same characters go by so many different names that the reader is often left guessing as to who they are. One is not even sure who is narrating the tales.

The last three tales are sublime, the numerous characters richly and delightfully defined, and the storylines both easy and fascinating to follow. It is important to note that the tales are presented in the chronological order in which they were written. One is witness to the maturity of Ms. Bronte as she literally refines her craft over a period of a single year.

"Tales of Angria" is in no way comparable to Ms. Bronte's masterpiece "Jane Eyre" and I would be remiss to recommend this book to anyone who is even remotely looking for something similar. What this book gives us is a rare glimpse into the creative and imaginary processes of one of the world's greatest writers. For scholars of Ms. Bronte this is an absolute treasure trove.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never heard about this book before until I found a copy in a bookshop in Porto. I couldn't resist reading it.

From Penguin:
The book has five novelettes telling the story of an arrogant king who seduces his innocent young ward; a rakish dandy searches salons and boudoirs for a rich and well-connected wife; a dangerous criminal buys his freedmen through betrayal just facing the noose; a wife and a mistress meet for the firs time.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very wintry place this fictional world the Brontë siblings created - even in the summer months it is damp and stormy (perhaps proof of toll global warming has taken on North Africa since 1830s). The characters themselves are a variety of intemperate emotions...

[Jack Deighton]

Angria was the imaginary country where Charlotte Brontë and her brother Bramwell set stories they wrote in a tiny script into notebooks. The ones in this book were presumably all penned by Charlotte as she is the named author. Somewhat frustratingly Angria itself is indeterminately fixed, at times seeming to be carved out of the north west of England - people from Ireland are described as western - at others somewhere else entirely. I got no sense as others have that Angria was supposed to be in Africa. There is also an odd mixture of real sounding names (the Sydenham hills, Alnwick, Arundel) and the invented (Verdopolis, Northangerland, Adrianopolis, Zamorna.)

On the evidence here these five tales and an associated set of literary fragments were probably too risqué to be published in Charlotte’s lifetime, containing as they do accounts of mistresses, natural children and illicit passions. They are obviously tyro pieces, most likely never intended for publication, with a tendency to melodrama, and to the modern eye overwritten and prolix, with a propensity to start scenes with a description of the doings of an unnamed man or woman, as if inviting us to guess who it is meant to be, and overall an overdone tendency to address the reader directly. They mainly focus on a small set of aristocratic figures and their interactions and relationships.

Mina Laury is the mistress of the ruler of Angria, the Duke of Zamorna, kept by him in a house run by herself. Her existence is disturbed one day by the Duchess unexpectedly making an appearance. In addition a marriage proposal to her by Lord Hartford angers the Duke.

Stancliffe’s Hotel is the location opposite Angria’s capital’s city hall in front of which occurs an angry gathering of the lower classes, annoyed at Angria’s neighbour Northangerland. The Duke of Zamorna turns up and angrily harangues them to leave.

The Duke of Zamorna is mainly told via letters written by one Henry Townshend and some other characters but reads as being very disconnected.

Henry Hastings is an outlaw and traitor, tracked down to the house where his sister Elizabeth is housekeeper. At his subsequent trial he is offered what in the US is called a plea bargain if he spills the beans about his accomplices. The story is really more about Elizabeth though.

Caroline Vernon is the natural daughter of Lord Northangerland, brought up by her mother and as a ward of the Duke of Zamorna. At the age of sixteen she feels all grown up, but of course isn’t. Sent into seclusion by her father she runs away – to the Duke of Zamorna.

The Roe Head Journal Fragments are notes, aides memoires and drafts for scenes from stories.

These are of historical interest in showing the genesis of the writer Charlotte Brontë would become but cannot be set beside the likes of Jane Eyre or even Shirley. It is noticeable though that as in Shirley Brontë deploys words which nowadays are almost exclusively Scots (eg scunner) but which must have been prevalent further south in her lifetime.

Sensitivity warning: the book contains the word ‘nigger,’ and a character saying, “I’m as rich as a Jew.”

[monty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Without context or insight into the youth of the Brontë children, of course these scraps and excerpts from stories are confusing. Then I became aware of the childlike origin of the mind game these fantasies spring from. Years of "play" in this world and characters. A dream world of their own that belongs only to them and their siblings - documented on small papers the size of a note - not intended for posterity. I am really fascinated, and yes thanks to that background knowledge.

The afterword (by Jörg Drews) helped me a lot, especially the following excerpt (p. 268):
"For what was then called 'Stories from Angria' in research (...) is initially probably the most extensive literary daydream that we know, a fabric of narratives that has to and yet cannot entirely admit to the status of literature; the whole 'proto-literary' so to speak. In Arno Schmidt's terminology, it is a 'longer thought game', and from a psychological point of view it is exactly what the psychoanalyst Hans Sachs described in 1924 as a 'common daydream', the most extensive literary example of this phenomenon."

[Sam Hirst · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think if you're looking to get started in reading the juvenilia, I wouldn't start here because it's the last five stories by Charlotte so you're sort of jetted right into the end. Almost everything in this one is in other collections and while a couple of them are favourites for me (I really enjoy 'Caroline Vernon' from a Bronte studies perspective), the Duke of Zamorna and Henry Hastings are both slightly 'bitty' so less enjoyable as a narrative for casual reading. The notes are very helpful and I'd recommend it as a good copy for those already familiar with the juvenilia, wanting to fill out their collection (to catch all the publicly available stories) and to have a solidly researched edition on hand.

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved reading the Brontes' "Tales of Angria" written by a young Charlotte but both Branwell and herself created this fictionalized Angria. When reading the journal part that Charlotte wrote about both her teaching atmosphere and the creative tales that were without bounds in her head, it becomes crystal clear that writing was everything to a young Charlotte. I reviewed all these tales individually. Penguin publishing did an extremely wonderful job in their extensive endnotes making these tales more complete and the glossary of principle characters and places very helpful. would love to read more of these early stories.

[Donal Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding book of novella's Charlotte Bronte wrote in her younger years. At times a challenging read , especially 'The duke of zamora' Which admitidly took me a second read to fully grasp it. All the stories are great especially 'Henry Hastings' and ' Caroline Vernon' which really show Charlotte Bronte as a writer was seriously getting somewhere. Amazing collection

[Robyn Hart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was interesting to say the least. Is it Charlotte's best work? No. Is it still worth the time reading it? Yes. This is an insight in the early developments of her writing skills where you can see how her thought process evolved to eventually completing the master piece that is Jane Eyre. If you didn't like Shirley- this novel is better!

[Belinda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not enjoy this book at all.

[Morgan Bruyneel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an accessible read but well worth the effort.

[Apple · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughly fascinating and enjoyable read, I only wish the Czech translation included more.

[Corinna Bevier · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could not keep any of these characters straight. Genuinely it took me until the end of the book to realize that The Duke of Zamorna and Mr. Wellesley were the same person.

[Rebekah May · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is described as being set in a fantastical world created by Charlotte and Branwell Brontë, when in fact this is more high society set in an alternate Africa which is kind of like the English countryside. I really enjoyed these tales, though there's a lot of background we don't get due to the manuscripts of earlier stories not surviving, and the fact that Branwell's Angrian stories aren't included. Still, though, these tales do stand alone and they are entertaining.

I enjoyed the characters in these, especially Northangerland, Zamorna and Caroline Vernon, the star of the last story. It was really interesting to see Charlotte's early writing and to see, especially in Henry Hastings, some snippets of things that are very reminiscent of what ended up being included in Jane Eyre .

The last portion of the tales are The Roe Head Journal Fragments, which contains kind-of-journal entries. This was especially interesting to read because their main purpose is to showcase Charlotte's methods and thought processes. The manuscripts in this part of the book have been left alone (and Heather Glen, the editor, even included the words and phrases Charlotte had crossed out) so it can be quite hard to read at times, but seeing her creative process down on paper was so exciting! To me, at least.

I really enjoyed reading this book, but I would say it's for fans of Charlotte Brontë. The stories don't always have a major plot point, and can end a little abruptly. There's also not really a cohesiveness to the stories, and they're also some of the last tales of Angria so you are thrown in at the deep end, after a war we know nothing about, and with characters who know each other very well. Charlotte obviously expects the reader to already know everything about everyone, as this has all been covered in earlier stories that we don't get to read. They're definitely interesting in terms of seeing her writing grow and evolve, but if you aren't at all interested in that aspect I would say to give this a miss - at least until you've read more of Charlotte Brontë's work.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had not spent much time pondering those tales written by the Bronte children. I thought they would be grim. These Angrian tales by Charlotte along with her brother Bramwell were not just written in childhood but into their adult years too; but they are somewhat surprising, fairly racey for Victorian times, themes. There is a bit of Sir Walter Scott, some are Arthurian chivalric elements in them, along with some Star Wars-like action. Where are the Hollywood movie-makers?

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back in the early 90s when I was trying to find these texts, they were simply impossible to find. I spent hundreds of dollars on academic compilations and even travelled to Haworth to find them, so major kudos to Penguin for releasing them in affordable editions. Again, essential reading in the Angrian series.

[Sheri-lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but a bit unsatisfying as there are chunks of 'history' and story missing and things are somewhat fragmented, with some unresolved story lines.

I think some of the private lives were likely very scandalous for the 1830's. I wonder if the Brontë family would have been scandalized themselves if these stories had been published in their life times. Interesting.

[Susan Mcfate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ch 81: p3
Your companion is not crazy! He saw him on the clear horizon. Nor was he grudging about the Unseen. Nor is it a statement made by some outcast Satan. So where are you all heading for? It is merely a Reminder to everyone in the Universe. So anyone of you who wishes may go straight. Yet you will only wish what God, Lord of the Universe, may wish.

[Consolate · Rating 5 out of 5]

only a fragment of English version...what a pity...

[Praicy]

wonderful book

[Rebecca Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars.
I didn't think these short stories were anything special. While I didn't dislike them, I thought the characters and the places were a bit hard to follow and I expected a lot more from it.

[Lanokie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this book.