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Unfinished Novels
Best known for "Jane Eyre" and "Villette", Charlotte Bronte also left some unfinished novels. "Ashworth", "The Moores" and "The Story of Willie Ellin" are collected here, along with the first chapters of "Emma", Charlotte's last novel, published posthumously in 1860 in the "Cornhill Magazine".
113 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Charlotte Brontë
2,602 books20.2k followersCharlotte 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.
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.
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June 6, 2018
Jestem niepocieszona, że nigdy nie poznam zakończeń tych historii. Są naprawdę rewelacyjne.
June 1, 2020
Not to be confused with Jane Austen's
Emma
(1815), Charlotte Brontë's fragment of a novel remained incomplete at her death in 1855, forty years after Austen's saw the light of day. As Tom Winnifrith in his introduction reminds us, Austen's Sanditon and Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood continue to fascinate us, getting us wondering what the authors may have intended had they managed to finish their tales; and the same applies to Emma. Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess allegedly took Brontë's broad hints for a plot and ran with them, but all we are truly left with in the original is that tantalising opening, the one beginning "We all seek an ideal in life."
The first puzzle is the identity of Emma. Who is she? The narrator (who addresses us directly as "reader") tells us she is the widow Mrs Chalfont, and we guess she is around forty (perhaps not coincidentally about Charlotte's age). Thereafter she disappears from the fragment's pages. Is she the titular character? We never find out.
The second mystery concerns the identity of the poor little rich girl called Matilda Fitzgibbon sent to a small girls school run by the Misses Wilcox. What's the history of this taciturn girl? Who is her father, Conway Fitzgibbon, and why is there no trace to be found of him when the end of term arrives?
To start with Matilda, apparently with wealth to support her, is treated as teacher's pet by Miss Mabel Wilcox (who hopes thereby to substantially increase the school's income); unsurprisingly this results in Matilda being shunned by the handful of other pupils -- Mary, Jessy and, in particular, Diana. But the girl's odd behaviour and lack of sociability is compounded when she starts sleepwalking.
When missives to Matilda's father's address are returned as undeliverable, a regular visitor to the Wilcox establishment -- a bachelor called Mr Ellin -- offers to investigate, only to find that neither the residence of May Park, Midland County nor its alleged occupier Mr Fitzgibbon appear to exist. When violently charged by Miss Wilcox to explain everything Matilda collapses, and Mr Ellin offers to question her more gently. And at this point the fragment teasingly stops.
Even in this truncated form this has so many traits one recognises from Charlotte's earlier novels -- the knowing humour, the cutting descriptions of adults, the telling thumb portraits, the sympathetic treatment of those who'd been victimised, and the confident writing style honed over decades. One wishes she'd been able to continue.
It may be of interest to know that Emma was published posthumously in the Cornhill Magazine in 1860, along with a starry-eyed introduction (included in this collection of unfinished tales) by Charlotte's friend William Thackeray:*
Though Charlotte's husband Arthur Nicholls commented that, because her tale was set in a school, "The critics will accuse you of repetition," she blithely responded, "Oh! I shall alter that. I always begin two or three times before I can please myself." Thackeray sombrely, if not a little melodramatically, observed:
Tom Winnifrith's commentary gives some of the background to those final attempts to pen a novel, including of course Emma. Of the three other incomplete pieces in this collection -- the others include Ashworth and The Moores -- another also has a Mr Ellin; but I shall discuss The Story of Willie Ellin and its possible links with Emma another time. Meanwhile one has the possible consolation that there have been attempts to complete the last ever story Charlotte has left us, Constance Savery's Emma (1980) and, more recently, Clare Boylan's Emma Brown (2003).
However I fancy I shall focus next on Frances Hodgson Burnett's variation, her Cinderella-like treatment of Emma in A Little Princess which was published in 1905, exactly half a century after Charlotte's untimely death, though FHB had worked on a shorter treatment nearly twenty years before that.
* William Makepeace Thackeray, ‘The Last Sketch’, in Cornhill Magazine, April 1860
The first puzzle is the identity of Emma. Who is she? The narrator (who addresses us directly as "reader") tells us she is the widow Mrs Chalfont, and we guess she is around forty (perhaps not coincidentally about Charlotte's age). Thereafter she disappears from the fragment's pages. Is she the titular character? We never find out.
The second mystery concerns the identity of the poor little rich girl called Matilda Fitzgibbon sent to a small girls school run by the Misses Wilcox. What's the history of this taciturn girl? Who is her father, Conway Fitzgibbon, and why is there no trace to be found of him when the end of term arrives?
To start with Matilda, apparently with wealth to support her, is treated as teacher's pet by Miss Mabel Wilcox (who hopes thereby to substantially increase the school's income); unsurprisingly this results in Matilda being shunned by the handful of other pupils -- Mary, Jessy and, in particular, Diana. But the girl's odd behaviour and lack of sociability is compounded when she starts sleepwalking.
When missives to Matilda's father's address are returned as undeliverable, a regular visitor to the Wilcox establishment -- a bachelor called Mr Ellin -- offers to investigate, only to find that neither the residence of May Park, Midland County nor its alleged occupier Mr Fitzgibbon appear to exist. When violently charged by Miss Wilcox to explain everything Matilda collapses, and Mr Ellin offers to question her more gently. And at this point the fragment teasingly stops.
Even in this truncated form this has so many traits one recognises from Charlotte's earlier novels -- the knowing humour, the cutting descriptions of adults, the telling thumb portraits, the sympathetic treatment of those who'd been victimised, and the confident writing style honed over decades. One wishes she'd been able to continue.
It may be of interest to know that Emma was published posthumously in the Cornhill Magazine in 1860, along with a starry-eyed introduction (included in this collection of unfinished tales) by Charlotte's friend William Thackeray:*
With a feeling much akin to that with which I looked upon the friend’s — the admirable artist’s — unfinished work, I can fancy many readers turning to these — the last pages which were traced by Charlotte Bronte’s hand.
Of the multitude that has read her books, who has not known and deplored the tragedy of her family, her own most sad and untimely fate? Which of her readers has not become her friend? Who that has known her books has not admired the artist’s noble English, the burning love of truth, the bravery, the simplicity, the indignation at wrong, the eager sympathy, the pious love and reverence, the passionate honour, so to speak, of the woman? What a story is that of that family of poets in their solitude yonder on the gloomy northern moors!
Though Charlotte's husband Arthur Nicholls commented that, because her tale was set in a school, "The critics will accuse you of repetition," she blithely responded, "Oh! I shall alter that. I always begin two or three times before I can please myself." Thackeray sombrely, if not a little melodramatically, observed:
But it was not to be. The trembling little hand was to write no more...
Tom Winnifrith's commentary gives some of the background to those final attempts to pen a novel, including of course Emma. Of the three other incomplete pieces in this collection -- the others include Ashworth and The Moores -- another also has a Mr Ellin; but I shall discuss The Story of Willie Ellin and its possible links with Emma another time. Meanwhile one has the possible consolation that there have been attempts to complete the last ever story Charlotte has left us, Constance Savery's Emma (1980) and, more recently, Clare Boylan's Emma Brown (2003).
However I fancy I shall focus next on Frances Hodgson Burnett's variation, her Cinderella-like treatment of Emma in A Little Princess which was published in 1905, exactly half a century after Charlotte's untimely death, though FHB had worked on a shorter treatment nearly twenty years before that.
* William Makepeace Thackeray, ‘The Last Sketch’, in Cornhill Magazine, April 1860
October 31, 2020
I loved these unfinished novels, especially! loved "Emma"? How brilliant was Charlotte Brontë!!!!
October 19, 2022
Ta okładka. Przyjrzyjcie się jej. Coś jest w niej bardzo nie tak. Galopujący koń i nieruchoma pani w grafitowej tonacji, wszystko łącznie z tłem miejscami zamazane. Jakoś mnie ta dama drażni. Niepokoi. Nie jest to ładny obrazek, według mnie wygląda wręcz na lekko nieudany. A może jest w tym głębszy sens? Metafora wiktoriańskich bohaterów i dzikich, nieokiełznanych instynktów? Drugi Szał uniesień?
„Ulegał każdemu impulsowi, jaki odczuwał, widocznie nieświadomy, że jego rosnąca i najbardziej ekscentryczna ekstrawagancja może z czasem bardziej przerażać, niż fascynować.”
Pali się we mnie niegasnące uznanie i radość z serii wydawnictwa MG za jego serię poświęconą siostrom Brontë. Wznowiono nie tylko wszystkie klasyczne powieści, ale również wydano te mniej znane, często po raz pierwszy w naszym kraju (pisałam o Profesorze), a dodatkowo świetne opracowanie pana Ostrowskiego z szalonymi teoriami, w którym pisałam już wcześniej oraz pierwszą i dość wątpliwą biografię sióstr pióra pani Gaskell. Wreszcie na krakowskich targach dorwałam Niedokończone Opowiadania z tego samego cyklu. Ach, jak ja uwielbiam te klimaty, bicze, baty i plebanie.
Charlotte już od najmłodszych lat pisała przeróżne rzeczy. Wraz z całym rodzeństwem stworzyła fantastyczne krainy Gondal i Angrię, opisując je w opowiadaniach, poezji, dziennikach i listach (więcej tutaj). Niestety, same opowiadania nie przetrwały, ale wciąż do dyspozycji mamy różne napomknienia i wiersze, a także wczesne, niedokończone manuskrypty powieści obyczajowych. Wszystkie te dzieła zdają się w sobie mieć zalążki pomysłów przepisywanych wciąż na nowo, recyklingowanych, przerabianych i odtwarzanych, które później pojawiają się w twórczości sióstr - a może tylko samej Charlotte, bo skłaniam się do tej teorii, jakoby to poprzez podawanie się za tylko jedną z trzech autorek, pomagała zabezpieczyć byt swoim młodszym siostrom.
W zbiorku znajdziemy cztery początki w różnej długości: Ashworth, Emma, Państwo Moore i Historia Williego Ellina. Dlaczego zostały zarzucone? Czemu nigdy się nie dowiemy, jakby potoczyły się losy lekko zarysowanych postaci? A może właśnie się dowiadujemy, czytając o ich kolejnych wcieleniach w skończonych książkach sióstr?
Ashworth to człek szalony, istny szatan wcielony, Heathcliff w początkowym stadium, taka larwa Heathcliffa. Wieczny kombinator, wcielenie zła, przemierza angielskie hrabstwa nabierając ludzi w butelkę i zdobywając majątek na szemrane sposoby. Jego synowie, William i Edward, to zalążki braci z Profesora, jeden stateczny, drugi porywczy i pogardliwy, tylko jeszcze bez bata. Edward później z nimfy przekształci się w swoje imago, Edwarda Rochestera z Jane Eyre. Wreszcie mamy zepsutą do szpiku kości Amelię De Capell, ich siostrę (z tego jaja później wykluły się zapewne córki pani Reed) oraz ich kuzynkę, która jak szara myszka kuli się pod kominkiem. Zupełnie przypomina wystraszoną Jane Eyre w kąciku okiennym w salonie podczas spędu szlachty.
W sumie dobrze, że Charlotte nie skończyła nigdy Emmy, bo by miała konkurencję w Emmie Jane Austen, haha, żarcik taki. Poznajemy tam Dianę, pokorną i sprawiedliwą uczennicę, która przypomina trochę Dianę z Moore House w Jane Eyre, a także pana Ellina, człowieka milczącego i spokojnego, może oryginalnego St Johna?
Co do Państwa Moore, Sarahy Julii i Johna Henry'ego, to niestety nie mogę jeszcze ich w żaden sposób połączyć z Moorem z Shirley, bo ta wciąż czeka na swoją kolej na stosiku. Mamy za to znów kolejnego Williama, a raczej Willa Moore, brata pana domu. Znów jak w Profesorze, ujmujący, głęboki i spokojny osobnik studiujący charaktery. Zmierzy się on z Alicią Wynne, stara podrywaczką, piękną i zepsutą niczym Blanche z Jane Eyre. Coś nam też przypomina motyw dziewczyny, która nie gra zbyt dobrze na klawiszach...
Mały Willie Ellin to czyste Wichrowe Wzgórza, w jego historii znajdziemy przemoc rodzinną i bicie dzieci. Pani Hill to trochę Nelly Dean z Wichrowych Wzgórz, trochę Bessie z Jane Eyre. Sam Willie uciekł z domu jak mała Jane, a i później już jako dorosła - z Thornfield Hall. Edward Ellin to zły brat Williego, który bardzo dobrze potrafi machać batem (to już jakaś obsesja).
Jak widzicie, wszyscy Williamowie Charlotte są spokojni, opanowani, marzycielscy, idealistyczni. Wszyscy Edwardowie są porywczy, szaleni, skłonni do przemocy. Pisarka siedziała sobie na plebanii w Haworth i lepiła ich raz za razem jak ludziki z plasteliny. Williamowie, Edwardowie, Diany i inni przechodzili długo przez stadia od jaja do larwy, by później powrócić jako w pełni ukształtowane istoty w kolejnych powieściach sióstr. Co potwierdza podejrzenie, że faktycznie to tylko jedna siostra ich tworzyła.
Czy warto przeczytać? Jeśli przepadacie za tymi klimatami, to jasne, jak najbardziej. Choć za każdym razem czuje się żal, że nigdy nie dowiemy się końca tych historii.
„Ulegał każdemu impulsowi, jaki odczuwał, widocznie nieświadomy, że jego rosnąca i najbardziej ekscentryczna ekstrawagancja może z czasem bardziej przerażać, niż fascynować.”
Pali się we mnie niegasnące uznanie i radość z serii wydawnictwa MG za jego serię poświęconą siostrom Brontë. Wznowiono nie tylko wszystkie klasyczne powieści, ale również wydano te mniej znane, często po raz pierwszy w naszym kraju (pisałam o Profesorze), a dodatkowo świetne opracowanie pana Ostrowskiego z szalonymi teoriami, w którym pisałam już wcześniej oraz pierwszą i dość wątpliwą biografię sióstr pióra pani Gaskell. Wreszcie na krakowskich targach dorwałam Niedokończone Opowiadania z tego samego cyklu. Ach, jak ja uwielbiam te klimaty, bicze, baty i plebanie.
Charlotte już od najmłodszych lat pisała przeróżne rzeczy. Wraz z całym rodzeństwem stworzyła fantastyczne krainy Gondal i Angrię, opisując je w opowiadaniach, poezji, dziennikach i listach (więcej tutaj). Niestety, same opowiadania nie przetrwały, ale wciąż do dyspozycji mamy różne napomknienia i wiersze, a także wczesne, niedokończone manuskrypty powieści obyczajowych. Wszystkie te dzieła zdają się w sobie mieć zalążki pomysłów przepisywanych wciąż na nowo, recyklingowanych, przerabianych i odtwarzanych, które później pojawiają się w twórczości sióstr - a może tylko samej Charlotte, bo skłaniam się do tej teorii, jakoby to poprzez podawanie się za tylko jedną z trzech autorek, pomagała zabezpieczyć byt swoim młodszym siostrom.
W zbiorku znajdziemy cztery początki w różnej długości: Ashworth, Emma, Państwo Moore i Historia Williego Ellina. Dlaczego zostały zarzucone? Czemu nigdy się nie dowiemy, jakby potoczyły się losy lekko zarysowanych postaci? A może właśnie się dowiadujemy, czytając o ich kolejnych wcieleniach w skończonych książkach sióstr?
Ashworth to człek szalony, istny szatan wcielony, Heathcliff w początkowym stadium, taka larwa Heathcliffa. Wieczny kombinator, wcielenie zła, przemierza angielskie hrabstwa nabierając ludzi w butelkę i zdobywając majątek na szemrane sposoby. Jego synowie, William i Edward, to zalążki braci z Profesora, jeden stateczny, drugi porywczy i pogardliwy, tylko jeszcze bez bata. Edward później z nimfy przekształci się w swoje imago, Edwarda Rochestera z Jane Eyre. Wreszcie mamy zepsutą do szpiku kości Amelię De Capell, ich siostrę (z tego jaja później wykluły się zapewne córki pani Reed) oraz ich kuzynkę, która jak szara myszka kuli się pod kominkiem. Zupełnie przypomina wystraszoną Jane Eyre w kąciku okiennym w salonie podczas spędu szlachty.
W sumie dobrze, że Charlotte nie skończyła nigdy Emmy, bo by miała konkurencję w Emmie Jane Austen, haha, żarcik taki. Poznajemy tam Dianę, pokorną i sprawiedliwą uczennicę, która przypomina trochę Dianę z Moore House w Jane Eyre, a także pana Ellina, człowieka milczącego i spokojnego, może oryginalnego St Johna?
Co do Państwa Moore, Sarahy Julii i Johna Henry'ego, to niestety nie mogę jeszcze ich w żaden sposób połączyć z Moorem z Shirley, bo ta wciąż czeka na swoją kolej na stosiku. Mamy za to znów kolejnego Williama, a raczej Willa Moore, brata pana domu. Znów jak w Profesorze, ujmujący, głęboki i spokojny osobnik studiujący charaktery. Zmierzy się on z Alicią Wynne, stara podrywaczką, piękną i zepsutą niczym Blanche z Jane Eyre. Coś nam też przypomina motyw dziewczyny, która nie gra zbyt dobrze na klawiszach...
Mały Willie Ellin to czyste Wichrowe Wzgórza, w jego historii znajdziemy przemoc rodzinną i bicie dzieci. Pani Hill to trochę Nelly Dean z Wichrowych Wzgórz, trochę Bessie z Jane Eyre. Sam Willie uciekł z domu jak mała Jane, a i później już jako dorosła - z Thornfield Hall. Edward Ellin to zły brat Williego, który bardzo dobrze potrafi machać batem (to już jakaś obsesja).
Jak widzicie, wszyscy Williamowie Charlotte są spokojni, opanowani, marzycielscy, idealistyczni. Wszyscy Edwardowie są porywczy, szaleni, skłonni do przemocy. Pisarka siedziała sobie na plebanii w Haworth i lepiła ich raz za razem jak ludziki z plasteliny. Williamowie, Edwardowie, Diany i inni przechodzili długo przez stadia od jaja do larwy, by później powrócić jako w pełni ukształtowane istoty w kolejnych powieściach sióstr. Co potwierdza podejrzenie, że faktycznie to tylko jedna siostra ich tworzyła.
Czy warto przeczytać? Jeśli przepadacie za tymi klimatami, to jasne, jak najbardziej. Choć za każdym razem czuje się żal, że nigdy nie dowiemy się końca tych historii.
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November 11, 2019"Niewątpliwe jest również to, że Charlotte zostawiła w swoich papierach cztery Niedokończone opowieści. Jest to równie niezwykła proza, jak wszystko co wyszło spod jej pióra. Dlatego też dziś proponujemy czytelnikom i miłośnikom geniuszu Brontë te cztery niedokończone utwory, wierząc, że dalsze ich wątki rozwinie Wasza wyobraźnia".
A Wasze portfele napchają nasze konto, ale tego już zapomnieli dopisać :)
Ta książka powinna mieć oznaczenie "tylko dla zagorzałych fanów twórczości Charlotte Brontë, którzy MUSZĄ przeczytać wszystko co wyszło spod jej pióra". Ja jestem trochę rozczarowana, liczyłam na coś w stylu "Tajemnicy Edwina Drooda", a dostałam tylko króciutkie urywki historii, które wszystkie razem można przeczytać w godzinę. Czcionka w książce jest ogromna, a treści niewiele. Pozostawiam bez oceny, bo nie za dużo jest tu do oceniania. Ot taka ciekawostka dla pasjonatów.
A Wasze portfele napchają nasze konto, ale tego już zapomnieli dopisać :)
Ta książka powinna mieć oznaczenie "tylko dla zagorzałych fanów twórczości Charlotte Brontë, którzy MUSZĄ przeczytać wszystko co wyszło spod jej pióra". Ja jestem trochę rozczarowana, liczyłam na coś w stylu "Tajemnicy Edwina Drooda", a dostałam tylko króciutkie urywki historii, które wszystkie razem można przeczytać w godzinę. Czcionka w książce jest ogromna, a treści niewiele. Pozostawiam bez oceny, bo nie za dużo jest tu do oceniania. Ot taka ciekawostka dla pasjonatów.
July 18, 2020
4.5/5
Reading those stories was really engaging!
I wish Charlotte Brontë had finished them. My favourite novel is "The Story Of Willie Ellin"; I would give everything to know what will happend to this little sweetheart Willie. However reading "Unfinished Novels" was an interesting experience; it had a great influence on my imagination.
Reading those stories was really engaging!
I wish Charlotte Brontë had finished them. My favourite novel is "The Story Of Willie Ellin"; I would give everything to know what will happend to this little sweetheart Willie. However reading "Unfinished Novels" was an interesting experience; it had a great influence on my imagination.
November 4, 2015
Really fascinating to read some of Charlotte Brontë's unfinished works - and rather tantalising and frustrating that we'll never know how they were to have gone on!
March 7, 2025
I have never previously read a book of unfinished novels before. This collection of four unfinished stories by Charlotte Bronte wea interesting and potentially the writings had the potential to reach the heights of Jane Eyre or Vilette or at least would have been proved successful.
The stories are:
1] "The Story of Willie Ellin" - a lonely young boy is cruelly abused by his elder step brother [reminds me a little of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights].
2] "Ashworth" - a father who has no feeling for hois two sons who are left in poverty while his daughter is treated regally. The main character is only interested in wealth and status
3/"The Moores" - a reasonably well off mabn, recently married finds his life in disarray after the arrival of his poor brother and an extremely wealthy friend of his wife
4] "Emma" - the story of a young girl who is isolated due to her father's wealth and strict rules of conduct. The last writing of Charlotte Bronte.
I enjoyed the stories and it would have been interesting to see how the novels would have progressed. Nevertheless I still enjoyed the works
The stories are:
1] "The Story of Willie Ellin" - a lonely young boy is cruelly abused by his elder step brother [reminds me a little of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights].
2] "Ashworth" - a father who has no feeling for hois two sons who are left in poverty while his daughter is treated regally. The main character is only interested in wealth and status
3/"The Moores" - a reasonably well off mabn, recently married finds his life in disarray after the arrival of his poor brother and an extremely wealthy friend of his wife
4] "Emma" - the story of a young girl who is isolated due to her father's wealth and strict rules of conduct. The last writing of Charlotte Bronte.
I enjoyed the stories and it would have been interesting to see how the novels would have progressed. Nevertheless I still enjoyed the works
February 2, 2026
U know I love my girl Charlotte. Her books always feel like I'm in an old cabin in the middle of a storm as she talks to me like a grandma reliving the events of the most horrible breakup imaginable. This collection of unfinished stories was no different. They felt very Dickensian, even though I have never read Charles Dickens in my LIFE lol. I love them all equally <3 ty Charlotte
November 2, 2026
Wonderful collection of Charlotte Bronte's unfinished novels - especially loved and was intrigued by her fragment, "Emma" -- especially after I read that it actually inspired "A Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett, one of my favourite novels from my childhood. Fascinating!
Read
April 12, 2020Żałuję, że już nigdy nie poznamy zakończeń tych powieści. Po każdą z nich sięgnęłabym z ciekawością, bez dwóch zdań.
June 17, 2022
Szkoda, że niedokończone ;)
October 12, 2018
Czy warto czytać "Niedokończone opowieści", skoro zanim zdążymy się wciągnąć w historię, to ona niespodziewanie się urywa? Ja nie żałuję przeczytania, przede wszystkim dlatego, że Brontë pisze bardzo eleganckim stylem, jej zdania są zwykle bardzo wysublimowane i naprawdę potrafią zachwycić. Cała recenzja tu: https://jedenakapit.blogspot.com/2018...
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