Glass Town

[2] The Brontë siblings began writing prose and poetry related to their paracosmic fantasy world in the 1820s, and in December 1827 produced a novel, Glass Town.[7]: xxvii Between 1829 and 1830, Charlotte produced a dozen issues for the siblings' The Young Men's Magazine and an additional four volumes of Tales of the Islanders (about twenty thousand words) along with "many long stories, plays and poems" and a catalogue to keep track of her work.[9] Charlotte's "predilection for romantic settings, passionate relationships, and high society is at odds with Branwell's obsession with battles and politics and her young sisters' homely North Country realism, none the less at this stage there is still a sense of the writings as a family enterprise".[...] The Brontës filled this imaginative space with their own version of early nineteenth-century society with its international relations and domestic affairs [...].[1] In this manuscript, "Branwell drew a map of the Glass Town Federation complete with mountain ranges, rivers and trade routes.[...] Although both were regular characters in Charlotte and Branwell's early Glass Town writings [...], it is not until 1834, the siblings' new kingdom Angria, and Zamorna's subsequent marriage to Northangerland's daughter, Mary, that the duo's incredible dynamic is fully unleashed.[21] Thomas James Wise had acquired a large amount of the manuscripts from Nicholis and "subsequently sold off most of the collection in small bits and pieces [...].Over ten publicly accessible repositories in the U.S. and England contain significant amounts of manuscripts, sometimes dividing single works among them; and numerous private collectors and other libraries have a page or more, all of which had to be found, identified, dated and virtually stitched into original places to create the chronological record".[24] Upon the publication of Tales of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal: Selected Writings by Oxford World's Classics, The Guardian highlighted that the Brontë siblings created depictions of "fantastical, magical kingdoms, steeped in violence, politics, lust and betrayal.[9] Claire Harman, a British biographer, highlighted that the Brontë juvenilia consists of poetry, plays, and magazines "with accompanying maps and histories" and is over 50,000 words; "much of it set in imaginary places like Glass Town and Angria, with interlocking casts of countless characters.[26] Culture24 highlighted that "the Brontës featured themselves as Gods in their worlds, of which they wrote long sagas in tiny micro-script, as well as using both fictional and real-life characters, reminiscent of the creations of JRR Tolkein [sic] and CS Lewis.[1] Emma Butcher wrote, in the Victorian Periodicals Review, that "the Brontë children grew up in an era when post-Waterloo commentary on events and personalities kept the Napoleonic Wars at the forefront of popular discussion.
Map of the Glass Town Federation and surrounding lands in The History of the Young Men from their First Settlement to the Present Time by Branwell Brontë, c. 1830–31 . [ 1 ]
Charlotte Brontë's manuscript The Foundling (1833) is part of the British Library 's collection. Set in Verdopolis and "sub-titled ‘A Tale of Our Own Times’, the story has magical elements but also touches on themes relevant to Victorian society, such as child cruelty, social class, orphans and inheritance". [ 18 ]
paracosmsharedfantasy worldCharlotte BrontëBranwell BrontëEmily BrontëAnne BrontëBrontë familyGondaljuveniliaThe Young Men's MagazineGondal (fictional country)paracosmicSimon ArmitageBronte Parsonage MuseumWest AfricaBritish MuseumWellingtonNapoleonBritish LibraryHarvardArthur Bell NichollsAmy LowellHoughton LibraryUniversity of New South WalesThomas James WiseThe New York TimesJane EyreOxford World's ClassicsThe GuardianClaire HarmanAndy SawyerCulture24Arabian NightsimperialistVictorian Periodicals ReviewNapoleonic WarsCatherynne M. ValenteNarniaKieron GillenStephanie HansicosahedronIsabel GreenbergPublishers WeeklyBrontë sistersCharlotteShirleyVilletteThe ProfessorTo a Wreath of SnowF. De Samara to A. G. A.Come hither childA Death-SceneWuthering HeightsLines Composed in a Wood on a Windy DayAgnes GreyThe Tenant of Wildfell HallPoems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton BellList of Brontë poemsA Book of RyhmesFamilyPatrick BrontëMaria BranwellMaria BrontëElizabeth BrontëElizabeth BranwellJohn KingstonWilliam MorganHaworthvillageBrontë BirthplaceThorntonHartsheadBrontë CountryBrontë Parsonage MuseummuseumBrontë WaterfallBrontë WayCowan Bridge SchoolSt Michael and All Angels' ChurchchurchpastorEllen NusseyElizabeth GaskellbiographerMary TaylorConstantin HégerteacherGeorge SmithpublisherDevotion (1946 film)Les Sœurs Brontë (1979 film)Brontë (2005 play)To Walk Invisible (2016 film)Emily (2022 film)Victorian literature