Statement in response to Sotheby's announcement re the sale of the Honresfeld Library
The Brontë Society exists to collect and preserve Brontë manuscripts and artefacts for the public benefit. The manuscripts in the Honresfeld Library were written in Haworth and, as a collection, they bear witness to the intense collaboration and creativity that bound Emily, Charlotte, and Anne Brontë together and to their home at Haworth Parsonage.
The Society believes that the rightful home for these unique and extraordinary manuscripts, unseen for a hundred years, is at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where they can be enjoyed by visitors, explored by scholars and shared with Brontë enthusiasts around the world for generations to come.
Regrettably, we are faced with the very real possibility that this immensely significant collection will be dispersed and disappear into private collections across the globe. We are determined to save as much as we can, but due to the dramatic financial impact of the pandemic, the timing is unfortunate. While Covid has reinforced the comfort and hope that we find in literature and culture, museum revenue has fallen away to almost nothing and competition for public funds has become fiercer than ever.
We all have a stake in these remarkable treasures. We need to look beyond the narrow commercialisation and privatisation of heritage and work together to protect and share what we all value. As our campaign takes shape, we urge all with an interest in saving this remarkable collection intact to contact us.
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