A treasure trove of Emily Brontë material opens a new chapter 

The most important Bronte material to come to light in a generation

An 1841 autograph manuscript by Emily and Anne Bronte. Picture: Sotheby's

A treasury of English and Scottish literature including the most important Brontë material to come to light in a generation has emerged after almost a century in obscurity. 

More than 500 historical manuscripts, exceptional first editions, intimate letters and beautiful bindings from the Honresfield Library are to be offered across three sales at Sotheby’s.

A rare handwritten manuscript of Emily Bronte's poems. Picture: Sotheby's

The first auction opens for bidding from July 2-13 but already the sale has stirred controversy. The Brontë Society has called on the British government to prevent these literary treasures (including a rare notebook of Emily Brontë’s poetry) from disappearing back into private hands.

The Honresfield Collection, assembled at the turn of the 20th century by self made Victorian industrialists Alfred and William Law and maintained by the family ever since, includes the only surviving handwritten manuscript of some of Emily Brontë’s best-loved poems with annotations by her sister Charlotte, Brontë family letters and books.

The rare pieces open a window onto the short but amazing lives of Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell Brontë. There are manuscripts by Robert Burns and Walter Scott.

Sotheby’s say that the re-emergence of the collection after almost a century of obscurity marks a defining moment for bibliophiles. The Honresfield trove is unrivalled in importance by any other collection.

It includes the much loved Brontë family copy of Bewick’s History of British Birds, a book made famous in the opening pages of Jane Eyre and brimful of entertaining annotations by their father Patrick.

The collection includes the most important manuscript by Scotland’s national poet Robert Burns in private hands. There is a compendium of poems, notes and ideas put together by Burns as an unknown 24-year-old. The First Commonplace Book, which offers a unique insight into the poet’s mind, was last sold at Sotheby’s for £10 in 1879.

Sir Walter Scott (the second most quoted writer in the Oxford English Dictionary after Shakespeare) is represented most notably by the complete manuscript for Rob Roy.

This is one of the last remaining manuscripts of the great 19th-century writer that is not now in an institution.

There are Jane Austen first editions, including Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, a copy of Don Quixote printed in 1620 for Edward Blounte, the publisher for the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, and an annotated copy of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poems with pages showing author’s changes from proof printing in his hand. Homer, Ovid, the Grimm Brothers, Montaigne, Ann Radcliffe, Horace Walpole, Charles Dickens and Mary Wollstonecraft are among those making an appearance.

John Houghton, a mid-18th-century white marble bust of Jonathan Swift at Bonhams.

Meantime Bonhams fine books and manuscripts sale in New York on June 17 will feature a first edition of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), the satirist, political pamphleteer, poet and Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin.

The fine and decorative arts sale by Bonhams in London on June 23 will feature a carved portrait bust of Swift by the Irish sculptor John Houghton.