SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
Manuscript entitled A Book of Ryhmes (sic) measures 10cm by 6cm and was written by the author when she was 13
A tiny book, smaller than a playing card and containing 10 tantalizingly unpublished poems, is returning home to the West Yorkshire parsonage where it was lovingly written in 1829 by the 13-year-old Charlotte Brontë.
Thought lost, it was bought in New York for $1.25m (£1m) with Haworth in mind and given it measures just 10cm by 6cm, it is probably, centimetre for centimetre, the most valuable literary manuscript ever sold.
Its artistic value is also through the roof. “It is phenomenal really,” said Ann Dinsdale, principal curator of the Brontë Parsonage Museum. “I can’t quite believe it. I haven’t been able to take it all in yet.”
The manuscript is one of the “little books” written when Charlotte and her siblings Emily, Anne and Branwell were children. Often written for Branwell’s toy soldiers, the manuscripts shine light on just how creative and astoundingly talented the four of them were.