The Letters of Charlotte Brontë
With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends, Volume III: 1852-1855
Edited by Margaret Smith
A Clarendon Press Publication
Reviews and Awards
"The appearance of this third and final volume...marks the culmination of a monumental publishing achievement.... [Smith] deserves the highest praise for the sheer doggedness with which she has pursued bits and pieces of letters through salesrooms and private collections.... She is also a model editor. The standard of her annotations is superb, and no worthwhile cross-reference to the Brontës' lives or works is allowed to slip through her net.... This wonderful collection does allow us clearly to hear the impassioned voice of one of the greatest letter-writers in the language. Three cheers for Margaret Smith and the Clarendon Press for an immaculate edition."--Mark Bostridge, The Independent on Sunday
"This third volume of Charlotte Brontë's letters completes Smith's gift to Brontë scholars and enthusiasts. In combination with volumes 1 and 2, it contains the most reliable information on which Brontë's biographies and studies are based.... Essential."--Choice
"Of the hundreds of books I have reviewed in the last half century only two could be classified as definitive. Margaret Smith's three volumes of Charlotte Brontë's correspondence are a model of conventional scholarship, unassailably definitive. They will survive as long as the serious study of English literature survives the efforts of postmodernist critics to reduce it to a jargon-ridden wasteland."--Raymond Carr, The Spectator
"This third volume of Charlotte Brontë's letters completes Smith's gift to Brontë scholars and enthusiasts. In combination with volumes 1 and 2, it contains the most reliable information on which Brontë's biographies and studies are based.... Essential. All libraries should own this set."--Choice