“The collection was put together by Arthur Bell Nicholls, the widower of Charlotte, who of the six Brontë children lived the longest, dying in 1855 at the age of 38. Nicholls sold the majority of the surviving Brontë manuscripts in 1895 to the notorious bibliophile and literary forger Thomas James Wise. The collectors and brothers Alfred and William Law … then acquired some of the family’s heirlooms from Wise … The Law brothers’ library at Honresfield House disappeared from public view when their nephew and heir Alfred Law died in 1939, and was inaccessible even to academics.” – The Guardian
