Scholarly connection builds Brontë collection

TWU Assistant Professor of English Sara Pearson visited a colleague this weekend and came home with her car packed full of books. That colleague, UBC professor emeritus of English Dr. Herbert Rosengarten, was one of Pearson's advisors for her doctoral dissertation on “Religion, Gender and Authority in the Novels of Charlotte Brontë” and the more-than 200 books cover not just Charlotte, but her literary brother and sisters Branwell, Emily and Anne.

The collection includes the novels, poetry and letters of the Brontës such as Charlotte's Jane Eyre and Emily's Wuthering Heights as well as critical studies and biographies. Of particular interest is a first American edition of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857).

Dr Pearson can hardly wait to see these books on the library's shelves.

The donation also includes three of the definitive Clarendon editions of the novels, edited by Dr. Rosengarten. Included too are works by twentieth-century authors inspired by the lives of the Brontës' characters. When all the items are catalogued over the next few weeks, Alloway Library will have more than 300 titles on the Brontës.

The timely donation of this collection to Alloway Library by Dr. Rosengarten is greatly appreciated, since Pearson herself will be teaching a course on the Brontës in Spring 2010. Pearson’s reaction was enthusiastic: “This donation makes TWU’s collection of Brontë material an invaluable asset for undergraduate and graduate students, not to mention an indispensible aid to my own research. It’s tremendously exciting!”