The Twelve Adventurers and Other Stories

What it is

This is a 1925 printed book of twelve short fragments of stories that Charlotte Brontë wrote in her childhood and youth. It was published by Hodder and Stoughton in London. According to the book's note, she wrote them between the ages of twelve and twenty-one. The manuscripts were handed to the note's writer in a small house in Banagher, Ireland, and this book prints them.

Why it matters

These stories show how Brontë's imagination developed long before she published novels. The note argues that the fragments might not have been printed at all, because the author never intended them for the public. Reading them shows the gap between a private childhood habit and a published book, and how later editors decided what readers could see of an author's early work.

Look closer

• The note suggests these pieces should perhaps not have been printed. Do you agree, and what would be lost if they had stayed private?
• What clues in the title page and note tell you who prepared this book and for whom?
• Which words are the young author's own, and which were added by the editor?