Race to save a collection of priceless literary treasures is on

Spread across a huge table in Sotheby’s auction house in London are stacks of immaculately preserved 19th- century first editions and manuscripts, a slew of letters in Jane Austen’s rigorously disciplined script and a small collection of Charlotte Bronte’s hand-sewn books, barely 3in high and filled with writing so teeny it had to be written with a single hair dipped in ink and can only be deciphered under a microscope. They are the highlights, or ‘greatest hits’, of the Honresfield Library — a famous private literary collection amassed by northern industrialists William and Alfred Law in the 19th century and obsessively shielded from public and academic inspection. The collection includes seven of Charlotte Bronte’s famous ‘little books’ or magazines written at the kitchen table in the Bronte parsonage — alone worth an estimated £5 million — a manuscript collection of poems by sister Anne and a small autographed diary note by Emily and Anne. No one will ever see it again.’ What has really got Ovenden’s heart racing is a set of manuscripts of the Bronte siblings The Friends Of The National Libraries also includes Abbotsford — the home of Walter Scott — the Bronte Parsonage museum, Jane Austen’s House, the Brotherton Library, and the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, operated by the National Trust for Scotland.