Manuscript by British writer Charlotte Bronte set to fetch some $1.25M

By Merve Aydogan

ANKARA (AA) - A bite-sized handwritten manuscript written by Charlotte Bronte when she was only 13 years old is set to be sold for $1.25 million.

"A Book of Rhymes by Charlotte Bronte, Sold by Nobody, and Printed by Herself" is an unpublished miniature manuscript that is smaller than a playing card and includes 10 poems, CNN reported.

The work is dated December 1829, and "has not been seen publicly since it was sold in New York in 1916, according to Henry Wessells," an associate at a rare bookseller in the Big Apple.

It is to go on sale for $1.25 million at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair on April 21.

In 2011, another tiny handwritten manuscript by author Jane Eyre was sold for $1.07 million.

Born in 1816, novelist and poet Charlotte Bronte was one of three English sisters – along with Emily and Anne – who all earned places in the literary pantheon with such works as Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey.

Like many female writers of the time, they first wrote under pseudonyms, but Charlotte revealed their identities soon after her sisters passed away.