A German Brontë Forgery

Abstract

AbstractA Flutter of excitement was caused in the Bronte Society Council early this year by an appeal from two firms of London publishers and a London editor to pronounce on the authenticity of an alleged hitherto unknown Bronte novel, which an American translator believed he had discovered in Spain.Mr. J. A. Langnas, the translator in question, visited Barcelona in November, 1950,and made the acquaintance of a Spanish publisher, Senor Miguel Arimany, who informed him that he had published in 1946 a hitherto unknown novel by Charlotte and Anne Bronte. It was published under the title of “Adversidad” (Adversity) and then in a cheap popular edition as “Rockingham, or a Man of Honour,” and was translated from a German book “Rockingham oder der Jungere Bruder” (Rockingham or the Younger Brother), published as by Acton and Currer Bell in Grimma and Leipzig in 1851.