Difference between revisions of "Shirley Seriality Project"

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Letter to W.S. Williams, 14 December 1847

59. To W. S. Williams, 14 December 1847 Dear Sir

I have just received your kind and welcome letter of the 11th. I shall proceed at once to discuss the principal subject of it.

Of course a second work has occupied my thoughts much. I think it would be premature in me to undertake a serial now; I am not yet qualified for the task: I have neither gained a sufficiently firm footing with the public, nor do I possess sufficient confidence in myself, nor can I boast those unflagging animal spirits, that even command of the faculty of composition, which, as you say and I am persuaded, most justly, is an indispensable requisite to success in serial literature. I decidedly feel that ere I change my ground, I had better make another venture in the 3 vol. novel form.

Respecting the plan of such a work, I have pondered it, but as yet with very unsatisfactory results. Three commencements have I essayed, but all three displease me. A few days since I looked over ‘‘the Professor.’’ I found the beginning very feeble, the whole narrative deficient in incident and in general attractiveness; yet the middle and latter portion of the work, all that relates to Brussels, the Belgian school &c. is as good as I can write; it contains more pith, more substance, more reality, in my judgment, than much of ‘‘Jane Eyre’’. It gives, I think, a new view of a grade, an occupation, and a class of characters— all very common-place, very insignificant in themselves, but not more so than the materials composing that portion of ‘‘Jane Eyre’’ which seems to please most generally—.

My wish is to recast ‘‘the Professor’’, add as well as I can, what is deficient, retrench some parts, develop others— and make of it a work; no easy task, I know, yet I trust not an impracticable one.

I have not forgotten that ‘‘the Professor’’ was set aside in my agreement with Messrs. Smith & Elder— therefore before I take any step to execute the plan I have sketched, I should wish to have your judgment on its wisdom. You read or looked over the M.S.—what impression have you now respecting its worth? And what confidence have you that I can make it better than it is?

Feeling certain that from business reasons as well as from natural integrity you will be quite candid with me, I esteem it a privilege to be able thus to consult you.

Believe me, dear Sir,

Yours respectfully

C. Bell— Selected Letters of Charlotte Brontë. Oxford, GB: OUP Oxford, 2007. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 17 February 2017. Copyright © 2007. OUP Oxford. All rights reserved.