“What a splendid woman Charlotte Bronte was!”
Lavinia Goodell, March 18, 1863
Lavinia Goodell lived 150 years ago, but some topics being discussed in today’s press would be familiar to her. A case in point is a recent New York times article about a poetry anthology titled “Book of Rhymes” that was written by the author Charlotte Bronte when she was 13 years old.
Bronte wrote the poems on tiny scraps of paper and stitched them together. The little volume sold for $1.25 million in 2022 and has recently been published by the Bronte Parsonage Museum in England and made available to the public for the first time.
Lavinia Goodell was a prolific reader – more on that here – and Bronte was one of her favorite authors. In 1863, 24-year-old Lavinia wrote to her older sister Maria:
What a splendid woman Charlotte Bronte is! I do so admire her. Have you ever read her Life, by Miss Gaskell? It is far more interesting even than her novels.
The Miss Gaskell referred to was Elizabeth Gaskell, an English novelist and short story writer and Charlotte Bronte’s first biographer. The biography was published in 1857, two years after Bronte’s death. The New York Times article notes that Gaskell’s biography contained a catalog of Bronte’s works, including the poems in “A Book of Rhymes,” so Lavinia, too, would have been aware of their existence. Lavinia and her sister Maria had both read Gaskell’s other works. In an 1870 letter, Maria told Lavinia that she had still not read the Bronte biography but said, “I have read Charlotte Bronte’s writings long ago and two of Mrs. Gaskell’s works.”
On the 209th anniversary of Bronte’s birth and the 186th anniversary of Lavinia Goodell’s, no doubt both women would be gratified to know that they are still being discussed in 2025.
Sources consulted: Lynsey Chutel, “At 13, Charlotte Bronte Already Knew How Good a Writer She Would Be,” New York times, April 25, 2025; Lavinia Goodell’s letter to Maria frost March 18, 1863; Maria Frost’s letter to Lavinia Goodell February 20, 1870; https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-Cleghorn-Gaskell.
