
Simon Roberts
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale
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Senior Specialist, Head of Sale
THOMAS J. WISE AMONG THE BRONTËS: alongside his activities as a forger and book-vandal, Wise caused irreparable damage to the Brontë canon by selling off piecemeal the letters and manuscripts he had acquired from Ellen Nussey and Charlotte's widower Arthur Nicholls (or "old Nicholls" as he calls him here): see Margaret Smith's Introduction to The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, i (1995), pp. 52-63. Wise remained nevertheless alert to the misdeeds of others, warning Hatfield: "You know, of course, that some of the extant copies of the Aylott & Jones copies [of the Poems] are faked? That is, their binding (because in bad [?] order) has been exchanged for covers taken from fresh copies of the Smith Elder issue. This is frequently done with the books of Conrad, R.L. Stevenson & others" (although another of his speculations concerning presentation copies of the book earn from Hatfield a crisp "No" pencilled in the margin). Indeed, he was not slow to denounce shoddy scholarship and dubious attributions wherever they were to be found: "I was quite satisfied myself regarding the nature of the Inscription; but I wanted to be supported by you when I denounce it to Sotheby's".