Latest research shows author Anne Brontë was a keen rock collector!

English novelist and poet Anne Brontë, sometimes called the ‘forgotten' Brontë sister due to her dying on the age of 29 as a consequence of tuberculosis, is properly remembered for her books ‘Agnes Gray' (1847) and ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Corridor' (1848).

Nonetheless, analysis by Sally Jaspars, who's finding out Brontë as a part of her Ph.D. on the College of Aberdeen, has revealed that Brontë was additionally a talented rock collector with an lively curiosity in geology. In truth, the writer constructed up a set of enticing specimens earlier than her dying in 1849.

It is to be famous that it was beforehand thought that Brontë collected gadgets due to their aesthetic worth. Nonetheless, Jaspars' analysis has revealed that she was an knowledgeable and expert geologist throughout science’s golden age.

“Her curiosity in geology is talked about in her literary works – certainly in The Tenant Of Wildfell Corridor she references the science and a guide by Sir Humphry Davy straight,” Jaspars was quoted as saying by The Guardian.

Together with specialists from the College of Leeds and a specialist spectroscopy firm, Jaspars discovered that in addition to the carnelians and agates (each forms of stones) Brontë collected in Scarborough, the place she labored as a governess, the gathering comprises flowstone and a uncommon sort of purple obsidian that originated exterior of the UK.

“That is the primary time that Anne’s assortment has been systematically described and absolutely recognized, and in doing so we add to the physique of data on Anne and present her to be scientifically minded and interesting with geology. She was an clever and progressive particular person who was in tune with the scientific inquiry of the time,” Jaspar was additional quoted as saying.

The analysis has now been printed within the journal Brontë Research.

In the meantime, for the unacquainted, Anne Brontë was the daughter of Maria and Patrick Brontë, a poor Irish clergyman within the Church of England. In 1846 she printed a guide of poems along with her sisters and later two novels, initially beneath the pen title Acton Bell. Her second novel, ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Corridor', is regarded as one of many first feminist novels.