I bought an original 1841 volume of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. Why? Blackwood’s was part of the Brontë children’s reading world,1 and Emily’s diary paper for 30 July 1841 puts Blackwood’s Magazine in the Parsonage at Haworth, where Aunt Branwell was reading it to Patrick Brontë.2 My copy is volume L, the July–December 1841 volume.

  • Emily Brontë lived in 1841.
  • Blackwood’s was being read in the Parsonage on 30 July 1841.
  • My volume contains the six monthly numbers for July–December 1841.

All three statements are true, but sadly, they do not add up to provenance. There is no evidence connecting my copy to Emily or the Brontë household. And in its complete July–December form, the volume I own could not yet have existed on 30 July: five of its six monthly numbers had not been published.3

What the connection actually is to Emily Brontë

Emily’s diary paper for 30 July 1841 says she had “a good many books on hand.” It also puts Blackwood’s Magazine in the Parsonage that evening. Aunt Branwell was reading it to Patrick Brontë.2

Why buy a Blackwood’s Magazine?

I wanted it. The research answer: a PDF wouldn’t allow me to answer many of the following questions:

  • Q: What did a volume of Blackwood’s feel like?
    • A: An old book. Probably not old to someone in 1841, but it’s what it feels like today. Mine isn’t in particularly great condition, especially the binding, but the pages look and feel like a book from the 1800s.
  • Q: What’s inside an 1841 volume of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine?
    • A: Quite a lot: British politics and elections, foreign affairs, economics, historical essays, philosophy, literary criticism, serialized fiction, songs and poems, satire. On paper, this magazine has it all.
  • Q: How close is this Blackwood’s volume to a modern magazine?
    • A: As my copy survives, it is much closer to a regular book than to what I would call a modern magazine. The bound volume has no illustrations or advertisements, the paper is thicker than in most books printed today, and the writing is dense. Blackwood’s was originally issued by month.3 My next purchase will look to grab a single month issue.

This is but the start of formalizing a study on What Did Emily Brontë Read? Just because a critical essay on Plato’s The Republic appears in this 1841 volume doesn’t necessarily mean that Emily Brontë read the article, or Plato for that matter. Nevertheless, it’s as good a starting place as any to begin piecing the puzzle together.

Contents of the July–December 1841 volume

Contents of volume 50 of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, July–December 1841. Open a month to see its titles and opening page numbers.

July 1841

Title Page
The Whig Dissolution 1
Free Trade for Ever, and Every Thing Cheap. A New Election Song *31
The Colmans 17
Marquinez and La Collegiala 31
Plato’s Republic 40
The World of London. Part III 60
The June Gale 72
Ten Years of the Whigs 83
Ten Thousand a-Year. Part XX 94
The Dying Spaniel 126

August 1841

Title Page
Non-Intrusion 127
Traits and Tendencies of German Literature 143
Results of Our Affghan Conquests 161
The World’s Honesty. Being a Letter to Eusebius 175
The French in Algeria 183
The World of London. Part IV 200
The Announcements and Three Rooms 212
The Pied-à-Terre 227
A Glance at the Elections 229
Ten Thousand a-Year. Part the Last 240

September 1841

Title Page
Lessons from the Past 275
A Convent of Franciscans 288
Chapters of Turkish History. No. VI. The Battle of Mohácz 294
The Picture of Danäe 308
The World of London. Part V 327
Exhibitions. Royal Academy and British Institution 340
The Spanish Gipsies 352
Nicholas Dunks; or, Fried Mackerel for Dinner 363
Biron and the Bastile 374
The Fowler 388
Poems 392
Sir Robert Peel’s Position on Next Resuming Power 393
Good-bye to the Whigs. A Song of Rejoicing 410

October 1841

Title Page
Homer and the Homeridæ 411
Vanities in Verse 428
Ambition. A Farce 432
England and Her European Allies 449
Brighton 461
Three Nights in Berlin 466
The World of London. Part VI 477
The Old and Modern Rules of Drinking 490
Contemporary Spanish Literature. A Trial Scene 491
Tomkins’s Letter to Jenkins on the Manchester Conference and the Corn Laws 506
Notes of Travel 509
The Crisis of Modern Speculation 527
Prospects under the Peel Ministry 537

November 1841

Title Page
European History 547
Sketches of Italy 571
Report from the Select Committee on Fine Arts 585
Chapters of Turkish History. No. VII. The First Siege of Vienna 596
Hebraistics 609
Homer and the Homeridæ. Part II. The Iliad 618
Grandfathers and Grandchildren. In a Letter to Eusebius 632
The Canadas 642
A Conservative Song 658
Social and Moral Condition of the Manufacturing Districts in Scotland 659
Hilli-onnee 674
Funcheon Woods 675
Canton Expedition and Convention 677

December 1841

Title Page
Modern Schools of Art in France, Belgium, and Switzerland 689
Hints to Authors. Second Series. No. V. On the Epistolary 711
Sketches of Italy. No. II 722
The Peak of Darra 736
Philosophic Nuts 740
Homer and the Homeridæ. Part III. Verdict on the Homeric Questions 747
A Churchyard Eclogue 760
The World of London. Part VII 767
The Tittle-Tattle of a Philosopher 779
The Tower of London 792
Blind Old Milton 811
The United States 814
Index 824

Titles follow the six monthly contents sheets, with capitalization and punctuation lightly regularized and author credits omitted. Grouped pieces remain grouped. The starred July page number is retained as printed. The September contents sheet gives page 325 for The World of London, Part V; the article begins on page 327.

Source: Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, vol. L (July–December 1841), monthly contents sheets in the University of Toronto copy, digitized by the Internet Archive. Checked 18 September 2026.

References

Footnotes

  1. Christine Alexander, “Readers and Writers: ‘Blackwood’s’ and the Brontës,” The Gaskell Society Journal 8 (1994), pp. 54–69, JSTOR record, checked 21 September 2026. Scholarly study of the Brontës as readers and writers of Blackwood’s. ↩

  2. The Open University, UK Reading Experience Database, record 4323, “Emily Bronte, diary paper for 30 July 1841,” citing Juliet Barker, ed., The Brontës: A Life in Letters (1997), p. 95, database record, checked 21 August 2026. ↩ ↩2

  3. J. M. Milne, “The Politics of Blackwood’s, 1817–1846: A Study of Political, Economic and Social Articles in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and of Selected Contributors,” PhD dissertation, Newcastle University, 1984, Appendix II, “Key to volumes and numbers of Blackwood’s, 1817–1846,” online appendix, checked 21 September 2026. The appendix records the regular January–June and July–December six-number volume structure by this period. ↩ ↩2

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