11 September 2012

Anne and Charlotte Brontë and William Makepeace Thackeray in Cornhill: London #21

'Thackeray and the Brontës at the publishing house of Smith Elder & Co. Cowper the poet, Gray the poet, Guy the bookseller and founder of Guy's Hospital, lived in Cornhill.'
 
At 32 Cornhill there are eight pictorial panels carved on two mahogany doors. They were designed by sculptor Walter Gilbert (1871-1946) in 1939 for the Cornhill Insurance Group's London Headquarters and were made by B. P. Arnold. The panel above is on the bottom right. Charlotte Brontë dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre (published in 1847, the same year as the first) to Thackeray.

My other Brontë posts:
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Haworth and the Brontës
Charlotte Brontë in Manchester

2 comments:

Anne said...

Fasinating, I never saw this, thank you for posting! Of course Anne Brontë was a foot shorter than
the 6 feet , 3 inch Thackeray, and Charlotte at 4,10 was even more so! One time at a party, when WMT took Charlotte into a dinner ,she had to reach up to take his arm!

Dr Tony Shaw said...

And once again we have the sacrifice of truth on the altar of art :) Seriously, that's a very good point!