Amanda White Greetings Card: A Gift of Soldiers

Greetings card, blank inside.

From an original cut paper collage by Amanda White.

Late one night in 1827 the Rev. Patrick Brontë returned home from a trip to Leeds bringing presents for each of his children: a doll for Anne, a toy village for Emily, ninepins for Charlotte and a box of toy soldiers for Branwell. Two years later Charlotte recalled how, the next morning, “Branwell came to our door with a box of soldiers. Emily and I jumped out of bed and I snatched one up and exclaimed, ‘This is the Duke of Wellington! It shall be mine!’” Those soldiers were to be the spark that lit the creative genius of the siblings. Their fictional accounts of the soldiers’ adventures in Angria and Gondal ultimately led to some of the best-loved classics of English literature.