Dangerous Letters

Chapter One

Introductory Letter

                       22/10/1996

Dear Professor Horace Morley,

I admit, Esteemed Sir, that I have been disheartened to not hear back from you regarding my previous inquiries. You may remember promising, at the Copenhagen convention, to look over the current project that I am undertaking on some recovered eighteenth-century letters.

The writer is a woman known only as Charlotte B-----. From the little information my research has gleaned, I believe that she was a governess born to bourgeoisie family who fell on hard times, resulting in a dissolution of an informal engagement to Mr. T—D------ and forcing her to seek employment at the chateau from which these letters were sent. Employed as primarily a governess to young Villette, sole child of the Marquis, Charlotte's writings detail a dark, terrible and treacherous tale.

I fear that, after my transition away from University College London, your interest may have dwindled. I hope that rumours of a less than amicable parting from my previous research position will not taint your opinion of such an important literary discovery.

Imagine, Sir, the repercussions of what I disclosed when we last spoke! How it might inform the field of scholarship that you and I have dedicated our lives to. Therefore, I have sought to present you with the opportunity, once more, to include yourself in the discovery. Where other academics have failed to see the merit of this work, you and I shall benefit from being the first to assess these letters as they deserve and inscribe our names as seminal forefathers of criticism for Les Lettres Dangereuses (as named by the printer when it was produced in Lyon, in the black letter, in the year 1827).

I am aware of an argument that these should be passed onto historians who might have some additional insight into the validity of the work. Yet, how many of our texts have been subject to clouding by the dust of quarrying researchers? The illusion of historical truth and perspective could only make Les Lettres Dangereuses an attractive quarry, but it would then be lost to this viewpoint entirely. For it is of the historian's nature that the jabberwocks of historical and antiquarian research burble in the tulgy wood of conjecture, flitting from one tum-tum tree to another. Noble animals, whose burbling is on occasion good to hear; but though their eyes of flame may sometimes prove searchlights, their range is short.

The lovers of literature can safely study the art, but the seekers after history must beware lest the glamour of prose overcome them. The poetic nature of this text, and its high literary value, means that we should strive to keep it safely ensconced within literature, away from the narrower gazes of historians and the like.

I have now completed the restoration of the letters, admittedly a copied translation of the lost originals. Yet I would, and have, staked my reputation on its authenticity. The work is redacted, and one letter suffered severe water damage, yet these omissions do not cast doubt on its legitimacy. Rather, I contend, they demonstrate how important the letters were that they were censored but preserved.

I will, however, let you ascertain a final conclusion on your own. Let me implore you no more my good sir. I look forward to your response – although I wish for you to take all the time you need in assessing the enclosed. I shall, in the meantime, persist with my endeavours of learning more and hopefully will have more to share when we next correspond.

Yours faithfully,

Dr. Samuel J. Collins

Dangerous Letters; or Les Lettres Dangereuses

PRINTED FOR J. EBERS, LYON

1829

To my dear friend Hommy-Beg