Happy Birthday Anne Bronte! Co-Creator of Gondal!
Today is Anne Bronte’s 200th Birthday, one of the co-creators of the Juvenilia works of ImagiNations that have inspired many of my recent games.
From her Wikipedia entry:
“Reading fed the children’s imagination. Their creativity soared after their father presented Branwell with a set of toy soldiers in June 1826. They gave the soldiers names and developed their characters, which they called the “Twelves”. This led to the creation of an imaginary world: the African kingdom of “Angria” which was illustrated with maps and watercolour renderings. The children devised plots about the inhabitants of Angria and its capital city, “Glass Town”, later called Verdopolis.”
“The fantasy worlds and kingdoms gradually, acquired the characteristics of the real world — sovereigns, armies, heroes, outlaws, fugitives, inns, schools and publishers. The characters and lands created by the children had newspapers, magazines and chronicles which were written in extremely tiny books, with writing so small it was difficult to read without a magnifying glass. These creations and writings were an apprenticeship for their later, literary talents.”
“Around 1831, when Anne was eleven, she and Emily broke away from Charlotte and Branwell to create and develop their own fantasy world, “Gondal“. Anne was particularly close to Emily especially after Charlotte’s departure for Roe Head School, in January 1831.”
My fictional map or geography of Gondal, based on Yorkshire.
Gondal, her co-creation with Emily, is set in the North Pacific and is the usual Bronte ImagiNations mix of lush verdant mountains and moors of “Tropical Yorkshire”.
When I checked what else was in the North Pacific, the list of countries I found seems to have forgotten to include Gondal so I have helpfully added this in.
https://www.bronte.org.uk/bronte-200Happy 200th Birthday Anne!
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN 17th January 2020
Man of Tin blog 