02 February 2012

[print] Charlotte Brontë: The First Zinester

2779.Here in Zinelandia producing zines is second nature; a little-known section of the municipal code stats that you have to either be creating one or planning one or you have to move to Gresham.

Fortunately, the Zine Police will let you off if you just say you're planning a zine. It's like having a screenplay in Los Angeles; the default position is that you're going to doing one any day now.

Written circa 1830, when the eldest Brontë sister was 14, a very tiny, handwritten volume, one of a series of "Young Men's Magazines" (the mind is intrigued here) is smaller than 1.5" x 2.6" but packs 4,000 words and a setting in Glass Town.

Big deal. I was perusing similar volumes in the zine stacks at the Multnomah County Library just last week.

But if you wanted it, you'd of have to had ponied up about $1.1 million at Sothebys.

If Charlotte were alive today … well, hell, she'd be scratching at her coffin lid demanding to be let out. But still.

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