The search has been initiated by antiquarian book dealer Adrian Loe, of Trumpington Fine Books, who unwittingly secured two books from the set at the Sunday general sale held in Midhurst, WestSussex by South Downs Auctioneers on March 30.
The books once belonged to Ellen Nussey, Charlotte Brontë's close friend, schoolmate and lifelong correspondent. The pair first met in 1831 when Charlotte attended Roe Head School near Dewsbury.
Mr Loe believes that the boxes at the Midhurst sale may have included Nussey's complete set of the Brontë novels - importantly, at least some of them, although not the ones in his possession, contain marginalia in Ellen Nussey's own hand.
He explained to ATG that the books would have been so hard to spot that even though he and another antiquarian book dealer inspected them at the view, and even handled one of them, neither of them realised their significance at the time.
It was no surprise, therefore, that they were not spotted by the cataloguer, especially as they were distributed among 20 or so boxes split into five lots.
Mr Loe bought about a third of the boxes and only realised what they contained when he got them home.
"I have got Wuthering Heights and The Professor, but I realise now that I actually saw Shirley in one of the other boxes - I even showedWuthering Heights to the other antiquarian book dealer at the view without either of us understanding its significance," he said.
The duodecimo Smith Elder set, published in 1871, was bought in a sale in May 1898 by a George Day of Dewsbury. What particularly excited Mr Loe was the letter of provenance contained in one of the two novels he acquired.
"It is a letter dated April 9, 1915 and marked Dewsbury. It thanks a W. Day for the loan of Jane Eyre and Shirley and refers to the interesting marginal notes made by Ellen Nussey," Mr Loe explained. "That means that the books were still in the same town where Ellen Nussey and Charlotte Brontë went to school decades after they were first published."
He then realised that the signature on the pastedown of each book, which was difficult to decipher, was that of Ellen Nussey herself.
This is very significant because Ellen Nussey played a vital role in Brontë scholarship.
When Charlotte married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls, in 1854, and he became concerned that her letters might fall into the wrong hands, she wrote to Ellen about his fears.
Despite repeated requests, Ellen refused to destroy her letters from Charlotte and, as a result, we know far more about the Brontës today than would otherwise have been the case.
All Mr Loe could find out about the buyer of the other boxes was that they were a pub furnishing company operating in the Midlands.
"They won't know what they have got, but if we could trace them and put the set back together, they would make an important purchase for a specialist institution," he explained.
South Downs Auctioneers have contacted the company that bought the other boxes in an effort to help and are awaiting a reply from them.
By Ivan Macquisten
