The Bright-Bleek Letters form a remarkable collection of correspondence that spans two decades. There are 140 letters amounting to over 550 pages in the collection. Most of them are written on a quarto airmail sheets folded in half to provide four octavo pages. From time to time a letter is expanded by the addition of a single sheet.
Jemima Bleek and Kate Bright had been friends for many years and the letters from 1884 and 1885 were written simply as friends, but when Kate moved into Charlton House, Mowbray in June 1887 they continue on a fairly regular monthly basis as both friend and tenant. Bright mailed to Bleek monthly rent bank drafts or statements when the rent had been used to pay for taxes or repairs. The letters were kept in date order by Jemima Bleek and are often annotated with the date she answered them. Apart from copies of her replies to two of Kate’s letters, as far as can be ascertained Jemima Bleek’s letters to Kate have not been preserved.