The Brontës and publishing

Publishing - in its different aspects - is what today's newsround is all about.

The Scotsman has an article on small publishing houses. Apparently, many of these brave companies are set in Yorkshire where, they remind us, there is a literary tradition going back in time:

The Pennine hills in Yorkshire have a rich literary tradition, which includes the Bronte sisters, who immortalised the landscape in novels like "Wuthering Heights" and "Jane Eyre", and former poet laureate Ted Hughes, who grew up in Mytholmroyd, near Hebden Bridge.

Apart from forgetting about Anne Brontë, they also forgot to mention that Ted Hughes's wife Sylvia Plath - both of them Brontëites - is buried in Hebden Bridge, a small village really close to Haworth.

We now see a trend reversing. A while ago it was all about how the Brontës were nothing but classic chicklit and cheap romance and now it's all about how they are much more sophiscated and beyond being classified as such:

Chick lit, then, will do until genuine literature comes along but when the real thing arrives, Bridget Jones is gone. “In recent courses on classic women’s fiction and chick lit, our students came to a surprising conclusion: they overwhelmingly preferred the classic fiction,” Ferriss and Young conclude. “They weren’t completely certain if that was because of the older novels’ intricate plots, subtle characterizations, memorable language or some other factor.”
“But they were convinced that although chick-lit raises fascinating cultural issues, it can’t compete with the work of Jane Austen, the Brontes, Virginia Woolf, and Zora Neale Hurston.” And most of their achievements predated modern feminism.

As usual, things can only be black or white. No grey, no middle ground whatsoever. Of course you also have to wonder - what do you see more often: women reading classics or women reading chicklit?

And finally an article about first editions. Paul Johnson writes about how he doesn't realy understand what the fuss about them is.

After all, a first edition is only another copy of a book that, no matter how famous, you may not wish to read, or reread. When I was 15, I read Wuthering Heights, and the next year Sons and Lovers. Both books bowled me over — I was devastated and exalted by this double whammy (not an expression we used in the years 1943 — 44) of subversive genius. But nothing on Earth would persuade me to read either again, not even possessing the first editions. For me, once a book of a highly emotive kind has done its powerful work, rereading it is taboo. And really, how else do you make use of a first edition except by reading it?

This gives way to plenty of questions. First of all, we think you wouldn't want a first edition of a novel unless you knew it and loved it well. Secondly, I would love to have a first edition of any of my favourite classics but what do you actually do with a first edition? I mean, do you actually read it? I think I would prize it too much to even open it, so it's a good thing I don't have any first editions. (I never thought I'd say that!). Of course, it all depends on the first edition of what it is - I am thinking Brontë novels. And thirdly, Wuthering Heights definitely needs more than just one read, doesn't it?

Categories: In_the_News