Looking for Christmas presents?

If you have left your Christmas shopping for the last minute and have a Brontëite among your friends and family you might find this post interesting. And if you are on of those who bought their presents in September, then you might want to give yourself a present for your efficiency :)

(Oh, just remember we are also giving a copy of Ann Dinsdale's The Brontës at Haworth as a Christmas present!)

The Independent publishes the second part of its Christmas Books Special. Among the 'most sumptuous and desirable art books' we find a book on Paula Rego.

For Paula Rego aficionados and novices alike, there is the third, revised edition of John McEwen's invaluable survey Paula Rego (Phaidon £24.95), an update since 1997. It therefore includes the overpowering Abortion series of 1998-99, the 1999 reworking of Hogarth's Marriage à la Mode (now at Tate Britain), the subversive Jane Eyre paintings and lithographs and the dazzlingly inventive, seriously disturbing Pillowman paintings inspired by Martin McDonagh's haunting play, as well as many non-series, individual paintings to reinforce both her virtuosity and originality. (Tom Rosenthal)

Here's Phaidon's webpage on the book.

The Chicago Tribune reviews the audiobook of Jane Eyre read by Amanda Root. A few months ago we published a post about it.

Jane Eyre
By Charlotte Bronte, read by Amanda Root
Naxos Audiobooks
As long as you're not troubled by the madwoman locked up in the attic, this is a triumphant story of a young lass overcoming great adversity and finally finding true love. (Kristin Kloberdanz)

If you enjoy audiobooks and that sort of thing remember there's an ongoing broadcast of Jane Eyre, played by Sophie Thompson and Ciarán Hinds.

If you want to go for something a little more obscure and collector-like, you might want to take a look at these stamps. The blog, Filatelissimo, is in Spanish but since the stamps can't be purchased there anyway, it will be enough to look at them. They were released by Royal Mail in 1980. The series included Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot.

If you are interested in this, you might like to know that more recently - in 2005 - Royal Mail also released another series, this time to commemorate the 150 anniversary of Charlotte Brontë's death.

And finally a couple of presents in the form of two links. Elizabeth Baines - who recently talked about Wuthering Heights - discusses on her blog Saturday's article by Lucasta Miller on Patrick Brontë's recently discovered letter.

In yesterday's Guardian Lucasta Miller writes about the recent discovery of a letter written by the Rev. Patrick Bronte soon after the death of his daughter Charlotte, which appears to disprove the established view that he was a domestic tyrant. Miller writes that it was Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte's biographer, who established this unfavourable reputation, demonising the Reverend in her attempt to present Charlotte as a victim and thus excuse what she considered the 'damaged imagination' which had given rise to what were seen as Charlotte's 'immoral and unchristian novels.'
I have been musing ever since why none of this surprised me.
Now there are many things I like about Gaskell, enough anyway for me to agree a few years back to write a serialisation of Mary Barton for Radio 4, and to work for a week on a treatment (until the BBC told my producer that sorry, their mistake, wires had got crossed, but there was already another writer-producer team working on the same project). And one of the things I like about her is her campaigning zeal. But the fact is that a campaigning zeal is not unproblematic - for a biographer (warping and supressing the facts in service of the campaign to improve Charlotte Bronte's image) or for a novelist either.

And finally, Art-Exhibitions, Brontëana, Movies-DVD-TV, Patrick Brontë, Books, Audio-Radio