The secret of Branwell Brontë

Selina Busch, over at the Brussels Brontë Blog, writes a tremendously interesting post on a book called The Secret of Charlotte Brontë by Frederika MacDonald, published in 1914. If you like old books, you will love the cover of this one. But what's so important about this book? Oh, you'll see:

This is probably the first and only book which is focused solely on Charlotte Brontë and Brussels, and would therefore be of great interest to everyone interested in that period of her life.
Frederika MacDonald, in 1859, was herself a pupil at the Pensionnat Heger where 17 years earlier Charlotte had been a student, and later a teacher.
She knew from first-hand experience what life was like at the school, and even more interesting, what M. Heger and his wife Madame Heger were like in real life.
Frederika had been writing articles as an ex-pupil of the Pensionnat from 1894 onwards, but when Charlotte’s letters to Heger were made public in 1913 (when Paul Heger handed them over to the British Museum), she was the first to quote from these letters in a Brontë biography. They form a vital part of this publication, in which Frederika tries to unravel the ‘secret’ of Charlotte on the basis of these letters.

The good news is, the book can be read online at archive.org. See our sidebar for more old books like this one that can be read on this website nowadays.

David Chapman writes a letter to the Telegraph & Argus about the auction of the Thornton Brontë birthplace.

SIR - It saddens me to learn that the Bronte birthplace in Thornton is up for auction later this month.
There is a great risk that the property will be bought by someone who is not concerned with the heritage and historical significance of the building, and we Bradfordians will loose yet another piece of history.
Could I suggest that the Council steps in and at least ensures that the property goes to a suitable owner and saves the Bronte birthplace?
David Chapman, Meadowbank Avenue, Allerton

Indeed, this is in accordance with what John Jessop suggested a few days ago. Although we don't want to get our hopes up, this would actually be the best outcome.

We wonder what Dan from All that comes with it would make of the Brontë Birthplace. It looks like he's not very fond of Haworth.

Now I’ve been to Haworth and trust me, it’s not worth it. The reason it is internationally famous however is that it was the home to Charlotte, Anne, and Emily Brontë; authors of Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey, and Wuthering Heights respectively. There is a museum dedicated to their lives and legacy in the Parsonage where they used to live. I’ve been there too and it has won my coveted Worlds Most Boring Museum Award for several years in a row (even beating Holmfirth’s Postcard Museum). Not everything about the Brontës is boring however. Less well known than the Brontë sisters is the Brontë brother.

Now we know everyone's entitled to their own opinions and not everyone shares our opinion but given the 'legendary' biography of Branwell's we do wonder how the rest of the Brontë story was told to him, or whether it is the reason why he couldn't enjoy the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

After providing him with a classical education at home, his father sent him to London to attend the Royal Academy, but he never actually turned up for enrollment - choosing to roam the streets of the capital spending all his money on booze.

No one knows that for sure. He may or may not have even made it to London. The current trend is that he never actually went there. Even before the time when he may or may not have gone to London he could trick 'commercial gents' into believing he was from London, so well had he learned his way around London through maps and books.

Between the ages of 21 and 25 Branwell had a variety of jobs, ranging from portrait painter through private tutor to railway stationmaster. However he appears to have performed pretty abysmally in all of them. He was sacked from his tutoring job for fathering a child by one of the maidservants, and dismissed from his stationmaster’s position for financial incompetence.

Now that was fun. We can actually see why this Branwell is someone's favourite (not that we dislike the real one!). It is not clear why he was sacked from his post for the Postlethwaites in Broughton-in-Furness. He probably only neglected his pupils in favour of the great literary stimulus he had received from Coleridge or he drank a bit too much. There is no actual evidence of his fathering a child in the Lake District, and Juliet Barker in her biography The Brontës looks closely into this. Again, Branwell was more unlucky than mischievous. He was dismissed from his railway post not for stealing money but for not realising others were stealing it.

At the age of 26 Branwell went on to take up yet another tutoring position, but was again sacked.

After nearly three years, which is not that bad.

Finally, aged just 31, he succumbed to tuberculosis, the same disease that would eventually wipe out the entire of the Brontës aside from the father.

Not Charlotte. The most probable - though not indisputable - cause of Charlotte's death was hyperemesis gravidarum.

And so to prove this he insisted on dying standing up, propped on the mantelpiece for support; his pockets filled with old letters from his beloved Mrs Robinson.

Dear, dear Mrs Gaskell.

His last words are reported to be “All my life I have done nothing either great or good”.

That's from a letter he wrote long before he died.

The Telegraph is also somewhat vague when it comes to the real thing.

Since Jane Eyre, and poor Mrs Rochester, we English seem to have developed a fetish about our attics. We crave our own private space, high up in the rafters, where we can curl up like cats and escape from the madness down below. (Max Davidson)

So, there's something or other about attics in Jane Eyre, so why don't we ignore the whole context and just look cultured by quoting a Brontë novel?

While we are on the subject of attics though, let us remind you to scan your attics for Brontëana. Oh, you never know what might be in there!

Playbill reports The Mystery of Irma Vep is returning briefly to New York.

Charles Ludlam's high camp classic The Mystery of Irma Vep will be revived for a limited two-week engagement at Urban Stages July 3-15. (Adam Hetrick)

So what does this have to do with the Brontës. Oh, we have said it before, but:

Ludlam's acclaimed play is a howling tribute to gothic horror movies, involving mystery and intrigue, replete with vampires, werewolves and mummies. The play liberally borrows from such melodramatic film classics as "Wuthering Heights," "The Mummy's Curse" and Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca." In addition Ludlam's dialogue is peppered with quotes from notable literary sources, including Ibsen, Shakespeare, Poe, the Brontës, Omar Khayyam and Oscar Wilde. (Adam Hetrick)

Interesting combination, huh?

And for all Dutch-speakers out there, there's a post on Heathcliff / Wuthering Heights on Het huis van liefde.

Categories: Branwell Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Theatre, Wuthering Heights