The blueish/greenish world of Branwell Brontë

Jerry's Ink, a column in The Independent, tackles the fear of flying today with a funny anecdote involving Jane Eyre.

At the time I traveled to a lot of business meetings with a woman named Louise McNamee, who was the president of my ad agency, and who would constantly be reading Jane Eyre. I'm convinced that she read Jane Eyre because if the plane crashed, she wanted her obituary to read, "When the plane crashed, Ms. McNamee was reading Jane Eyre, while her disgusting traveling companion, Jerry Della Femina, was reading a filthy book called The Steamy Sluts of Singapore."
I was always careful to rip the front cover off of my book, which always seemed to have a blonde opening the fourth and last button of her blouse. I also loved to look at Ms. McNamee primly reading Jane Eyre and whisper to her, "Have you gotten to the 'hot' parts yet?" (Jerry Della Femina)

To continue with the humourous note, we have come across this cover of Daphne du Maurier's The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë. It's truly priceless. Not only do we love Branwell's look but also the greenish/blueish halo around him, probably the artist depicting Branwell's opium addiction. Or something else altogether - who knows.

A couple of blogs talk about Brontë-related things.

Brontëite blogger, well-known to BrontëBlog readers: The Further Adventures of Deluzy. Today she writes a few lines on Emma Tennant's Thornfield Hall, which is another name for both Adèle: Jane Eyre's Hidden Story and The French Dancer's Bastard: The Story of Adèle from Jane Eyre. We look forward to hearing what she thinks about it when she reads it.

Siberian Iris stops to think about imaginary characters.

(Right, don’t tell me you don’t have imaginary characters in your own head. Wasn’t it Charlotte Bronte who played Angria until she was 29? A psychologist called it traumatic play, or over-play, but plainly the psychologist was never a writer. Dear sweet goodness, if having imaginary characters inhabit our psyches is over-play, I believe every single author is an over-player.)

That was actually Emily Brontë playing Gondal, though. And most scholars tend to agree that Wuthering Heights is probably an extension of Gondal itself. But despite this small correction we believe her argument to be quite right.

Categories: Books, Branwell Brontë, Jane Eyre, Juvenilia