A tribute to the human imagination

The Brontës are mentioned in The East African. We wonder what Charlotte and Branwell would have made of this, given that someof their juvenilia were supposedly set in a sort of imaginary Africa.

Similarly, the three Bronte sisters — Anne, Emily and Charlotte, together with their poor neglected brother who was a painter — were all imprisoned in the Haworth parsonage on the edge of the bleak Yorkshire moors and wrote astonishingly imaginative and different novels that do not have their equal today.
The difference between Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights is as immense as the gap between these books and the American author Herman Melville’s magnificent Moby Dick, yet they were living in insufferably close quarters and hardly moved outside of their narrow circle.
What a tribute to the human imagination! (Betty Caplan)

The author of that article has our deepest respect for talking about imagination, rather than looking for real-life experiences where the Brontës would have picked up each and every occurrence in their books.

The Chatanoogan carries an article on 'Hauntingly good tours in northern England' where Haworth is suggested.

The Brontes are considered to be the world’s most famous literary family. Charlotte Bronte wrote “Jane Eyre.” Emily Bronte wrote “Wuthering Heights.’’ And Anne Bronte wrote “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.’’ Their brother, Branwell, and their father, Patrick Bronte, were also published authors. Amazingly all the books mentioned and more were written in the small Georgian House located in former wool manufacturing village in the Pennine Hills called Haworth in West Yorkshire.
A visit to the Bronte Parsonage Museum (formerly the Haworth Parsonage) just before Halloween presented some truly haunting memories. This was the home of the Brontes from 1820 to 1861 when the Reverend. Patrick Bronte was appointed the perpetual curate of the church.
Haworth was an overcrowded and unhealthy place to live in those Victorian times. The close proximity to the ill-drained, dangerously over-filled graveyard, located directly in front of the parsonage was a constant threat to the Bronte family’s health.
That being said it is easy to understand that life was short and harsh for them. The Reverend’s first wife, Maria Branwell Bronte, and two of their children (Maria and Elizabeth) died shortly after moving there. Although tragic, the family’s deaths were not unusual for the village in which 41 percent of the children died before reaching the age of six and the life expectancy of 25 years was the norm.
This cemetery shrouded in mist and filled with falling leaves and ancient gravestones is definitely one of the most haunting places I have visited. If you can’t visit you can purchase a ticket to the new movie “Bronte” which has begun filming with actress Michelle Williams.
Peat bogs, endless moors, woodlands, mist-covered country roads, century-old relics, dry stonewalls, and limestone cliffs all provide dramatic vistas throughout this area of England whenever you choose to visit. (Diane Siskin)

All is very well but we must unavoidably cough when it comes to Brontë already filming and Michelle Williams starring in it.

Chris Skaugset writing for The Daily News Online lists Jane Eyre as one of the books he'd never have chosen for himself, yet ended up loving.

"Jane Eyre," by Charlotte Bronte. I was assigned this in a college course and really had no idea what to expect. It certainly wasn’t a book that I would have picked up on my own at that time, but I’m glad that I had to. It is still one of my favorite books.

Mistress of All Evil reviews the stage adaptation of Jane Eyre at the Guthrie Theatre. It is a lengthy review worth reading, but we'll select just one line from it to give you an idea of this blogger's opinion of it:

I did something I never do. I left during intermission. It was just that wrong.

Jane Eyre - the novel - is also reviewed by Much Madness is Divinest Sense. And The Times reviews Valerie Martin's Trespass, with the inevitable mention of the main character's work as an illustrator of Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Haworth, Jane Eyre, Theatre