The Duke of Kent at the Parsonage

Keighley News reminds us of the temporary exhibition of the Gondal Poems manuscript and Branwell's portrait of Emily Brontë at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

Poems written by Emily Brontë have returned to the Haworth parsonage where they were penned nearly 150 years ago.
The Gondal poems notebook was taken to Ireland in 1861 after the Brontës had died.
When Charlotte Brontë's widower Arthur Bell Nicholls died in 1907, the manuscript was sold at auction at Sotheby's and was bequeathed to the British Library in London.
It has now been loaned for the summer to the Brontë Parsonage Museum for its "No Coward Soul" exhibition, which focuses on Emily Brontë.
Also on loan is a rare portrait of Emily painted by her brother Branwell.
The work, from the National Portrait Gallery, was once part of a larger painting called "The Gun Group" and was cut out by Arthur Bell Nicholls on the death of Patrick Brontë in 1861. It was later found on top of a wardrobe, together with another portrait by Branwell, by Arthur's second wife following her husband's death.

We hope that TRH The Duke of Kent, who was visiting Keighley today, enjoyed the exhibition. From The Telegraph & Argus.
Picture source: The Duke arrives at Ingrow.

From Oxenhope, the Duke was taken on to Haworth to visit the Bronte shrine at the Parsonage Museum where he was greeted by children at Haworth Primary School.

He was shown some of the major treasures, including items relating to Emily Bronte who is the subject of a major exhibition this season.

They included rare manuscripts of her poetry, on loan from the British Library, and a portrait of the author of Wuthering Heights painted by her brother Branwell and on loan from the National Portrait Gallery.

Acting director of the museum, Andrew McCarthy, said: “It was a rare opportunity for the Duke to see this portrait which has come back to the place where it was originally painted.”

The Duke had been particularly fascinated by the fact that three sisters in one family could have been so tremendously creative, Mr McCarthy added. (Clive White)

A busy day for Mr. McCarthy: meeting the Royal Family, being quoted in the House of Commons...

Batley News reports how Oakwell Hall is used as location in the ITV's new version of Wuthering Heights:

BIRSTALL'S Oakwell Hall is to become the setting for a new adaptation of Emily Bronte's timeless novel Wuthering Heights.(...)
There will be nine full days of filming at the Nutter Lane park, with another week on either side to prepare and dismantle sets. During this time the hall will be closed but the park will remain open as normal. (Rebecca Draper)

The Burnley Citizen announces the Pendley Waking Festival which can be of interest to the readers of this blog:

A PENDLE festival is being extended to last twice as long following the success of previous years’ events.
The fifth annual Pendle Walking Festival will take place from Saturday August 31 to Sunday September 7, which is four days longer than last year’s event.
As part of the festival, 70 walks, ranging from two to 17 miles in length, have been organised to take place across Pendle’s countryside. (...)
The festival will begin with a 24 mile trek across West Craven Way and the finale will include two walks, from Haworth to Colne, one of which will be on the low level Bronte Way and the other on scarcely used tracks over the highest parts of the Pennine Moors. (...)
The green pastures of Wycoller, which is rumoured to be the inspiration for the Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, will also be explored. (...)
Progammes will be available at tourism offices, libraries and similar outlets in the near future.
To receive a programme call 01282 661981 and for information visit www.walkinginpendle.co.uk. (Jon Livesey)

The New Statesman reviews Phyllida Lloyd's new film Mamma Mia! and is able to slip a Wuthering Heights reference talking about an ABBA song:

The most successful numbers are those that don't badger us with office-party vulgarity. "The Winner Takes It All", which Streep belts out belligerently on a clifftop as though it's a deleted scene from Wuthering Heights, is like Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage in song form. (Ryan Gilbey)

Wuthering Heights seems to be the bedside book of the whole editorial staff of The New Statesman (after asking Gordon Brown about Heathcliff and the previous piece of news) there's another Wuthering Heights reference in a review of Lewis Carroll in Numberland by Robin Scott Wilson:

There is, after all, inevitably one section of almost every literary classic that everyone tends to forget: the most obvious example would be the entire second half of Wuthering Heights, as elided in readers' memories as it has been in numerous film versions. (Gilbert Adair)

Los Angeles City Beat interviews artist Don Bachardy regarding the recent release of the film Chris & Don: A Love Story, about his life with writer Christopher Isherwood:

We can all fall for charming people, but was he also the best person you ever knew?
Oh, that too. That took a while to figure out. I was young enough that he could really influence me. He’d recommend books for me to read. The first was Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Then Wuthering Heights. (Interview by Rebecca Schoenkopf)

Vulpes Libris posts about Antonia Forest and vindicates, among others, her novel Peter's Room:

In Peter’s Room (1961), the four younger Marlows, with their neighbour Patrick, are inspired by the young Brontës’ stories of Gondal and Angria to spend a snowbound Christmas acting out their own adventure. Were this not a children’s book, literary critics would long ago have flagged up the intertextual and genre-subverting nature of this text.

Not the first time that this book is mentioned on BrontëBlog.

Book Remix and Unexpected Twists... talk about Wuthering Heights, La casa degli spiriti talks about its author (in Italian), Nottinghamshire Notes devotes a post to the parish church of St Michael & All Angels in Hathersage:

However what I must admit caught my imagination was the attractive Vicarage next to the church. I was quite unaware that Charlotte Bronte's great friend Ellen Nussey had a brother Henry, and he was Vicar of Hathersage. As a result Charlotte came and stayed here, and in 1846 began the wonderful 'Jane Eyre' using the most famous name in the town. The local halls of Moorseats and North Lees can apparently be identified as 'Moor House' and 'Thornfield' and it is believed that St. John Rivers may have been modelled on Henry Nussey himself, the real Vicar of Hathersage.
In such an idyllic spot it was so easy to imagine Charlotte sitting in the graveyard working out the plot for her famous story. It certainly added an unexpected pleasure to my visit.

Categories: Books, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Brontëana, Brontëites, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights