Brontës at the Ilkley Literature Festival

The upcoming Ilkley Literature Festival (Oct. 3rd - Oct. 19th 2008) contains several interesting Brontë-related events:

Charlotte, the Brontes and Passion: Lyndall Gordon
Lyndall Gordon
Ilkley Playhouse Wildman
Saturday 4th October
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
₤4.00 (Full Price) ₤3.00 (Concessions)
Lyndall Gordon the highly respected biographer of Charlotte Bronte (and, incidentally, of Mary Wollstonecraft, Eliot's early years and Henry James) turns her attention to Charlotte and her family. An acknowledged Bronte expert and winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, Gordon is a Senior Research Fellow at St Hilda's College, Oxford and currently working on a biography of Emily Dickinson.
Lyndall Gordon the highly respected biographer of Charlotte Bronte turns her attention to Charlotte and her family

Incidentally, Lyndall Gordon's Charlotte Brontë. A Passionate Life has been republished this month by Virago Press. These are the details:

Author(s): Lyndall Gordon

ISBN: 1844084728

ISBN-13: 9781844084722

Publication Date: 04 Sep 2008

Pages: 480 (198 x 126)

Format: Paperback

Published Price: £9.99

Daphne: Justine Picardie
Justine Picardie
Ilkley Playhouse Wildman
Saturday 4th October
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
₤4.00 (Full Price) ₤3.00 (Concessions)
Justine Picardie makes a welcome return to talk about her latest novel, Daphne, which, blurring fact and fiction, unravels the intriguing story of Daphne du Maurier’s obsession with renegade Bronte brother, Branwell.
Picardie, a former editor of the Observer Magazine and British Vogue and now a Sunday Telegraph Magazine columnist, was inspired by letters she discovered in the archives of the Bronte Parsonage at Howarth.
Please note the revised time of 6pm on Sat 4th October for this event.

Bells by Eddie Lawler
Saturday 4th October
9:15 PM - 10:15 PM
Free no need to book
Saltaire’s young team of bellringers went to Haworth this year to ring the bells in the Church where most of the Brontë family lie buried in a vault. They rang so loud they managed to waken the dead, briefly……..
They tell the tale in this cameo version of Eddie Lawler’s Brontë musical Bells, which tries to catch the Bronte characters in song.

Ilkley at the Time of Charlotte Bronte (WALK)
Alex Cockshott
Outside Rombalds Hotel
Sunday 5th October and 12th October
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Sold Out Online
₤3.00 (no concessions)
Charlotte Bronte visited Ilkley in September 1853, liking it ‘exceedingly’ and longing to return. Local historian Alex Cockshott leads a fascinating historical walk around the Ilkley Charlotte knew, bringing to life the ‘wide streets and grand new hotels’ Charlotte and her friend Miss Wooler admired and revealing the subject of their intimate conversations..
This is a circular walk lasting 90 minutes.
Parking at Darwin Gardens.

Three Quartets: The Rossettis, the Mendelssohns and the Brontes
Ian Emberson
St Margaret's Church Hall - Ilkley
Saturday 11th October
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Free no need to book
Ian M. Emberson, writer, artist, former music-librarian and author of one book and many articles about the Brontes, focusses on the childhoods of three gifted families -discussing how this background influenced their later achievements. In each case we have four exceptional children, slightly apart from their immediate surroundings, yet ultimately blending different cultures in their mature creative activities.
Free fringe event.

Our thanks to Mr. Emberson for having alerted us to his appearance at the festival.

Categories: Alert, Talks