Half-term at the Brontë Parsonage Museum ~ BrontëBlog

Monday, February 16, 2009

Half-term at the Brontë Parsonage Museum

Monday, February 16, 2009 1:40 pm by Cristina in Books, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights No comments

The Telegraph and Argus suggests a great deal of things to do around Bradford during half-term. One of them is looking at the Wuthering Heights 2009 costumes at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth:

The Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth has an exhibition of costumes from the upcoming ITV adaptation of Wuthering Heights, a newly-refurbished exhibition focusing on the Brontes’ lives with interactive displays and arts and crafts drop-in workshops. The event runs from Tuesday to Thursday.

But as if that wasn't enough of a hint, the same newspaper also features a stand-alone piece on said exhibition:

An exhibition of costumes from the forthcoming ITV adaptation of Wuthering Heights is just one of the activities for visitors to the Bronte Parsonage Museum during half-term week.
The week will also feature a newly-refurbished exhibition focusing on the Brontes’ lives with interactive displays for families, and arts and crafts drop-in workshops.
Bafta-winning costume designer Amy Roberts has worked with the museum to display several of the costumes that she designed for ITV’s adaptation.
The drama, which will be broadcast later in 2009, stars Tom Hardy, Sarah Lancashire and Charlotte Riley and was filmed in Yorkshire last year.
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Education Officer Susan Newby will be running free drop-in arts and crafts activities for families.
Visitors to Haworth should look out for special entry coupons in the town’s cafes and shops during half-term week offering special entry prices to the museum from today.

Publishers Weekly publishes a short notice of a forthcoming biography of Jean Rhys.

The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys
Lillian Pizzichini. Norton, $29.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-393-05803-1
The genius of novelist Jean Rhys (1890–1979) is painfully depicted in this compelling short biography, exploring what it was like to live such a tortured life. Rhys was overlooked for decades until Wide Sargasso Sea, her postmodern shift of emphasis on Jane Eyre, became an instant sensation in 1966. Three times married to ne’er-do-wells and enduring an unhappy dollop of motherhood, Rhys was better known as the lover of Ford Maddox Ford. According to British author Pizzichini (Dead Man’s Wages), both Ford’s “predatory paternalism” and his novelist’s flattery attracted and repelled her, as did the criminal element of society. Pizzichini searches Rhys’s background for clues to her self-destructive judgments. Born in Dominica as Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams, she was later a free-spirited young outsider in starchy, empirical England and elsewhere in Europe. Stuck with men who couldn’t make ends meet, Rhys had a brief career in prostitution and also worked as a chorus girl. Evocative and empathetic, Pizzichini still offers no fully satisfactory explanation for the explosiveness of Rhys’s interior life: “She found life difficult because she found it hard to be herself.” 20 photos. (Apr. 29)

You thought the Valentine's Day mentions were over and done with until next year? Well, we are sorry to have to post one that passed us by when it was published on the day in question on NY Examiner, which introduced its list of the 'most romantic reads' with a quote by Charlotte Brontë:

As Charlotte Bronte wrote in Jane Eyre, “human beings must love something.” In that spirit, here are some of my favorite books about romantic love. (Katie Henderson)