Emily's artist's box returns home

The Telegraph and Argus reports what we confirmed in an edit earlier today, i.e. the Brontë Society carrying home Emily's artist's box.

Bronte guardians have hit the jackpot again, outbidding rivals to buy a Bronte treasure at auction in Sotheby’s, London, yesterday.
They paid £32,000 for Wuthering Heights author Emily Bronte’s artist’s box and geometry set.
A fortnight ago in New York they acquired one of the rarest Charlotte Bronte miniature poetry manuscripts, paying 50,000 dollars.
The box and geometry set contains items used by Emily such as sealing wax, gummed paper and bottles.
Ann Dinsdale, Bronte Parsonage Museum collections manager, said: “We are absolutely thrilled. What a fantastic Christmas present.”
They were unable to stretch to the other items, a collection of drawings owned by Emily and a desk which belonged to Charlotte, author of Jane Eyre.
Now they were looking forward to receiving the items and displaying them at the museum in Haworth from the New Year. (Kath Gower)

The artist's box will indeed be displayed at the Parsonage after the January traditional closed period.

On to other news now. Such as the death of actress Jennifer Jones, whose obituary in The Telegraph reveals a could-have-been Brontë connection.

He [David O Selznick] tantalised Hollywood by launching her at a press conference as the probable star of his forthcoming production The Keys of the Kingdom (eventually made by Fox). She was also named as his first choice for future productions of Jane Eyre and Claudia, over which he then had options.
Both projects were sold on to Fox, who cast different actresses in the title roles.

On the subject of cinema, and as 2009 nears its end, commentaries on the so-called best year in the history of cinema, 1939, still appear from time to time. The Deseret News has an article on it and picks Wuthering Heights as one of the films that contributed to make it the best year:

"Wuthering Heights." From Emily Bronte's novel, starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Note Gregg Toland's Oscar-winning cinematography. (Chris Hicks)

The Syracuse City Eagle reviews the film An Education and mentions its Jane Eyre connection. Another film connected to Jane Eyre is, apparently, Pedro Almodóvar's Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces). According to CBC News (Canada),

You could argue, though, that the film really belongs to the superb [Lluis] Homar as Harry/Mateo. The middle-aged actor, who looks a little like Kelsey Grammer, gave a memorable performance as the pathetic, pedophilic ex-priest in Almodovar's Bad Education. Here, as the blind auteur, he takes on the dimensions of a damaged romantic hero, like a latter-day Rochester from Jane Eyre. But his quiet father-son relationship with Diego is just as affecting as his doomed affair with Lena. (Martin Morrow)

More pop culture on the screen as After Elton recaps what happened in the second episode of Vampire Diaries (check this previous post):

After, Stefan gives Elena an old edition of Wuthering Heights that has a pseudonym on the cover instead of Ms. Bronte’s name and explains his family has a lot of old stuff.

Given Emily Brontë's popularity among the vampire-loving crowds we are not quite so sure that the following statement from News Shopper remains true:

Today, celebrity books are more likely to flood bookshops’ shelves than the next Wilbur Smith, JK Rowling or Emily Bronte be discovered. (Zee Gaines)

Another test of popularity is Heathcliff's perpetual sex-appeal. Zee News (India) has an article on imaginary meetings with attractive literary heroes.

Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights): The dark, brooding character scowled at me when we first met. He appeared to have come straight out of the moors. In spite of his immaculate dress sense, he appeared like an animal underneath his dashing exterior. When he tried to grin displaying his wolf-like white teeth, I was scared all the more. He was perfect for wild Catherine and so I bid good-bye to him too. (Shivangi Singh)

The Independent chats to writer Simon Armitage, who lives in Huddersfield.

"Huddersfield is not New York," he says, "and it's not the prettiest town in the world, but it's manageable. It's got everything I need." He has just picked me up from the station and driven me through gorgeous countryside to an old school on a hillside, one which makes me think of Jane Eyre's Lowood, but which, it turns out, has been converted into extremely swanky apartments and, in his case, houses.

The Guardian Books Blog looks back on past literary events while discussing this year's Costa Prize.

Is it unforgivably snooty of me to wonder exactly why these people have been chosen as arbiters of a year in literature? Just because someone is good at wearing clothes, or appearing in indifferent TV, or writing gruesome power ballads, doesn't automatically mean they don't know books. (Back in the time of the BBC's grisly Big Read exercise, I remember interviewing Lorraine Kelly because she was the telly "champion" of Jane Eyre. That was a bad business, but away from the sofa our Lorraine turned out to be an eloquent and well-informed reader.) (Lindesay Irvine)

The Brontë Parsonage Blog posts a fragment of a poem (Honour's Martyr) by Emily Brontë in a beautiful format sent by Brussels Group member Marina Saegerman.

The rest of today's blogs are very varied: Embejo Etc and Le Monde Imaginaire! (in French) posts about Jane Eyre, The Qualia Journal writes about Wuthering Heights and Constance Reader reviews Agnes Grey (not very favourably, though). Finally, Book-Drunk writes about Wide Sargasso Sea.

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum, Brontë Society, Brontëana, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights