First examples of fan fiction

The Daily Express talks about the upcoming British Library exhibition: Out Of This World and, particularly, about the Brontës' juvenilia. The article quotes Juliet Barker and Christine Alexander and their opinion on the juvenile writings of the Brontës:

The four Brontë children grew up in the parsonage of Haworth, an isolated outpost of Bradford, obsessively writing plays, poems and prose stories about the Glass Town Federation’s kingdoms of Angria (Charlotte and Branwell) and Gondal (Emily and Anne). For Charlotte, their characters became as real as her loved ones: “well-known forms...faces looking up, eyes smiling and lips moving in audible speech, that I knew better almost than my brothers and sisters, yet whose voices had never woke an echo in this world.”
As Branwell explains in his Young Men’s Magazine, the kingdom of Angria grew out of games with the wooden toy soldiers that their father Patrick bought for him in 1826. Narrative tension develops from the fraught relationship between the ruthless, charismatic Duke of Zamorna and his father-in-law, the Duke of Northangerland. Zamorna ruled over a recognisable 19th-century English land, its capital a thriving mill town with echoes, unsurprisingly, of a Yorkshire city. Real-life characters were woven into the stories: writers, artists, explorers and statesmen, most notably the Duke of Wellington.
Over time, Emily and Anne, author of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, wearied of being bossed around by their older siblings and took refuge in their imaginary world of Gondal. However, only their poems about this “large island in the Pacific” have survived, described by author Christine Alexander as “considered among the finest lyrical poems in the 19th century”. The worlds of both Angria and Gondal alike explored themes of love, war and identity.
Writing in eye-straining micro-script legible only with a magnifying glass, the children’s stories appeared in little books measuring less than 5in square and homemade magazines, alongside detailed maps of their kingdoms. Their imaginary worlds marked a stark contrast with their relatively isolated upbringing in Haworth Parsonage. Christine Alexander, editor of Tales Of Glass Town, Angria And Gondal: Selected Writings Of The Brontës (Oxford World’s Classics), explains: “They had the freedom to ignore the demands of Victorian morality: their stories are full of murders, kidnapping, sexual scandals and illegitimate children.”
Can their youthful writings really be classed as science fiction though? Andy Sawyer, director of science fiction studies MA at Liverpool University and curator of the British Library exhibition says: “The Brontës’ tiny manuscript books, held at the British Library, are one of the first examples of fan fiction, using favourite characters and settings in the same way as science fiction and fantasy fans now play in the detailed imaginary ‘universes’ of Star Trek or Harry Potter.
“While the sense of fantasy is strong, there are teasing examples of what might be called the beginnings of science fiction.”
Mike Ashley, author of Out Of This World: Science Fiction But Not As You Know It, says: “The Brontë children became obsessive about their imaginary worlds, drawing maps and creating lives for their characters...this was uncommon for their time although it has become more common today for fictional worlds to be elaborate, especially since the work of JRR Tolkien in creating Middle Earth.”
Juliet Barker, author of the definitive biography The Brontës (Phoenix), believes the British Library may be stretching a point though: “Sci-fi is a bit two-dimensional whereas the Brontës were experimenting with lots of different forms: newspapers, plays, poetry and little books based on Blackwoods magazine, a heavyweight periodical.” Christine Alexander agrees, describing the early writing as capturing “a fascinating fantasy world”.
“The worlds of Glass Town, Angria and Gondal might be considered alternative universes but there is nothing futuristic or scientific about them,” she says. “Charlotte and Branwell’s tales of Glass Town and Angria are youthful literary experiments in imitation and parody, wild romance and realistic journalism.” The writings have long divided critical opinion. To Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte’s friend and biographer, the Brontës’ early work was “wild weird writing”, of interest only to “the bright little minds for whom it was intended”.
Andy Sawyer, on the other hand, says: “I find a lot of the stories quite enjoyable, especially The Green Dwarf by Charlotte. It’s clearly kids and teenagers having literary fun; they’re not meant for publication or detailed analysis.
“the writing can be crude but reading Charlotte’s poem The Foundling and her short story The Green Dwarf, you’d say that person had the potential to become a great writer.”
Juliet Barker agrees: “You can see where the brilliance of Charlotte as a writer came from. The stories suck you in. They can be hard work at times, though.”
She also draws attention to the way in which the early works informed the sisters’ published novels. “They’re obsessed with strong male characters and young children, especially Charlotte, while there’s an outlaw called Douglas in Emily’s early stories who is very much like Heathcliff.”
Christine Alexander says of one of Charlotte’s Glass Town characters: “Lord Charles Wellesley plays the same cat-and-mouse games with his readers as the narrator Lucy Snowe does in Charlotte’s last novel Villette. It’s a very sophisticated imaginary world.”
Elizabeth Gaskell described Branwell Brontë as “to begin with, the greatest genius in this rare family” but bitter disappointments in his work and love life saw him turn to alcohol and laudanum. He died of tuberculosis aged 31. While we can only speculate about what Branwell might have written had he harnessed his early promise, the Brontës’ youthful writings undoubtedly laid the groundwork for some of the most powerful and enduring novels in the English language. As Christine Alexander says: “The stories reveal the Brontë children to be young artists of extraordinary energy, tenacity and vision.” (Charlotte Heathcote)

Another library on the other side of the pond, the New York Public Library is also exhibiting Brontë items. Art Daily says:

The New York Public Library featurs over 250 artifacts from its incredible research collections in the new exhibition Celebrating 100 Years, which opened on May 14th at the Library’s landmark Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. (...)
Artifacts belonging to literary giants such as William Shakespeare, Charlotte Brontë and Jorge Luis Borges complements historically important items related to a wide variety of issues and events, from the Age of Discovery, to the creation of the Soviet Union, World War II, the Civil Rights movement and the AIDS crisis. (...)
Specific items in the exhibition include (...) Charlotte Brontë’s writing desk. 

The Oregonian reviews a local production of The Mystery of Irma Vep :

[Charles] Ludlam alludes to or quotes from Shakespeare's ghostly tragedies "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," and he borrows from classic films such as 1939's "Wuthering Heights," based on Emily Brontë's 1847 novel, and the 1940 Hitchcock thriller "Rebecca," based on Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel. Ludlam's play is in fact a hilarious over-the-top mix of gothic references that span hundreds of years of spine-tingling entertainment. There is a story here, but its ludicrous development only adds to the fun. (Richard Battenberg)

The Sunday Maine Observer interviews local book lovers:

"Under the Lilacs" was another favorite of mine by Miss Alcott. "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" carried me to a world of misty, mysterious moors and dark and dreary manor houses. As a teenage girl, I loved these tragic romances. (Elaine Parker)

Valedictorians choosing Wuthering Heights as favourite book in The Scranton Times Tribune; Librarian by Day, Book Reviewer by Night reviews Wuthering Bites;  The West's Darkest Hour and Café, Conversas e Livros (in Portuguese) review the original novel by Emily Brontë and Bridget's Books is preparing her re-read of the book (after a first read when she hated it). Emily Brontë's ghost hunts the Black Bull according to Simply Ghost Nights; Kathleen Peacock reviews the new Jane Eyre film. A Sea of Pages reviews the novel. Blog dos Maníacos por Filme posts about Jane Eyre 1996 (in Portuguese) and rawr-caps posts several Jane Eyre 2006 caps.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights