Burton Agnes and Charlotte, through Henry ~ BrontëBlog

Monday, July 30, 2012

Burton Agnes and Charlotte, through Henry

Monday, July 30, 2012 10:15 am by M. in Brontë Parsonage Museum, Brontëana, Emily Brontë, References, Wuthering Heights No comments

The Hull Daily Mail highlights a connection between Burton Agnes and the Brontës:

What connection has Burton Agnes with such famous names as Lewis Carroll (the pen-name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) Charlotte Brontë and William Wilberforce?
The link, rather indirect but still valid, comes through St Martin's Church and the Old Rectory behind the Hall, not as grand as the hall but still a substantial building.
The Rev Charles Henry Lutwidge became Rector of Burton Agnes in 1833. Three years earlier he had married Anne Louisa Raikes, daughter of the wealthy and influential Robert Raikes, of Welton, who was patron of the living of Burton Agnes and conveniently appointed his clergyman son-in-law Lutwidge to the well remunerated position of rector. (...)
Uncle Charles at Burton Agnes took on a curate to assist him in his not too onerous duties: Henry Nussey, whose sister Ellen was Charlotte Brontë's best friend.
Looking in a somewhat calculating way for a wife who could act as his housekeeper, Nussey proposed marriage to Charlotte Brontë. She promptly turned him down, fortunately as events proved by his later disastrous marriage and Charlotte's finding a more suitable husband, the Rev Arthur Bell Nicholls.

The Huffington Post talks about being part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival:

It is the first time I have shown my own work in Edinburgh and so feels like an enormous undertaking. Upon recognising that this is indeed my deflowering, most of the seasoned pros in my aquaintance have given me a look of concerned symptathy so deep as to be positively funerial. Tales of alcoholism, fortunes lost, reputations made and ruined abound in the mythology of the festival, giving my projections for the month ahead the inescapable gothic drama of an Brontë novel. I hope I am not disappointed. (LaJohnJoseph)

Another Fringe Festival (Washington's Fringe) is analysed in the Washington Post:

Surely, we’ll be seeing a hit like “The Brontës,” the clever literary concert-musical that rocked out under the festival tent just off Mount Vernon Square, courtesy of the troupe that calls itself Dizzy Miss Lizzie’s Roadside Revue. (Peter Marks)

Female First interviews the writer http://www.katydarby.com/:

Have you always had an interest in this period in history?
Yes. I've certainly always eagerly devoured fiction from and of the Victorian period - I'll read anything between about 1840 and 1900, from the Brontës to Thackeray to Wilde to Mary Elizabeth Braddon (a scandalous bestselling author of the time).

Quad-City Times on a classic topic of this part of the year, summer reads:

In high school, I encountered “100 books for the college-bound student” and started in on so-called classics such as “Madame Bovary” and “Wuthering Heights,” many of which I was too young to truly understand. (Alma Gaul)

Keighley News reports the events that will be taking place at the third Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing (August 31 to September 2).

L'Est-Éclair reviews Jane Eyre 2011. The reviewer comments that Mia Wasikowska reminds him of Isabelle Huppert in Les Soeurs Brontë 1979 (who played Anne Brontë, by the way):

Ressemblant un peu à Isabelle Huppert (qui joua Anne, l'une des sœurs Brontë, dans le film de Téchiné), elle se montre impressionnante dans le rôle, portant le film sur ses frêles épaules. (...)
Le soin apporté aux décors, aux costumes et à la photographie facilite l'immersion du spectateur dans cette Angleterre victorienne régie par des conventions sociales qui faisaient alors fort peu de cas des sentiments.
Un joli film. (Rodolphe Laurent) (Translation)

Chompasaurus Reviews interviews Anthea Jane Carson:

Annie K. Johnson – What book has most influenced you?
Anthea Carson – Probably Faulkner’s The Hamlet, or The Sound and The Fury, although I was also greatly influenced by Gothic works such as Rebecca, by Daphne DuMaurier and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.