Envelopes and Honeymoons

BBC News informs that the handwritten envelopes from Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey that were auctioned yesterday were sold for £8,100 and bought by some unknown buyers from "London and the north of England":

The pre-auction estimates for each envelope was £800 to £1,200.
Written in brown ink, the first envelope has a Penny Red stamp and postmarked "Leeds Jan 30 1849" and "Barnsley Keighley and Haworth" with the remains of a black seal. It measured 4in by 2.5in (10cm by 6cm)
The other similarly-sized envelope is also written in brown ink with a Penny Red stamp. It is postmarked "Leeds MR 31 1846" on the front and "Bradford and Haworth" on the reverse. A small printed scrap "Attend to Time" on the reverse has been affixed by Brontë.

The Sunday Times's Travel Section follows Charlotte Brontë and Arthur Bell Nicholls's honeymoon in Ireland:

Reader, I fell for this rugged isle
English novelist Charlotte Brontë was captivated by wild beauty of the Co Clare coast and the childhood home of her husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, on their idyllic honeymoon in Ireland. (...)
I had heard a great deal about Irish negligence etc. I own that till I came to Kilkee — I saw little of it,” the novelist Charlotte Brontë wrote in a letter from her honeymoon in Ireland, with all the candour of a hard-boiled TripAdvisor reviewer.
While 2016 marks the bicentennial of the Jane Eyre author’s birth in Yorkshire, her father, Patrick, was from Co Down and her husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, from Antrim and educated in Offaly. This is why she ended up in Ireland on a whistle-stop honeymoon road trip in 1854, taking in Dublin, the midlands and the southwest coast.
By all accounts, at first Brontë was as underwhelmed about the choice of destination as she was about her new groom, Arthur Bell Nicholls, then curate of Haworth. She had rejected his first proposal, describing him as “a kind, considerate fellow, with all his masculine faults”. In another letter she confessed: “My husband is not a poet or a poetical man — and one of my grand doubts before marriage was about ‘congenial tastes’.”
Ireland changed all that.
After a calm July crossing from Holyhead to Dublin, Brontë met her in-laws while visiting the library and chapel at Trinity College, Nicholls’s alma mater. (Read more) (Vic O'Sullivan)

Arts Beat announces live performances of Jane Eyre at Haddon Hall next year:

The hall was famously the location for the 2011 film version of the novel and other TV adaptations by the BBC.
Now Lady Edward Manners has commissioned a new play by Derbyshire storyteller and actress Gillian Shimwell, which will be performed as a live promenade in various parts of the hall.
Gillian has been a guide at the hall for many years and was thrilled to be offered the challenge of writing and directing the play to fit into the home she knows so well.
“In the film and television productions, the hall has been dressed opulently, in authentic early 19th century style. For this new adaption the hall’s peculiar and unassuming beauty corresponds to the character of Jane Eyre, its sterner, stonier aspects reflect the conditions of her early life and its passages and stairways whisper secrets,” she said.
Visitors booked for one of the performances will be greeted by Thornfield Hall’s housekeeper Mrs Fairfax who will lead them on a tour during which costumed actors will recreate significant events from the book. (...)
The actors, Rob Laughlin as Mr Rochester, Rachael Moore as Jane, Carole Copeland as Mrs Fairfax and Marcus Scotney as Mr Brocklehurst are all from the region and have a wealth of performing experience.
A series of performances will take place between April 26 and 29, but Lady Edward has not ruled out adding more dates if there is a demand.
You will have to book in advance – go to haddonhall.co.uk to find out more.

Bitonto Live reports about the recent Charlotte Brontë event taking place at the Galleria Devanna in Bitonto, Italy:

Per celebrare questa grande scrittrice, le associazioni culturali Ante Litteram e Cenacolo dei Poeti, con il patrocinio della Brontë Society, hanno organizzato una serie di appuntamenti a lei dedicati.
Il primo, dal titolo “Charlotte Brontë: una donna armata di penna e cuore”, si è tenuto venerdì nella Galleria nazionale della Puglia "Devanna". Relatrice la presidente dell'associazione Ante Litteram Barbara Buttiglione, da sempre grande appassionata di letteratura inglese e delle sorelle Bronte in particolare. «L'idea – ha spiegato – è nata dal mio amore spassionato per le sorelle Bronte e dal fatto che quest'anno ricorre il bicentenario della nascita di Charlotte. Negli anni passati ho tenuto alcuni incontri sulla letteratura inglese a Bitonto e ho sempre riscontrato molto interesse, così mi è sembrato giusto seguire il filone dei festeggiamenti che sono stati fatti in tutta Italia, in modo da farvi partecipare anche Bitonto. La mia associazione si occupa principalmente di promuovere la lettura, seguendo ovviamente anche i miei gusti personali che riguardano innanzitutto la letteratura inglese. Seguo anche i contemporanei, italiani e non, ma la mia specializzazione è la letteratura inglese, in particolare quella vittoriana».
Accanto a Barbara Buttiglione c'erano altre due donne: l'attrice Rossella Giugliano che con passione ha interpretato le lettere scritte da Charlotte Brontë, e la pianista Anna Elisa Lacetera che ha eseguito brani di Chopin. (Mariagrazia Lamonaca)

Les Inrocks lists the favourite songs of the French singer Norma:

Kate Bush– Wuthering Heights
“J’ai découvert cette chanson quand j’étais au lycée, en lisant Les Hauts de Hurlevent (Wuthering Heights) de Emily Brontë et j’étais fascinée par la beauté de cet amour torturé dans la lande anglaise… How could you leave me when I needed to possess you ?” (Abigaïl Aïnouz) (Translation)

Oubliette Magazine (in French) discusses madness in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea among other novels:

Chi conosce la storia del celebre romanzo ben sa che, dinanzi a questa scabrosa scoperta, Jane fuggirà disillusa e tormentata da Thornefield sebbene prima di abbandonare quel luogo ascolti tutta la lunga confessione di Rochester che le racconta di come si sposò con Bertha, in Jamaica, dietro un matrimonio contrattuale deciso dal padre e dal fratello. Lui – secondo il suo racconto – non aveva neppure avuto modo di conoscerla granché prima del matrimonio e, già a partire dal ritorno verso l’Inghilterra, in lei si erano manifestati dei segni di pazzia. L’autrice del romanzo non ci chiarisce bene quali ma sta di fatto che, nel giro di poco tempo, la moglie di Rochester venne bollata dal marito completamente mattae, pertanto, rinchiusa segretamente e cautelativamente al terzo piano della dimora di Thornefield. Se da una parte Rochester, cercando di motivare il suo trattamento di segregazione della donna, chiarisce che Bertha era profondamente pazza e veniva da una famiglia di imbecilli e folli, d’altro canto non manca di girare dongiovannescamente per l’Europa, avere relazioni, godere della bella vita, senza preoccuparsi in termini solidali di un possibile rimedio sanitario (o d’altro tipo) per la donna. (Lorenzo Spurio) (Read more) (Translation)

La Stampa (Italy) reviews the film Lady Macbeth by William Oldroyd:

Nella campagna inglese del 1865, l’ultima erede di una lunga serie di donne determinate e appassionate, da Jane Eyre alla Catherine di Cime tempestose, è costretta alle nozze con un uomo di mezza età che la umilia senza sfiorarla, costringendola a sopportare le rigide regole di una vita plumbea e senza futuro. (Fulvia Caprara)

The Brussels Brontë Blog posts about the French translations of Villette.