'The most valuable of all the Brontë mss I possess'

Tracy Chevalier has written a lovely article to the Financial Times on why it's important to save the Honresfeld Collection for the nation. 

I have read plenty of published transcriptions of letters written by Charlotte Brontë, the eldest of the three sisters, who together would go on to write such classics as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. But that can’t compare with the experience of holding the letter she wrote to her friend Ellen Nussey after returning home from Scarborough, where her sister Anne had recently died from tuberculosis. At the time — July 1849 — Charlotte had lost three siblings in the space of eight months, and wrote:

The great trial is when evening closes and night approaches — At that hour we used to assemble in the dining-room — we used to talk — Now I sit by myself — necessarily I am silent — I cannot help thinking of their last days — remembering their sufferings and what they said and did and how they looked in mortal affliction —

Reading those words in a published volume of letters is moving enough. But when seeing the letter itself, I picked up more subtle details, for instance the mournful black-edged stationery Charlotte had to use so often, and the hasty scrawl that suggests her hand is barely keeping pace with her emotions. [...]

Even the grave Charlotte Brontë can be unexpectedly amusing. In another letter to Nussey, just after her marriage, she starts to sign herself CBro — then crosses it out and writes CNicholls, the married name she’s not used to using. A slip-up like that is not something you would notice if you weren’t looking at the original. And in a volume of Romantic Tales Charlotte wrote when she was just 13, she draws on the endpapers the chin shapes of her family members.

In the Honresfield Library’s most valuable item, a manuscript of Emily Brontë’s poems, there are edits throughout in pencil in Charlotte’s hand. Emily also has strong views on her own writing. At the end of the poems, she writes in her tiny inimitable handwriting: “never was better stuff penned”.

Brontë memorabilia rarely comes on the market, and is much sought after. Even during her lifetime, Charlotte had people showing up on her doorstep wanting a piece of her. Her father cut up her letters and handed out the strips. When the Brontë Parsonage was eventually sold in 1861, six years after her death in 1855, souvenir hunters snapped up furniture and even a window frame. [...]

The British Library and the National Library of Scotland — repositories for many of the nation’s most important manuscripts — are joining with the homes of the Brontës, Austen, Scott and Burns, as well as university libraries such as Oxford’s Bodleian and the University of Leeds’ Brotherton. Together they will be working to raise the £15m needed to buy the Honresfield collection.

It may seem a lot of money for a bunch of old papers, but they will then be available to the public. You or I could order a letter or a miniature book from the British Library or the Brontë Parsonage and hold and study it for ourselves. This is our cultural heritage, and we have a right to have access to it.

Written in pencil at the front of the Emily Brontë’s poems is a note from the collector TJ Wise, who owned the manuscript before selling it to William Law in 1897. “It is the most valuable of all the Brontë mss I possess and should not be parted with except to someone who would appreciate and value it.” I couldn’t agree more. I hope the nation does too.

Apollo interviews artist Lucy McKenzie.

What do you listen to while you’re working?

When I look at old work, I can often hear the things I was listening to when I made them. BBC Radio 4 coverage of the 1997 general election… Wuthering Heights read by Patricia Routledge. I stopped listening to music in the studio when I realised it had a direct effect on painting wood and marble. Techno made me feel like I was having a heart attack, and everything got jittery; classical music made the lines wavey and languid. So now it’s only audiobooks, podcasts and radio.

The Telegraph looks back on the life of British actor Donald Pleasence.

 In 1939, however, he joined a repertory company in Jersey and made his debut with a small part in Wuthering Heights. Pleasence recalled setting up the stage for the following week’s play when Chamberlain’s declaration of war with Germany was broadcast over the wireless. His burgeoning career on the boards was halted. (Tom Fordy)

Cambridge Independent features Brian Blessed who is mostly inspired by women these days.

“I’ve always found men bore me. It is women that are my heroes,” he says. “Men are full of vanity, they are stupid, they bore me but women, oh! In science and everything I find women have something extra definitive, and all I’ve learned in life I’ve learned from women, that they’re my heroes, not men.

“The list of women I admire goes on and on. They are great philosophers, they’re great scientists and great artists – Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, people like that.” (Alex Spencer)

La Nación (Argentina) interviews Paul Auster, who chooses Wuthering Heights as his favourite English novel while praising women writers in general.

Menciona a su esposa, a quien le dedica las últimas líneas del libro [”Muchos dicen que los escritores no deben casarse entre sí porque..., porque es imposible que dos autores vivan juntos bajo el mismo techo. Se equivocan”.] ¿Cree que algunos autores, escritores, se sienten amenazados por el reconocimiento tardío que están recibiendo las escritoras?

–Yo no me siento amenazado en absoluto. Siempre he leído a mujeres escritoras. Nunca hice una distinción entre hombres y mujeres escritoras. Algunas de mis escritoras favoritas de todos los tiempos son mujeres y mi poeta favorita es Emily Dickinson. Siempre he leído y promovido a autoras, pero no porque sean mujeres, sino porque creo que son muy buenas. Nunca me parecieron interesantes las novelas de los años 60 de Estados Unidos, cuando yo comencé a leer y a escribir… Philip Roth, Norman Mailer o Saul Bellow. Pero sí leía a Flannery O’Connor o los cuentos de Grace Paley. Además estoy casado con una escritora que es un genio. Nunca ha sido un problema para mí. Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë, es mi novela inglesa favorita. Es una novela tan brillante y demencial, a la altura de cualquier novela de Dickens. (Laura Ventura) (Translation)

The New York Times reviews the novel The Savage Kind by John Copenhaver.

To expose the darkness and rot beneath his tale, Copenhaver peppers it with literary allusions — Greek tragedy abounds, as do allusions to “Wuthering Heights,” classic poetry and contemporary detective fiction. (Sarah Weinman)

Book Riot wonders whether we are 'in the Midst of a Gothic Horror Boom'.

Gothic classic Jane Eyre has seen a few recent retellings. One rendered sapphic is The Wife in the Attic, while The Wife Upstairs goes in a southern gothic direction. Brightly Burning is a YA spin on the classic tale of a headstrong woman and a mysteriously brooding man, but set in space. (Isabelle Popp)

The (huge) blunder of the day comes from Diário do Estado (Brazil) when a synopsis of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice turns out to be Wuthering Heights:

6. Orgulho e preconceito – Jane Austen

Publicado em 1847, o romance narra uma história de amor amaldiçoado e de vingança vivida por Catherine Earnshaw e seu irmão adotivo Heathcliff. Por sentir-se humilhado e rejeitado, o garoto aprende a odiar e se torna rude nos modos. Porém, com a irmã, ele irá desenvolver uma relação que mistura amor com perversidade. (Lígia Saba) (Translation)

A reincarnation of Charlotte Brontë goes on a blind date courtesy of The Guardian.

Fred, 26, PhD student, meets Laurine, 24, French teaching assistant

Fred on Laurine {...]

What did you talk about?

Childhood memories; the best film adaptation of Emma (Clueless); her belief that she’s the reincarnation of Charlotte Brontë; how she once laid a rose on Keats’s grave and shed a tear (sorry, Laurine, it was just too good). [...]

Laurine on Fred [...]

What do you think he made of you?

He may think I’m not right in the head. I should’ve stopped before I said I was Charlotte Brontë in a previous life. In fact, I should’ve stopped after two drinks.

Keighley News announces a forthcoming arts & crafts fair at the Old School Room in Haworth.

The fair takes place at the Old School Room – near the parsonage museum – on Saturday and Sunday November 13 and 14, from 10am to 4pm.

Across the two days, there will be an array of fine art, jewellery, knitwear, textile arts and crafts, photography and mixed media, plus other goods.

Admission is free, but donations towards the maintenance of the Old School Room would be welcome. [...]

“Some great local talents have got together to provide this unique arts and crafts event,” said organiser Phil Taylor.

“The Old School Room is such an amazing venue and worth a visit in itself.

“Together with the Bronte Parsonage Museum and the rest of the wonderful attractions of Haworth village and the surrounding moors, it’s bound to be a great day out!

“Everyone is warmly welcome.” (Alistair Shand)

The Guardian mentions Wise Children's Wuthering Heights as one of this week's live performances worth seeing.