Sale of the Honresfeld Library by Sotheby’sStatement from the Brontë SocietyThe Brontë Society exists to collect and preserve Brontë manuscripts and artefacts for the public benefit. The manuscripts in the Honresfeld Library were written in Haworth and, as a collection, they bear witness to the intense collaboration and creativity that bound Emily, Charlotte, and Anne Brontë together and to their home at Haworth Parsonage.The Society believes that the rightful home for these unique and extraordinary manuscripts, unseen for a hundred years, is at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where they can be enjoyed by visitors, explored by scholars and shared with Brontë enthusiasts around the world for generations to come.Regrettably, we are faced with the very real possibility that this immensely significant collection will be dispersed and disappear into private collections across the globe. We are determined to save as much as we can, but due to the dramatic financial impact of the pandemic, the timing is unfortunate. While Covid has reinforced the comfort and hope that we find in literature and culture, museum revenue has fallen away to almost nothing and competition for public funds has become fiercer than ever.We all have a stake in these remarkable treasures. We need to look beyond the narrow commercialisation and privatisation of heritage and work together to protect and share what we all value. As our campaign takes shape, we urge all with an interest in saving this remarkable collection intact to contact us.
Bidding Open 2–13 July 2021
New York Travelling Exhibition
4 - 9 June 2021
London Exhibition
10 - 12 July 2021
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The Honresfield Library, a private collection assembled by two Victorian industrialists that vanished from public view in the 1930s, contains more than 500 manuscripts, letters, rare first editions and other artifacts from a number of canonical authors, including the manuscripts of Walter Scott’s “Rob Roy” and Robert Burns’s “First Commonplace Book.”But it is the Brontë material — based on hoopla surrounding past Brontë auctions, and the estimates for this one — that is likely to cause the biggest stir. Highlights, which will be exhibited at Sotheby’s in New York from June 5 to 9, include a handwritten manuscript of Emily Brontë’s poems, with pencil edits by Charlotte. It carries an estimate of $1.3 million to $1.8 million.The trove also includes family letters, inscribed first editions and other relics that offer a glimpse into life in the Brontë household, like the family’s heavily annotated copy of Bewick’s “History of British Birds” (which features in the opening scenes of “Jane Eyre”).Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby’s specialist in English literature and historical manuscripts, called the Honresfield Library the finest he had seen in 20 years, and the Brontë cache the most important to come to light in a generation.“The lives of these sisters is just extraordinary,” he said during a video interview, before offering a first peek at the materials. Looking at the manuscripts “takes you right back to the incredible moment where you had these siblings scribbling away in the parsonage.”Claire Harman, the author of “Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart,” said she had been “hyperventilating” since she got wind of the auction, which will be held online in July, after additional previews in London and Edinburgh.“It’s just absolutely gobsmacking,” she said. “Scholars and readers have known these things exist, but you forget when they are in private hands. It’s like Sleeping Beauty — there but not there.” (Jennifer Schuessler)
An “incredibly rare” handwritten manuscript of Emily Brontë’s poems, with pencil corrections by her sister Charlotte, is going up for auction as part of a “lost library” that has been out of public view for nearly a century.The collection was put together by Arthur Bell Nicholls, the widower of Charlotte, who of the six Brontë children lived the longest, dying in 1855 at the age of 38. Nicholls sold the majority of the surviving Brontë manuscripts in 1895 to the notorious bibliophile and literary forger Thomas James Wise. The collectors and brothers Alfred and William Law, who grew up 20 miles from the Brontë family home in Haworth, then acquired some of the family’s heirlooms from Wise, including the manuscript of Emily’s poems, and the family’s much-annotated copy of A History of British Birds, a book immortalised in Jane Eyre.The Law brothers’ library at Honresfield House disappeared from public view when their nephew and heir Alfred Law died in 1939, and was inaccessible even to academics.“In the last 90 years, only one or two (very discreet) scholars have had access to slivers of the material, so essentially, only two people alive have seen any of it,” said a spokesperson for Sotheby’s, which is handling the auction of more than 500 manuscripts, first editions and letters from the Honresfield library in July.Sotheby’s described the manuscript of 29 poems by Emily as “incredibly rare”, valuing it at between £800,000 and £1.2m. “It is the most important manuscript by Emily to come to market in a lifetime, and by far the most significant such manuscript to remain in private hands,” said the auction house. “Almost nothing of Emily’s survived – she essentially wrote Wuthering Heights and then parted the world without a trace. There aren’t even really any letters out there by her, as she had no one to correspond with.”It is the only surviving handwritten manuscript to feature some of Emily’s most famous poems, including No Coward Soul Is Mine, The Bluebell, and The Old Stoic, and was mentioned by Charlotte in her 1850 preface to Wuthering Heights, when she noted how she “accidentally lighted on a MS volume of verse in my sister Emily’s handwriting. (Alison Flood)
The 26-bedroom mock-Gothic pile known as Honresfeld House was once home to the Law brothers, self-made cotton magnates who never married and instead devoted their lives to the honourable Victorian pursuits of industry and the arts. Their collection of original works by the Brontë sisters and Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, has achieved almost mythical status amongst the literati – not least because nothing has been seen of it for nearly a century.But that changed today when the auctioneer Sotheby’s announced that some 500 of the texts they amassed would go under the hammer in the course of the next year.They include a rare, handwritten manuscript of Emily Brontë’s poems, estimated to be worth between £800,000 and £1.2m, and described by the auctioneer as “the most important Brontë material to come to light in a generation, unrivalled in importance by any private library in the world”. (David Behrens)
And the BBC, Daily Mail, The Telegraph, Fine Books Magazine and a supposedly funny (???) take on it all on Jezebel.
The latest issue of the Times Literary Supplement (July 27) is all about (Emily) Brontë:TLSIncludes (open article):
July 27, 2018 No 6017
Other Wutherings
Emily Brontë at 200
“The twentieth century’s favourite nineteenth-century novel” was how John Sutherland described Wuthering Heights: a view no doubt based partly on the plethora of adaptations for stage and screen, sequels and prequels, poems and songs inspired by the only surviving extended work of fiction by Emily Brontë, who was born 200 years ago. One of them, a musical by Blake Morrison and the composer Howard Goodall, was kiboshed by a rival effort that saw the pop singer Cliff Richard fulfil a long-nourished ambition to play Heathcliff – a surprising choice, you might think, and critics of the production agreed. Rather more successful was Kate Bush’s haunted and haunting song, released in 1978. Robert Potts speaks for many men and women of a certain age (and perhaps younger ones too) when he recalls a “swooping, soaring voice, flowing from a confident eroticism to a trembling vulnerability”. Others paying tribute this week to the strangeness of Wuthering Heights and the violence of its passions include Jacqueline Banerjee, who surveys the flurry of new books released for the bicentenary; Dinah Birch who, re-reading the work with Emily Brontë’s earliest critics in mind, finds the question it puts to all readers “has not lost its force”; and Michael Stewart, the author of a Heathcliff-inspired novel (itself “stomach-churning” in its violence), who also conceived the four “Brontë Stones” in and around the famous sisters’ homes in Thornton and Haworth – “the landscape that surrounded them and offered them a place of solace, but also at times must have felt like divine punishment”. (Alan Jenkins)
No Coward Soul is HersIncluding reviews of:
Jacqueline Banerjee on the lives and afterlives of Emily Brontë.
This is a grand inducement to reread the novel (the new HQ edition is in good print with no academic frills).Ill Will - Michael Stewart
In his own novel, Stewart attempts to supply some of the details that Emily so effectively but tantalizingly omitted in hers. He has done his research, and complements his dark reading of Brontë’s work with details that both reference and support it.Emily Brontë - A Life in Twenty Poems - Nick Holland
Without subjecting the poems to detailed critical analysis – which is not his purpose here – Holland provides helpful contexts for them, and insights into them.Emily Brontë Reappraised - Claire O'Callaghan.
It is an informally written, no-nonsense reappraisal. There is something admirable about cutting through the thickets of Brontëana and refusing to speculate about things that can never be known, although it does lead her to give short shrift to the idea of “Emily-as-mystic” in her final chapter. This is almost inevitable: an important aspect of O’Callaghan’s reappraisal is to portray her subject as one of those “strong, gutsy women” who are valued in society today, no less of a proto-feminist than her more outspoken sistersEmily Jane Brontë and Her Music - John Hennessy
To begin with, Hennessy is on firm ground. His first chapter provides a brief social context and a masterly discussion of the changing cultural scene in England during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially as these would have impinged on the family at Haworth, and especially as regards music: he has even looked into the archives of their father Patrick’s previous incumbency, Thornton Chapel, to see what instruments and music were available for use there. Hennessy then examines in detail the music to which Emily herself would have been exposed, and which she would have played. (...)
In the fourth and by far the longest part of his Emily Jane Brontë and Her Music, he has itemized and discussed every single piece of music known to have been owned by the Brontës – a Herculean task, since it ranges from the thirty-seven pieces of sheet music in the two youngest Brontës’ “Parrish Collection” to their brother Branwell’s flute book, taking in several other volumes on the way.
EmbraceSubscriber Articles:
Cartoon by Ella Baron
“It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.” (Wuthering Heights)
Words that outlive us by Michael Stewart
Stones on the Brontë trail
Unquiet numbers by Blake Morrison
How Cliff Richard kiboshed a poet’s Heathcliff
Beyond all reason by Dinah Birch
Wuthering Heights – still baffling, still strange
Cathy comes home by Robert Potts
The magnificent weirdness of Kate Bush
In a rather different way, Town & Country Magazine's Summer Issue is also devoted in part to Emily Brontë's bicentenary with pictures by Agata Pospieszynska and an article by Justine Picardie:Photography by Agata Pospieszynska and styled by Charlie Harrington. In the cover: Cibele Ramm wears a silk organza cape, matching dress and organza dress, all Chanel, and calf-skin boots and matching chaps, Hermès. With special thanks to the Brontë Parsonage Museum
Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is a novel that is exceptional for its shape-shifting afterlife, as well as the pulsating emotion within it: for this is a haunting story that has not only possessed the imagination of countless readers, but also inspired myriad artists and authors to create their own responses to the original narrative. Quite aside from the numerous screen adaptations, Wuthering Heights has proved to be fertile territory for dozens of other writers, including Virginia Woolf, Daphne du Maurier, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes; and its tumultuous power has also stirred musical versions – from classical opera to Kate Bush’s unearthly debut single.
Yet for all the extraordinary force of the novel, the young woman who wrote it remains one of the most mysterious figures in the pantheon of great writers.(...)
Not that this has stopped us from attempting to follow in Emily Brontë’s footsteps: and here I must confess to being one of the legions who have visited her home in Haworth – now the Brontë Parsonage Museum – and followed the footpath from there onto the windswept moors, walking up to Top Withens, the ruined house said to have been the inspiration for Wuthering Heights, the fictional Earnshaw family home in the novel. I first went as a young woman, and have returned in the course of researching several of my own books. And I was fortunate to accompany the artist Cornelia Parker in 2006, when she was creating works that included magnified images of the ink marks on Emily Brontë’s blotting paper, and a lock of her hair (most probably cut and plaited by her sister Charlotte, after Emily’s death). Cornelia also conceived the recording of a séance at which I was present, where two psychic mediums explored the Parsonage after dark; she had asked me there as an observer, rather than a participant, and yet it remains one of the eeriest encounters of my life. This was not because of any supernatural manifestations (though the silent relationship between the living and the dead has long fascinated me, and the boundless love that endures, even when we are separated by death from those we hold most dear). Rather, it was the experience of wandering alone through the quiet house, without the daytime crowds of tourists that flock to the Parsonage, and seeing the relics of the family that once lived here: the little books created by the Brontë children, in such tiny handwriting that they are impossible to decipher without a magnifying glass; the toy soldiers that inspired their earliest imaginary worlds; gloves, shoes, dresses and jewellery (some containing interwoven locks of their hair); drawings, manuscripts, letters and writing desks; brass collars from their dogs, engraved with their names; and all the other lovingly preserved objects, including the piano that Emily played, and the black horsehair sofa upon which she had allegedly died.
The other program which illustrated the results of enabling was the PBS Masterpiece Special “To Walk Invisible” about the Brontë Sisters. While the Brontë sisters were left to their own devices by a father who never thought they would amount to much, their brother, Branwell, was the opposite. The show left the impression that Branwell’s alcoholism and drug abuse was enabled by the family, particularly his father, who paid his debts to get him out of trouble. Despite early artistic promise, Branwell’s addiction and co-dependency was his demise.Der Standard (Austria) reviews the adaptation of Wuthering Heights currently on stage at Renaissancetheater.
The Brontë sisters were likely conscious of the same prevailing viewpoint as that the children in Franklin County, Mississippi experienced; that they were without value because they were poor and without a lot of resources. But, the world’s opinion of their lack of potential did not affect their self-worth as witnessed by what Charlotte Brontë’s character Jane Eyre stated in the book by the same name, “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!” (Nancy Catron)
Alles führt hinab ins Grab. Der schräge Bühnenboden im Renaissancetheater lässt die Protagonisten direkt auf das Erdloch zusteuern und gibt damit zugleich einen düsteren Ausblick: Die Geschichte von Heathcliff (Luka Dimic) und Catherine (Felicitas Franz) wird tragisch enden, und Letztere wird sterben, ohne dessen Liebe bestätigt zu wissen. Auch Emily Brontë erlebte den Erfolg ihres Romans Wuthering Heights nicht mehr. Ihr unromantischer Blick auf alle Formen der Liebe – zu Partner, Kind oder Gott – empörte ihr zeitgenössisches Publikum. Thomas Birkmeir hat sich nun Brontës Text angenommen, seine nahe gehende Inszenierung gelangt im Theater der Jugend zur Uraufführung. Das Kindermädchen Nelly (Elisabeth Findeis) und der gottesfürchtige Joseph (Florian Stohr) führen als Erzähler durch die Geschichte: Als Catherines und Hindleys (Pascal Groß) Vater von einer seiner Reisen einen Buben mit nach Hause bringt und ihm den Namen des verstorbenen Bruders Heathcliff gibt, entzweit dies das Geschwisterpaar völlig. Während Hindleys Hass wächst, schwören Catherine und Heathcliff einander ewige Abhängigkeit. Mit dem Tod des Vaters geht das Anwesen in den Besitz des Sohnes über, der seinen "Bruder" misshandelt. Catherine und Heathcliff beschließen zu fliehen, dabei wird sie verletzt und von den Nachbarn gesundgepflegt. Heathcliff sieht sie erst nach Wochen wieder. Als sie auch noch in die Heirat mit Edgar Linton (Jürgen Heigl) einwilligt, schwört Heathcliff ihr Rache. Die Bühnenlandschaft (Vanessa Achilles-Broutin) wirkt karg, doch die Schräge hat es in sich. Eine drehbare Rundbühne in der Mitte verleiht dem Raum zusätzliche Ebenen. Ein fahrbarer Kronleuchter zeigt das Haus der Lintons an. Mehr ist gar nicht nötig, denn das beeindruckende Spiel der Darsteller füllt den Raum komplett aus. Mit starkem Körpereinsatz lässt vor allem Dimic Schweiß und Tränen fließen. Franz ist ihm eine würdige Partnerin. Eine Leinwand im Hintergrund verleiht stimmungsvoll Farbe, ehe sie die verstorbene Catherine in Heathcliffs Vorstellung auferstehen lässt. Das geht berührend nahe. Jubelnder Applaus. (Katharina Stöger) (Translation)As does Die Presse.
Theater braucht mehr Biss. Genauer: „Bis(s)“, die Rede ist von Stephenie Meyers Vampirsaga. Von dieser ließ sich Thomas Birkmeir, seit 2002 Direktor des Theaters der Jugend (TdJ), bei seiner Inszenierung von „Sturmhöhe“, nach Emily Brontës „Wuthering Heights“ (1847), inspirieren. Es fließt viel Blut – und noch dicker fließen die Gefühle, wie das mit 13 Jahren so ist. Ab diesem Alter ist die Aufführung im Renaissancetheater angesetzt, und Erwachsene dürfen auch zuschauen.On Harper's Bazaar, Justine Picardie looks at photographer Erik Madigan Heck's first public monograph, entitled 'Old Future'.
Ein gewaltiger Krater dreht sich auf der schrägen Bühne, Geräusche werden akustisch zugespielt. Junge Leute im Adelsmilieu kämpfen um die Liebe. Catherine (Felicitas Franz), ein vitales, exzentrisches Mädchen, freundet sich mit einem Findelkind an, das ihr Vater heimbringt: Heathcliff heißt der Bursch. (Die lungenkranke Pfarrerstochter Brontë, die nur 30 Jahre alt wurde, soll sich in dem sinistren Wilden verewigt haben.) Nach dem Tod des Gutsherren übernimmt dessen Sohn Hindley, ein Säufer, den Besitz und verjagt Heathcliff. Dieser erbt ein Vermögen in den Kolonien, kehrt zurück und rächt sich, auch an Catherine, die den landadeligen Nachbarn Edgar erhörte und sich in eine kränkelnde Lady verwandelt hat, die in Wahnsinn fällt.
Archetypen aus Jugendgangs
Die Schauspieler sind großartig, speziell Luka Dimic als Heathcliff und Pascal Groß als Hindley. Vorbei scheinen die Zeiten, als das TdJ mittelmäßige Mimen versorgte. Birkmeir hat den Roman gestrafft und aktualisiert. Catherine ist magersüchtig, Heathcliff ein Bootsflüchtling. Letzteres ist heikel, denn was sagt uns das? Dass Flüchtlinge sich einschleichen und Strukturen zerstören? Heathcliff übernimmt den Landsitz und ruiniert alle – so wie er vor seinem Aufstieg selbst ruiniert worden ist – der eingebildeten oder brutalen Aristokraten.
Insgesamt geht Birkmeirs düsteres Popmärchen mit seinen klassischen Frontstellungen, die immer haarscharf am Klischee vorbeischrammen, auf. Aus dem altertümlichen und langwierigen Buch, ein Klassiker, den heute selbst eingefleischte Romantiker kaum freiwillig zu Ende lesen dürften, hat er eine messerscharfe Parabel über Konstellationen in Jugendcliquen oder Gangs destilliert. (Barbara Petsch) (Translation)
How, then, might one describe Erik's point of view? First and foremost, he is a photographer who celebrates rather than denigrates beauty. He does not objectify the models in his pictures; and even when his imagery is at its most abstract, there is a sense of depth beneath the beautiful surface. This humane quality is, for me, fundamental to Erik's important contribution to Bazaar. The spirited heroines of his stories find themselves exploring dramatic landscapes – in this issue, for example, the spectacular English coastline of Botany Bay – and these wild locations are integral to the narrative. Sometimes, there are subtle literary references – one of his previous shoots for Bazaar suggested an atmospheric reinterpretation of a Brontë myth, while another, featuring Karen Elson last year, had a Gothic air of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.La Cerca (Spain) shares some information about writer Elena Fuentes:
Desde su infancia mostró su inclinación y habilidad para inventar y narrar historia y adoraba la lectura. Su fascinación por personajes con personalidades fuertes como Heathcliff o Catherine Earshaw [sic], protagonistas de Cumbres Borrascosas, o los que pueblan el universo literario de Patricia Highsmith, le llevó a interesarse por el estudio de la psique humana. (Translation)This columnist from Stuff (new Zealand) reminisces about a trip to Yorkshire, where her father had been born.
The highlight of the trip was the day nana, Keith and I went to Haworth, the village where the Brontë sisters penned their lovelorn epics.Independent Women's Forum discusses the use of 'females' referring to women and quotes Emily Brontë. Medium has an essay called 'Freedom in the transience of mortality: an essay on Romantic ideals' which also mentions Wuthering Heights.
Wuthering Heights, in particular, had fuelled my teenage fantasies of Yorkshire as an alluringly wild hotbed for creativity and romance, so seeing the places that had inspired its author was a surreal experience; a strange piecing together of fact and fiction.
The weather was suitably gloomy as we drove through Bronte Country; grey skies watching ominously over rugged moorland dotted with age-old abbeys, priories and castles that set the imagination alight.
I spent hours lingering over the domestic objects and letters on display in the old parsonage the Brontes had called home, fascinated by how three young women who had led such seemingly quiet lives had written such worldly novels. But things often aren't what they seem. Certainly not, as I was discovering, in Yorkshire.
The almost palpable darkness that appeared to have inspired them but driven others to despair (their brother Branwell became an alcoholic and drug addict) must have been even harder to ignore in the Brontes' day. The house looks out at a cemetery which would, in an era when the average lifespan in Haworth was 25, have been the final resting place for many of their family and friends.
Leaving the twinkling lights of the cobbled main street - looking convincingly like a scene from a Victorian novel - behind us, we hit countryside so dark we could have been anywhere at any time. My sense of being in a place where past and present, history and legend frequently collide grew stronger still. (Lorna Thornber)
Jane Steele by Lyndsay FayeBookRiot asks readers about their 'shifted perspective novels'. Wide Sargasso Sea is used as an example of this 'genre'.
“Reader, I murdered him.”
A sensitive orphan, Jane Steele suffers first at the hands of her spiteful aunt and predatory cousin, then at a grim school where she fights for her very life until escaping to London, leaving the corpses of her tormentors behind her. After years of hiding from the law while penning macabre “last confessions” of the recently hanged, Jane thrills at discovering an advertisement. Her aunt has died and her childhood home has a new master: Mr. Charles Thornfield, who seeks a governess.
Burning to know whether she is in fact the rightful heir, Jane takes the position incognito and learns that Highgate House is full of marvelously strange new residents — the fascinating but caustic Mr. Thornfield, an army doctor returned from the Sikh Wars, and the gracious Sikh butler Mr. Sardar Singh, whose history with Mr. Thornfield appears far deeper and darker than they pretend. As Jane catches ominous glimpses of the pair’s violent history and falls in love with the gruffly tragic Mr. Thornfield, she faces a terrible dilemma: Can she possess him — body, soul, and secrets — without revealing her own murderous past?
A satirical romance about identity, guilt, goodness, and the nature of lies, by a writer who Matthew Pearl calls “superstar-caliber” and whose previous works Gillian Flynn declared “spectacular,” Jane Steele is a brilliant and deeply absorbing book inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s classic Jane Eyre.
The adaptation: Deadline reports that Chris Columbus’s 1492 Pictures, Ocean Blue Entertainment, and Prescience in association with Altus Media acquired the film rights for this thrilling retelling prior to publication. (T.A. Maclagan)
Shifted perspective novels are some of my favorite ways of re-living classic and beloved books. These are reimagined versions of our favorite stories, told from the point of view of an under-appreciated side character, or even the villain. From the stepmother in the updated Snow White retelling Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi, to Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, which tells the story of the mad wife in the attic from Jane Eyre, readers can’t get enough of these novels. (Amanda Nelson)Writer Rebecca Solnit gives some writing tips on Lithub.
7) Facts. Always get them right. The wrong information about a bumblebee in a poem is annoying enough, but inaccuracy in nonfiction is a cardinal sin. No one will trust you if you get your facts wrong, and if you’re writing about living or recently alive people or politics you absolutely must not misrepresent. (Ask yourself this: do I like it when people lie about me?) No matter what you’re writing about, you have an obligation to get it right, for the people you’re writing about, for the readers, and for the record. It’s why I always tell students that it’s a slippery slope from the things your stepfather didn’t actually do to the weapons of mass destruction Iraq didn’t actually have. If you want to write about a stepfather who did things your stepfather didn’t, or repeat conversations you don’t actually remember with any detail, at least label your product accurately. Fiction operates under different rules but it often has facts in it too, and your credibility rests on their accuracy. (If you want to make up facts, like that Emily Brontë was nine feet tall and had wings but everyone in that Victorian era was too proper to mention it, remember to get the details about her cobbler and the kind of hat in fashion at the time right, and maybe put a little cameo at her throat seven and a half feet above the earth.)The Baltimore Sun publishes again an article which originally appeared in the newspaper a week after rapper Tupac Shakur died 20 years ago.
His taste in music was wide and varied, ranging from LL Cool J to Peter Gabriel and Eric Clapton, Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" and Don McLean's "Vincent" At 15, Shakur chose the latter song for an acting assignment. Donald Hicken, teacher and friend, found that a surprising choice. (M. Dion Thompson)Deutschlandfunk (Germany) has a short article on Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre. Salt Sweet Bitter shares some thoughts on Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff. ANZ LitLovers LitBlog has a post on Justine Picardie's novel Daphne. Finally on Facebook the Morgan Library and Museum shared a picture of Charlotte Brontë's dress from its current exhibition and added some tidbits about the history of the dress itself.
Charlotte Brontë: A Bicentennial Celebration of her Life and Works
Friday 13 & Saturday 14 May
2016 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charlotte Brontë, one of England’s most beloved authors. Her writings, which constitute some of the most original and striking literature of the nineteenth century, continue to provoke rigorous academic debate. Brontë’s first published novel, Jane Eyre, written under the pseudonym of Currer Bell, rocked polite society with its portrayal of passion and madness. Yet astonishingly, the author was discovered to be a small, plain and shy clergyman’s daughter. This anomaly has inspired contemporary and subsequent generations to examine both the life and work of the woman described by contemporary writer, Harriet Martineau, as “the frail little creature who had done such wonderful things”.
This bicentennial conference – in the village of Chawton, where another woman writer, Jane Austen, penned her much-loved novels – will celebrate the tremendous impact of Charlotte Brontë’s work. Over the course of this two-day event, we will endeavour to map out new directions for research as she enters her third century.
Keynote lectures will be given by:
Juliet Barker – historian, biographer of The Brontës and previous curator and librarian of The Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth.
Justine Picardie – author of Daphne, a novel that explores the profound impact of the Brontës on subsequent generations of writers, and Editor-in-Chief of Harper’s Bazaar and Town and Country.
Sally Shuttleworth – Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford, author of Charlotte Brontë and Victorian Psychology and The Mind of the Child: Child Development in Literature, Science and Medicine, 1840-1900, which takes Jane Eyre as one of its key texts.
More on the latest episode of Sons of Anarchy titled Faith and Despondency. As usual, beware of spoilers! Vulture recaps:“But this world’s life has much to dread / Not so, my Father, with the dead.” —Emily Brontë, “Faith and Despondency” [...]Nerd Core Movement writes about it too:
And then there’s Tulley and Juice, a certainly nonconsensual relationship fueled by heroin, Vaseline, and Emily Brontë. Tulley reads him Brontë’s “My Comforter” (“Was I not vexed, in these gloomy ways / To walk alone so long? … A brotherhood of misery … ”), and Juice snorts heroin. Juice’s victimization in this situation is amplified by the fact that he is of African-American descent, complicating Tulley’s actions. The fact that Juice and Gemma both are “bent over” and in some way victimized in this episode is noteworthy. [...]
“Faith and Despondency,” a poem by Emily Brontë, is a dialogue between father and daughter on life and mortality. The father hears the daughter’s strength and lack of fear in the face of sorrow and despair. At the end he says, “Well hast thou spoken, sweet, trustful child! / And wiser than thy sire.” Abel’s knowledge has outpaced his sire’s, and it’s on the table now, just waiting to be dealt with. (Leigh Kolb)
Now Juice is somehow coming to peace with doing cocaine, being Marilyn Manson’s bitch in prison while having Emily Brontë poetry read to him. In other words, not all of his dogs are barking. [...]Paste picks some lines from the poem as one of the episode's favourite quotes:
Tully also promises to take good care of his “Puerto Rican” and Jax knows Juice needs a lot of love right now, signifying that he either knew or didn’t care that the Nazi leader was turning him into his prison bitch. As a token of his appreciation, Tully sends Juice a care package — a poetry book by Emily Brontë (which is where the title of this episode came from), a vile of cocaine and a jar of petroleum jelly (does anyone use petroleum jelly anymore?!?). Later in the episode we find Juice snorting the coke off his hand with no clothes on while Tully lays in his lap and reads “My Comforter” from the book of poetry. This is a match made in a very weird section of heaven. (Damon Martin)
“A brotherhood of misery, their smiles as sad as sighs; Whose madness daily maddened me, Distorting into agony, The bliss before my eyes!”—Emily Brontë’s poem “My Comforter,” read by a postcoital Tully to Juice (Emily Worden)On to something else. As The Huffington Post puts it,
Cornel West -- the famous public scholar and political polemicist whose many books include Race Matters, Democracy Matters, and The Rich and the Rest of Us -- cares about the novels of a dead, white, privileged British woman of the Regency Era. [...]Jane Austen appears in several of the '50 Novels Featuring Famous Authors as Characters' selection made by Flavorwire as do the Brontës:
West views the fact that one still has to make a case for Austen's place at the top of the pantheon of great literature as evidence of how much men still dominate. It pains him that writers such as Twain, Emerson, James, and even Brontë could be so harsh toward her. (Kathleen Anderson)
As for the most popular fictionalized writers? No surprise to see a ton of Shakespeares, Austens, Dickenses and Brontës scampering with pens through the pages of other peoples’ novels. [...]Coincidentally, The Independent briefly discusses fan fiction in the light of a new project:
Daphne, Justine Picardie. Daphne DuMaurier’s life and her own obsession with the Brontës juxtaposed with a young writer’s obsession with DuMaurier, with lots of passionate correspondence, of course. [...]
Solsbury Hill, Susan Wyler. Emily Brontë’s ghost, literal and figurative, haunts a young fashionista visiting the moors in this recent Wuthering Heights paean. [...]
The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë, Syrie James. James is another writer who specializes in recreating the lives of our favorite authors, this time through an ultra-passionate look at Brontë’s diaries and love interests. Not to be confused with…
Emily’s Ghost, Denise Giardana. This novel of the Brontë sisters hews as close to facts as it can, and despite possibly manufacturing love quadrangles for them, is highly recommended for devotees of the sisters’ Gothic fiction. (Sarah Seltzer)
A guarded welcome for Project Remix, a new initiative in schools which suggests that students aged between 13 and 19 years of age re-make literary works in new genres: re-casting books, stories and poems – from Pride and Prejudice to “Ozymandias” by way of The Hound of the Baskervilles – as strip cartoons, music, film trailers, book-jacket designs or “creative writing.” [...]The Yorkshire Evening Post recommends Further North, a bar in Harrogate Road, Chapel Allerton.
Literary classics have also been appearing in strip cartoons since the 1960s; I know well-read people familiar with, say, Titus Andronicus only through such cartoons. A recital of Shelley’s “Ozymandias” was used as a trailer for the last season of Breaking Bad. And so on.
But I’d certainly like to see scholars encouraged to try “fan fiction” adjustments to Wuthering Heights or David Copperfield. The only problem would be to stop them bringing some of the famous characters together in unlikely sexual convergences.
It’s one thing to write a fan fiction in which Harry Potter and Hermione get it on. Not so with Uriah Heep and Betsey Trotwood. (John Walsh)
Of all the seasons, autumn is where we re-ignite these ancient rituals, the flames and fireworks of bonfire night revisits sectarian division; the wizards and witches of hallowe’en reach back yet further to a pagan past. Such a night, clear and moonlit, with a whiff of smoke on the frosty air, seems an apt backdrop to launch my very own beer on an unsuspecting world.Lecturas de Beltrán, kaitlynn's book blog and Free Through Fiction post about Wuthering Heights. Julie Akhurst, owner of Ponden Hall, writes on Carolyn Mendelsohn Foto about her experience hosting a Wuthering Heights Creative Residency.
The name That Quiet Earth invokes the Gothic of Wuthering Heights and the pomp of Genesis, its dark, mysterious nature, its deep toffee taste, prodigious strength and soft, soporific finish ideal for the time of year. That Further North should lay on pork pie and parkin makes for a perfect night out.
Improvements are planned at one of the Bradford district’s biggest tourist attractions.The Telegraph and Argus also reports that Bradford Council is planning some cuts, but they won't affect the public toilet near the museum.
The ticket desk at the entrance to the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth could be moved.
Ann Dinsdale (pictured), collections manager at the parsonage, said: “The ticket desk is right at the front door, so people have to queue outside and the weather is not always great! Also, there is only space for one person to man the desk. The idea is to move it into the foyer area, which will enable people to wait inside, and it will mean that at busy times we can have more than one person issuing tickets.”
If the plans are approved by Bradford Council, it is hoped to carry out the work in January.
The Labour group would close all public toilets, except those in “high traffic tourist areas” which include City Park and City Hall, Brook Street, Ilkley, Brontë Parsonage and Saltaire. (Hannah Postles)The Times's Leading Article of today talks about Yorkshire being third at the latest Lonely Planet's Best in Travel best region in the world ranking:
Really, though, an injustice has been done. Charming though Sikkim and The Kimberley no doubt are, do they boast an Andrew Marvell, a bunch of Brontës, an Alan Bennett or a Ted Hughes?Janice Turner adds in the same newspaper:
South Yorkshire is neither the wild West Yorkshire of the Brontës' moors nor the refined North Yorkshire of Harrogate's spas and tearooms. It is - was, alas - the county's engine room. (...)Via The New Yorker's Page Turner we have found a recent Poetry Foundation article on literary siblings.
I love Scarborough, but despite its nickname, it's no "Brighton of the North". It's a saltier, less effete, more cussed town. The Yorkshire countryside is more the untamed, rain-lashed place of Heathcliff's wandering than the cosy hills of Last of the Summer Wine.
For years, a tiny pub on the road between the English villages of Haworth and Keighley has been home to a peculiar rumor. The Cross Roads Inn was one of Branwell Brontë’s favorite haunts. It was at the Cross Roads that two of Branwell’s friends claim he read from a manuscript that featured the characters who would later appear in the novel Wuthering Heights.AARP lists '21 Great Novels It's Worth Finding Time to Read' and among them is
Despite Charlotte Brontë’s insistence that her sister Emily wrote Wuthering Heights, the rumor that their brother Branwell penned the novel has persisted. In their various biographies, Juliet Barker, Daphne du Maurier, Lucasta Miller, and Fannie Elizabeth Ratchford all considered the possibility that Branwell was the true author of Wuthering Heights. Barker claimed to have identified a story of Branwell’s that influenced the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff; du Maurier pointed to poems written by Emily and Branwell as evidence of an early collaboration between the two that could have blossomed into Wuthering Heights.
The persistence of the rumor reflects the curious, cloistered upbringing of the Brontës, but also the more universal experience of siblings. Collaboration and competition between brothers and sisters exists no matter their vocations, but literary siblings challenge our assumptions of lonely genius, isolated writers alone at their desks. Patrick Brontë, father to the four artists, who raised them himself after their mother died, wrote: “As they had few opportunities of being in learned and polished society, in their retired country situation, they formed a little society amongst themselves—with which they seem’d content and happy.” (Casey N. Cep) (Read more)
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte BrontëWhile BlogLive (Italy) selects the ten best alpha males in literature.
Nathaniel Hawthorne hated the Misses Brontë, because they could do what he could not — write books that sing with authenticity and genuine suspense, and do so nearly 200 years later. (Jacquelyn Mitchard)
3. Heathcliff – da Cime Tempestose di Emily Brontë (genere: gotico, romance) – “Forse il mio primo eroe alpha, grazie alla mia insegnante di inglese per avermelo fatto scoprire tanti anni fa”. (Jill Shalvis) (Translation)A columnist from The Daily Pennsylvanian highlights a rather different aspect of Heathcliff.
Sadness has its hecklers, too. But there’s a perverse glamorization of being down in the dumps that doesn’t exist for the truly content. Just look at Heathcliff or Batman or Daria. Would anyone like those characters if they were a little more upbeat? (Rachel Del Valle)
“This next song is based on a John Dryden poem.” It’s clear from this introduction that Lydia Baylis isn’t your average performer. Following Lucy Mason‘s Coffee House Session of a fortnight ago, this latest Curiositea performance sticks to the same formula: one café, one guitar, and one outstanding voice. In many ways, though, Baylis is a very different artist to the Australian Mason. And with Virginia Woolf and the Brontë sisters among the Welsh singer’s other sources of inspiration, there’s a distinctly cerebral edge to her work, which she describes as “dark cinematic pop” during her post-gig interview with Boar Music. (Sam Carter)El Faro de Vigo (Spain) looks at the local British colony established there in 1873.
La afición a la buena lectura, con autores literarios de moda como Charles Dickens, las hermanas Brontë o Lewis Carroll comienzan a tener también adeptos entre los jóvenes vigueses. Era costumbre en estos autores publicar sus novelas por capítulos mensuales en revistas, siendo esperadas con auténtica ansiedad por los jóvenes británicos asentados en la urbe. (José Ramón Cabanelas) (Translation)The Vancouver Courier reviews the stage production Armstrong's War.
A recent graduate of U. Vic’s acting program, Byskov makes his Vancouver stage debut in Armstrong’s War, too. As a wounded Afghanistan war hero, Byskov is initially intense, angry and in denial about his mental state. What Michael does not need is a terminally chirpy, cheerful kid in pigtails reading teenaged mysteries or Wuthering Heights to him. (Jo Ledingham)While the Missoula Independent recommends the local production of The Woman in Black.
If you love Wuthering Heights or any other eerie old-timey book/BBS television series, you'll dig this. (Erika Fredrickson)The Rhode Island Public Radio tells the story of a local medical center:
Their only hope: find a buyer willing to help turn the hospital around. And, like a country gentleman’s daughter in a Brontë novel, Landmark flirted with several suitors. There was Caritas Christi. RegionalCare Hospital Partners. Transition Healthcare. HealthSouth. Capella. Prime. None made it past the early hurdles.Twaddle and Lisa Richards: Rock N' Roll Politics discuss Wuthering Heights, the latter deeming it 'The Best Unromantic Novel About Domestic Abuse and Greedy Revenge'. Reading Log posts about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Entre montones de libros writes in Spanish about Agnes Grey. Also in Spanish, Curistoria posts about the rejection letters received by Charlotte Brontë. Wordpixelsblog discusses Justine Picardie's novel Daphne.
Rhode Island’s Hospital Conversions Act requires state approval to turn a nonprofit hospital into a for-profit one. The process derailed a few deals. Delay followed delay. Hopes rose. Hopes fell.
Then, the most serious offer to-date came from the for-profit outfit Steward. But a bitter and public fight broke out between Steward and insurer Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Rhode Island over the contract with Landmark. And Steward backed out at the last minute, too. But finally, like that heroine in a Brontë novel, it turned out that one of Landmark’s first suitors was the one all along: Prime Healthcare. Landmark president Richard Charest. (Kristin Gourlay)
Gemini (May 21-June 20) “I need not sell my soul to buy bliss,” says a character in Charlotte Brontë’s 19th-century novel Jane Eyre. “I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.” This would be a great speech for you to memorize and periodically recite in the next two weeks. Do it in front of your mirror at least once a day to remind yourself of how amazingly resourceful you are. It will also help you resist the temptation to seek gifts from people who can’t or won’t give them to you. (Rob Brezsny)Too bad that all that is said mockingly in the novel by Mr Rochester passing as a gypsy fortune teller saying what he thought Jane would be thinking (chapter XIX).
2. The performancesJustine Picardie discussed Daphne du Maurier and mentioned her Brontë connections on BBC Radio 4's Today programme yesterday (via @BronteParsonage and @Breffney). Sheila Kohler talks abour her novel Becoming Jane Eyre on HoCoPoLitSo's YouTube channel. The Mechanicsville Local reports that Miss Mechanicsville 2013's favourite novel is Wuthering Heights. Por la calle de Alcalá writes in Spanish about Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights.
[...] John Kazek plays a number of roles, said Bissett, "from the Albanian pimp to the friendly punter to the Nigerian father. John is a much-loved Scottish actor whom I saw perform in 'Wuthering Heights' when I was still at school. I knew then at 13 [that] I wanted to work with him when I grew up." (Julia Borcherts)
Electricity changed everything, and so suddenly, so recently. Caesar's wife never saw a light bulb, Shakespeare never watched television, neither Emily Brontë nor Charles Dickens used a word processor. Back then, when darkness fell, the dark came down and people lived their evenings by candlelight.Rather more scholarly, The Brown Daily Herald interviews Amanda Anderson, professor of English:
As a literary scholar and theorist who has written on 19th-century literature and culture, how do you explain the intersection of literature and politics? How is that relationship played out? One of the things I’m most interested in exploring is the plurality of ways that writers engage the question of politics. … Some writers are interested, very broadly, in power dynamics and how power inheres in every social interaction, and they’re good at diagnosing that. One author who’s really good at that is Charlotte Brontë — she’s a very modern thinker when it comes to the ubiquity of power in interpersonal dynamics. (Phoebe Draper)Now for some screen-related tidbits. The Telegraph reviews the second episode of the third season of Downton Abbey (BEWARE of SPOILERS!)
Some Downton fans might have felt cheated by the beginning of this second episode. Previously, Matthew (Dan Stevens) and Mary (Michelle Dockery) had been left precariously at the altar before vows had been exchanged. Could Matthew, who had been showing hints of socialist sympathies, suddenly have decided not to marry into the aristocracy? Could there have been a Jane Eyre-style intervention when the congregation were asked for any just cause why the union should not take place? (Ben Lawrence)Página 12 (Argentina) mentions François Truffaut's film Les Deux anglaises et le continent, not overlooking its Brontë connections.
Como en tantos films de su realizador, aquí sus personajes caminan tras los pasos de las hermanas Brontë y hacen suyas las palabras de Arthur Rimbaud en su deseo de reinventar el amor. (Emilio A. Bellon) (Translation)Hecklerspray gushes over Tom Hardy.
He’s also starred as Heathcliff in the Masterpiece Classic version of Wuthering Heights. As a Heathcliff (and all things Wuthering Heights) connoisseur, I can confidently state that he’s PERFECT, even with a heinous mop of hair on top of his head. Nothing is more macho macho man than a guy who knows how to relish in a bit of romance every now and then. (Hillary Scales)And Malaya Business Inside wonders about the Philippine Wuthering Heights-inspired soap-opera Walang Hanggan.
“Walang Hanggan,” according to an insider, will have its final episode on October 26.Hathaways of Haworth is offering a tutorial on making Victorian clothes and accesories if only a suitable venue can be found in Haworth. Do spread the word or get in touch with them if you know of such a place. They are also working on 'undressing' the Brontës for Christmas and on a Brontë play. Coyote Canyon Press reviews Juliet Barker's revised edition of The Brontës. Peggy's Blog writes about Jane Eyre and Valhalla Gate posts about the 2011 adaptation in Spanish. Bibliopunkk gives 5 out of 5 stars to April Lindner's Jane. Ça sent le brûlé ! reviews Agnes Grey in French. Neverland writes in Italian about Wuthering Heights 2009. Bokboxen discusses in Swedish the eternal Austen vs the Brontës question. Unlimited Possibilities reviews Justine Picardie's Daphne.
Will two of its lead stars, Coco Martin and Julia Montes, die, like the two protagonists in “Wuthering Heights”?
The novel, admitted the creative team headed by Rondel Lindayag, served as inspiration to the series. (Ethel Ramos)
Of the plausible nominees, this is a very respectable lot. I was nonetheless disappointed that Moira Buffini‘s adaptation of “Jane Eyre” never got more traction. (Gerard Kennedy)The Tri-City Herald's Mr. Movie reviews the film giving it 4 stars:
Purists may not love this version. There are flaws. But it’s Jane Eyre and to Jane Eyre is divine. (Gary Wolcott)Movie City News looks back on Sundance and reviews Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights:
Arnold shifts the perspective of the novel away from Nelly Dean, the storyteller, and Lockwood, the rapt listener, by truncating the tale to focus almost entirely on the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff. This shift of perspective is subtle but important; as a literary device, the entire tale is filtered first through Nelly Dean’s perspective as a storyteller, a gossip, and a lover of stories herself, and then through Lockwood’s own class biases as he listens to the tale; this greatly affects how the events are interpreted. In other words, where the book never attempts objectivity because the tale being told is clearly an embellished one, here there is no observer within the story itself, leaving us to interpret the events as if they are, in fact, objective truths within the world of the story.We are not sure whether this columnist from the Gloucestershire Echo has really read/watched Wuthering Heights:
For me, this didn’t quite work because without Nelly Dean’s embellishment and romanticizing, Cathy feels even less sympathetic in that she comes across as caring solely about money and security rather than love (true enough), while Heathcliff seems to be always just stomping around glaring angrily, slamming doors, and being generally ungrateful and recalcitrant without the sympathetic glean of Nelly Dean’s interpretation of events adorning them. Without Nelly’s lens to focus the tale, we have two characters who aren’t, in and of themselves, greatly likable; thus this adaptation becomes more an observation of events than a tragedy in which we come to feel significantly invested. [...]
Visually, Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights is stunningly beautiful, with desolate frames of windy moors, and the most realistic depiction of the sanitary conditions of its time since, perhaps, Tom Tywker’s Perfume. You can practically feel the chill, damp wind blowing you nearly sideways, the muck of the mud holding fast to your shoes with every step. Sound, too, is excellently used in augmenting the storytelling and creating a sense of time and place. But when we get to older Cathy and Heathcliff ( Kaya Scoldelario and James Howson), somehow we lose much of the passion that underlies the tale; the fire that smolders in Heathcliff’s breast, this ancient, destructive love, Heathcliff’s unrelenting fierce anger at being denied what he wants even after overcoming a lifetime of servitude and indignities, are played up by Nelly Dean’s sympathetic perspective, and that element is missing here. Arnold’s version of Wuthering Heights is certainly the most visually stunning of the film versions of this tale, but from a literary standpoint, Cathy and Heathcliff need Nelly Dean to soften them up a bit and make them more palatable. (Kim Voynar)
AS the winter nights draw in, programmes such as Downton Abbey, Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations provide great escapism from the doom and gloom of the weather outside.A Huffington Post columnist reminisces about reading (Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice) to an old lady. And as Valentine's Day is approaching, so the 'romantic' recommendations begin: Greensboro Books Examiner suggests Jane Eye and Wuthering Heights.
Ghost stories like The Inkeepers or are excited for The Woman in Black this Friday, or like the Gothic elements in the newest take on Jane Eyre or like in novels like Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. (Manny Lozano)Slant Magazine reviews the film The Woman in Black where
Daniel Radcliffe stars as Arthur Kripps, a lawyer whose namesake and familial distress (his wife died in childbirth and his cherubic son perpetually sketches him wearing a sad face) feels Dickensian, but after the single father travels to a village in order to sort out the very messy affairs of a recently deceased biddy who lived in its outskirts, he finds himself walking through Emily Brontë's foggiest nightmare. (Ed Gonzalez)Laura's Reviews posts about Emily Brontë's poetry. At the Movies reviews Jane Eyre 2011 in Malay. Michael Peverett discusses Charlotte Brontë's sense of humour. Mystica reviews Justine Picardie's Daphne. Finally, an alert from Gainsborough:
The Gainsborough and District Fine Arts Society
The AGM for members of the Fine Arts Society will take place on February 2nd 2012 at l.15pm at Trinity Arts Centre.
The lecture will follow at 2pm from Mrs Elizabeth Merry on The Young Brontës and Art: visual influences on their creative development.
Drinks will follow at 3.15pm. (Gainsborough Standard)
LWLies: Have you seen the film yet? What did you think?The Yorker features Wuthering Heights, the novel:
Scodelario: I really liked it! It was weird because I never received a full script, we were given the lines the day before shooting. So watching the film was the first time I knew what was going on in the rest of the film! So it was really cool to watch. I took some friends as well, who I know would never have gone to see it if I wasn’t in it. They’d think, ‘That’s not my thing,’ and they really enjoyed it. It was nice to know that a younger generation enjoyed it.
It’s not your average period romp is it?
No, not at all. I like to think that Andrea’s kind of created this new genre, where it feels very modern, it’s not stuck to the rules. Everyone thought period drama had to be done a certain way and that’s the only way it can be done, people have to walk very slowly and speak properly, there has to be lots of sunshine and flowers. Andrea’s just turned that on its head completely and I love that she’s done that. It was wicked.
It felt like it could almost be modern day…
Yeah, exactly, that’s what was cool – it was kind of timeless.
Why did you only get your lines the day before filming?
It was a lot to do with helping the younger kids, obviously this was their first job so Andrea didn’t want to overwhelm them with a whole script. And I think she just likes things to be very fresh, and you to go into it very open. She asked me not to read the book or see any of the adaptations, so I think she just likes people to not know what they’re doing, go into it completely open-minded. Which is what I want people to do with the film, to go into it completely fresh not thinking about anyone else in it. It was a good way of working, it was different. It’s nice to push yourself and do thinks in a different way.
Was it difficult to learn your lines that quickly?
No, there’s not a lot of dialogue in the film which helps! Surprisingly, I thought I would, but it kind of worked out okay in the end, thank god. (read more) (Josh Winning)
It is difficult to compare Wuthering Heights to any other book, even of the same period, since it does not fit neatly either into the category of romance or of gothic fiction. It is a work that stands alone, drawing the reader into a dark and demonic world of brutality, revenge, and a love which is stronger than death.X Media Online reviews Jane Eyre 2011 giving it 2.5 stars out of 5:
Jane Eyre relies heavily on its excellent cast. Wasikowska captures Jane’s wit and sharpness perfectly whilst Fassbender’s Rochester has just the right combination of cold haughty outer shell and true touching affection for Jane. The two have excellent chemistry together. However, Judi Dench in her role as housekeeper is somewhat underused. Fassbender and Dench also break the tension and serious tone at times with witty humorous lines that prevent the film from becoming too heavy.And the Salisbury Post mentions the novel:
This film may not be the most detailed or successful adaptation I have seen but it is an enjoyable watch and a good introduction to the story of Jane Eyre. (Rebecca Anderson)
It turns out I have three copies of C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” I also have three different versions of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.”The Public Reviews gives 4 stars out of 5 to We Are Three Sisters:
Apparently, when I like a book I feel the need to hoard several copies. [...]
I fell in love with “Jane Eyre” while reading it for my Women in Literature class in college.
I really like the character of Jane because she isn’t a “woe is me” type lady, she’s a “I will survive” kind of woman. Despite the challenges Jane faces, she remains unbroken.
Both of these books are a good example of why required reading is good for students.
It gets them to step outside their element and try different titles, authors and genres. (Sarah Campbell)
This play succeeds in bringing the Brontë sisters off the page and in to our imagination and understanding. It is attractively staged, well acted, engaging and, not least of all, funny. If you enjoy the work of the Brontë sisters, whether you are familiar with the Chekhovian parallel or not, this is a play worth seeing. (Jane Pink)Both The Faster Times and A.V. Club comment on Jeffrey Eugenides's allusion to the Brontës in his newest novel, The Marriage Plot.
This book could have been a “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” Tom Stoppard’s play from the viewpoint of two extras in “Hamlet,” or a “Wide Sargasso Sea,” Jean Rhys’s “Jane Eyre” prequel (two books Beattie mentions). But Pat Nixon is ultimately too weak a character to consistently divert our focus from her endlessly fascinating husband. (David Greenberg)Finally, something we sincerely hope does happen, as seen in the Campus Times:
Any material covered in lab will be so ingrained into your head by that point that the next time you read anything by Charlotte, Emily or Anne Brontë, you won’t think about how Comedy Central said that the Brontë sisters were like the Kardashians of the 19th century. Instead, you’ll be more likely to recall that they were all independent young ladies with minds of their own. (Nirlipta Panda)Abigail's Ateliers wonders who would make the perfect Heathcliff (Boris Karloff?). Wuthering Heights 2011 is reviewed by emilywright23, Capsule in Space, The Curse & The Cure, Every Film in 2011, McQueen is my Morphine and Weaver of Grass. Glasgow Book Groups are giving away a copy of the book to the first person who send them a review of the film. ultracrepidarian and Litcritique post about Jane Eyre while The Wilder Things shows pictures of an 'annotated' copy of the novel. Splash of our Worlds reviews Jane Eyre 2011. The Redhead Reader writes about Justine Picardie's Daphne. And An American in London shares pictures of a recent trip to Haworth.
Jane EyreWe wonder if Wuthering Heights is unreadable in general or just for children?
Charlotte Brontë
If you think it's time to start nudging them on to the hard stuff, this is a great place to start. Mainly because, whatever Twilight tells you, Wuthering Heights is unreadable. OK? Ages 13+
Daphne is a novel that describes Du Maurier's real-life problems relating to her husband Tommy Browning's drinking, womanising and consequent mental collapses, and also her struggle to produce a biography that would forever change the popular conception of the luckless Branwell Brontë. (Sam Jordison)Questions can be submitted now although the actual webchat will take place on October 24th, 1-2 pm (GMT).
There’s Jen (Ashlie Atkinson), a pudgy paralegal still searching for her Heathcliff, though a Mr. Darcy would probably do. (Karen Zacarías)Crushable thinks that Cary Fukunaga is
like Heathcliffe [sic], Romeo and Jack from Titanic all rolled into one! [...]The Hollywood Reporter considers Wuthering Heights 1939 to be a great film 'about young love' while Crave Online reminds its readers that I Walked with a Zombie is a
Maybe I’m just a jaded old jerk, or bitter that I don’t live in a Brontë novel. (Liana Maeby)
Great movie, but it's actually an adaptation of Jane Eyre. Really. (William Bibbiani)The Sydney Morning Herald features the band The Jezabels.
Songs such as Endless Summer and Trycolour, which turn on the themes of possession and a refusal to be imposed upon, complement not just Mary's powerful voice but also her personal beliefs. ''I'm torn between being a modern, strong, alone woman and an extreme sense of romance where I would fall back into a dependence on men,'' explains the singer, who grew up listening to Abba, Queen and Kate Bush while reading Ann Radcliffe and Emily Brontë. (Craig Mathieson)Songwriter Nina Woodford writes about Kate Bush in the Guardian:
She has written two of my top 10 songs ever: Wuthering Heights and This Woman's Work. Her songs just paint the picture for me – I'm there. (Emine Saner)The Sacramento Bee mentions the Brontës in review of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Marriage Plot and Now Magazine Toronto reviews Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant and mentions its Brontë contents.
Perhaps what the new Home Secretary needs is a Power Doll of her own.Michael Moorcocks tells about a visit to Texas in the Financial Times which includes Austin (Texas) and its Brontë treasures:
The Brontë sisters have them, after all, as you’d know if you’ve seen the truly excellent little “commercial” made — some years ago now but never screened — by Phil Lord and Chris Miller (of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs fame). Yes, it’s true that recently in the pages of this newspaper I was to be found casting doubt on Wuthering Heights’ claims to greatness (I’ll take Jane Eyre over WH any day), but for all my dislike of that particular novel I can’t cast any doubt on the genius and resilience of Charlotte, Emily and Anne.
The little film is very funny, but there is a serious point behind it: the sisters, you’ll recall, initially disguised their identities — as Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Currer, Ellis and Acton: blokes’ names in the 19th century, though fashionably androgynous now, I’d say. And how much, precisely, has changed? J. K.Rowling, M. J. Hyland, A. L. Kennedy. But what about M. L. Amis or P. M. Roth? No, I didn’t think so. It remains true that women read books by both men and women; men are less likely to read books by women.
Another of Austin’s treasures is the huge collection of modernist manuscripts, visual art and rare books kept at the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Center. This is largely the work of the literary scholar Tom Staley, who used the university’s wealth to put together an unrivalled resource. They have Charlotte Brontë’s earliest notebooks written in a tiny but decipherable hand[.]Flavorwire echoes yesterday's USA Today article about the upcoming cinema Brontë-mania:
In these weird economic times, it seems only natural that we’d identify more with governesses and orphans than ladies of leisure. Suddenly, who’s contriving for who to marry whom can seem like an awfully small concern (although we suppose that hasn’t stopped the Sex and the City hype). If we’re going to indulge in romance stories, perhaps we’re looking for something more consuming and even twisted, with higher stakes, dramatic breakdowns, burning houses, and weddings that double as hostage situations. And that’s exactly what the Brontës bring to the table.The Delaware News Journal reviews the latest concert of the Delaware Symphony Orchestra which included Igor Stravinsky's 1943 piece Ode (more information about its Jane Eyre associations on this previous post):
Let’s also not forget that Wuthering Heights is a Twilight favorite, the book Edward and Bella obsess over. In fact, the series has Emily’s book sales skyrocketing, perhaps aided by a new cover clearly designed to cash in on vampire chic. As Meyer realized, the appeal of the Brontë novels is very similar to that of the vamp-craze films and books (not to mention they’re about as chaste as Twilight). They’re all about romance that manifests as pain, men who, despite their love may be too monstrous to tame, and the women who can’t help but be devoted to them. We have been critical of vampire mania in the past, and it still creeps us out a bit. But if it’s helped to bring Heathcliff and Jane and Lucy and Rochester back into the popular imagination, it can’t be all bad. (Judy Berman)
The curtain-raiser was Stravinsky’s ten-minute Ode, commissioned in 1943 to mark the death of Tanglewood Festival founder Serge Koussevitzky’s wife Natalie.Another musical piece with Brontë references is Benjamin Britten's cantata The Company of Heaven (more information on this old post). The Pforzheim Zeitung reviews a performance in Pforzheim, Germany:
Although the tenor of the piece is austere, the central Eclogue is enlivened by hunting music the composer had recycled from his abortive score for the film Jane Eyre. The oddly tentative brass playing marked a piquant contrast with the more flowing, pastoral music for strings in a performance that emphasized the enigmatic character of the music. (Thomas Leitch)
Klangschön gelingen dem Chor hingegen die Akkordrückungen im nur von der Orgel (Christian Scheel) begleiteten „Elisha“ oder das klangschön und mit tänzerischer Leichtigkeit auch von Tenor Rüdiger Linn interpretierte „A thousand, thousand gleaming fires“ nach einem Gedicht von Emilie Brontë. Abwechselnd gelesen von Sprecher Gerhard Mohr (mit gut verständlichem Englisch) und teils als Übersetzung von Kirsten Drope (mit klar strahlendem Sopran) und Rüdiger Linn unterstrichen die vielfältigen, von Richard Ellis Roberts zusammengestellten Texte die Intention der Musik Brittens. (Google translation)Lorna Jones writes about her love for The Guardian in, well, her favourite newspaper:
I just did a four-month tour in Europe playing the maid in Jane Eyre. I always play lowly characters. I think it's because of my northern accent. I'm not very good at high status. In the past year, I've played a prostitute, a tavern waitress, a servant, the lot.She was touring with the DreamPark company playing Mrs Fairfax.
Haworth is famous for its link with Emily, Charlotte and Anne Brontë, who wrote most of their novels at Haworth Parsonage – now a museum owned by the Brontë Society.Jonathan Glancey presents as follows a series of articles (in The Guardian) following in the footsteps of architectural critic Ian Nairn:
'To describe a church as an orgasm is bound to offend someone." Well, yes; Kenneth Ross, the incumbent of All Saints, Margaret Street, at the time might well have turned puce at the thought. "Yet," continued Ian Nairn, writing in the mid-1960s of William Butterfield's intense Gothic Revival church built a century earlier, "this building can only be understood in terms of compelling passion. Here is the force of Wuthering Heights translated into dusky red and black bricks, put down in a mundane Marylebone street to rivet you, pluck you into the courtyard with its hard welcoming wings and quivering steeple."The Winnipeg Free Press reviews Martin Amis's The Pregnant Widow:
And throughout the novel, English student Keith is reading Austen, the Brontës, Lawrence and other authors and discussing how they've handled sex and love. (Bob Armstrong)Another review with a Brontë twist. The Toronto Star reviews the TV film The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister:
The female leads are both physically attractive and psychologically complex, especially Maxine Peak as the title character, a real-life 19th century landowner and proto-lesbian who defied layer upon layer of social convention — bitchy neighbours, misogynist competitors, intrusive relatives — to live openly with a “female companion.” It’s a stormy, forceful and passionate tale. Kind of like the Brontës by way of a postgrad seminar in gender identity. (Brent Ledger)Gay.it (Italy) also comments on this film:
Janice Hadlow, direttrice della BBC2, ne parla in questi termini: «Il film è ambientato nello stesso mondo raccontatoci dai romanzi delle sorelle Brontë ma qui la storia è del tutto differente, e ci fa capire come l'amore e la vita nello Yorkshire del 19mo secolo fossero assai più ricchi, vari e stupefacenti di quanto abbiamo letto in quei romanzi». (Roberto Schinardi) (Google translation)The Minot Daily News brings attention to a new meeting of the Dakota Discussions series in Velva:
Velva "Dakota Discussions": 2 p.m., Velva School and Public Library. This program will be a film discussion of "Jane Eyre." The program is sponsored by the Velva School and Public Library and the North Dakota Humanities Council. Call 338-2022 or send e-mail to Iris.Swedlund@sendit.nodak.edu for more information.The press release of the exhibition Entre glace et neige. Processi ed energie della natura (May 14-October 26 in the Centro Saint Benin, Aosta, Italy) contains a curious Wuthering Heights reference:
La neve fa perdere ogni punto di riferimento. Nel romanzo di Emily Bronte Cime Tempestose (1847) il signor Lockwood, affittuario di Thrushcross Grange (la bella villa dei Linton caduta anch’essa nelle mani di Heatcliff), torna a casa dopo una tempesta di neve (e una tempestosa notte passata nella fosca dimora di Heatcliff), in una giornata in cui l’aria è “limpida, calma e fredda come ghiaccio impalpabile”, e trova un paesaggio mutato: “…il fianco della collina era tutto un oceano bianco e ondoso, in cui le creste e gli strapiombi non corrispondevano affatto ai rialzi e avallamenti del terreno: o perlomeno molte buche si erano riempite fino a livellarsi, e intere file di cumuli di detriti delle cave erano state cancellate dalla mappa che la mia escursione del giorno prima mi aveva lasciato impressa in mente”. La neve trasforma la mappatura del territorio, la geografia mentale. (Laura Cherubini) (Google translation)Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) interviews professor Ewa Kraskowska about Jane Austen's persisting influence. A bit of Brontë too:
Dziś, na fali feminizmu i nowego, genderowego odczytywania literatury dawnej, jej książki zyskały nowy kontekst?Marietta Chudakova (Чудакова Мариетта) talks about books for teenagers in Неделя:
- Na pewno. Zresztą okazało się, że angielska twórczość kobiet z tamtego czasu to nie tylko Austen i trochę późniejsze od niej siostry Brontë czy George Eliot. Jest więcej autorek, które nie pojawiały się dotąd w kanonie literackim, ale zostały odkryte na nowo i okazały się interesujące.
Na przykład?
- Elizabeth Gaskell, znana głównie jako biografka Charlotte Brontë. Pisała m.in. o kobietach z nizin społecznych, o robotnicach z manufaktur. Albo trzecia z sióstr Brontë - Ann, która do tej pory była niemal kompletnie poza Anglią nieznana. Właśnie powstaje pierwszy przekład jej powieści na polski. (Magdalena Żakowska) (Google translation)
н: На тему детского чтения вы написали книгу "Не для взрослых. Время читать. Полка первая". Будет ли у нее продолжение? Вообще, что читать подросткам - тем, кому 12-13? Когда Толкиен и "Гарри Поттер" уже прочитаны, а Сэлинджера оценить пока трудно.Teenage diaries which happen to mention the Brontës ("At the moment I'm continuing to read Villette. I think I shall buy all the books written by the Brontës", Janine Orford, 16 in 2001) in The Guardian; O Audicious Book has read Justine Picardie's Daphne; Victoria Janssen is reading Jane Eyre and Violet Gallaher reviews its Jane Eyre 1996 adaptation (in German).
чудакова: Печатаю по-прежнему в замечательном журнале "Семья и школа" статьи этого рода. "Полка первая", о которой вы говорите, давно распродана, полгода как вышла "Полка вторая". Библиотекари детских и юношеских библиотек очень просят продолжать. Наверное, буду готовить "Полку третью". Времени не хватает; мне стала немного помогать в этом деле дочь - выпускница романо-германского отделения филфака МГУ Маша Чудакова. Написала, например, про "Джейн Эйр", которую я в свое время не прочитала, а теперь уже поезд ушел... (Ирина Мак) (Google translation)
Unless explicitly said
