An exhibition in Haworth exploring Anne Brontë's life is the centrepiece of a year of events celebrating the writer's 200th birthday.The Telegraph and Argus recommends a visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum among other things to do in Bradford this weekend.
Amid The Brave And The Strong is the title of the exhibition through running throughout 2020 at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
The museum is also putting together a series of events devised with its creative partner for 2020, writer, journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed.
Activities through the year include talks, behind-the-scenes events, writing and art workshops, author appearances, musical and comedy performances, a film screening, and children's craft sessions every school holiday.
This year, the 200th anniversary of the birth of the youngest Brontë, marks the end of five years of celebrations of key anniversaries for the four Brontë siblings and their father. [...]
This year is also the 200th anniversary of the Brontë family's arrival in Haworth, the place where they wrote their famous novels.
Amid The Brave And The Strong was launched earlier this month, when the museum reopened after its winter break, and will run until January 1 next year.
The exhibition explores the life and work of Anne, the least famous of the Brontë sisters, who wrote the novels The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey.
A spokesman for the Brontë Parsonage Museum said that Anne’s life and work had received much less exploration than those of her sisters.
She said: "Amid The Brave And The Strong will delve into key elements of Anne’s life, from her childhood at the Parsonage, to how her legacy has been shaped by others since her death.
"Throughout her life, ‘dear gentle Anne’ was considered the baby of the Brontë family, but she went on to write one of the first sustained feminist novels in English literature – The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
"Although her work bears the familiar stamps of a classic Brontë novel, Anne’s strong moral beliefs led her to write for purpose as well as pleasure, something which shocked and excited her readers at the time.
"Anne was not to be deterred by criticism however, and right up to her death she had plans and schemes for the future.
"The exhibition tracks the course of her life and gives an insight into Anne’s personality and motivations, which reveal a strong, outspoken and complex genius."
Highlights of the exhibition include Anne’s poignant last letter, some of Anne's original drawings and paintings, and a copy of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall given by Anne to a close friend, which is currently on loan to the museum.
There is also a portrait of Anne by Charlotte, displayed together with the carnelian necklace worn by her in the picture.
A sketching block specifically designed for use in the open air and purchased by Anne in 1843, is on display for the first time after being loaned to the museum.
Pride of place goes to Charlotte’s first ‘little book’, which was written especially for Anne. [...]
Samira Ahmed said she was looking forward to returning to Haworth during 2020 to explore Anne Brontë's life and legacy.
Ahmed will soon unveil programme of talks and events to shine the light on a woman she terms an "oft-overlooked" writer, and highlight still-relevant issues that Anne wrote about more than 170 years ago.
Ahmed said: "Winning a place at Oxford University in 1986, I chose to study the new Women’s Studies option as part of my English Literature degree.
"Alongside reading the exciting African American prose emerging from the likes of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, I wrote my undergraduate thesis on ‘Property and Possession: The Politics of Marriage in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’, looking at connections with the eventual 1870 Married Women’s Property Act that granted women some rights 22 years after Anne Brontë’s publication."
Hannah said that at the Parsonage in Haworth, she was mesmerised by the dimly-lit dining room where the sisters walked round the table sharing their stories of their elaborately imagined early fantasy worlds.
She added: "While looking at some of the collection in the Library, I smile to see Anne’s drawing of one of the strong Amazonian women of her imaginary island creation Gondal; standing tall and confident on the rocky seashore, looking out to the horizon and a world of adventure.
"I am still trying to process the impact of Anne Brontë, a young motherless woman with brown curls and a few cherished possessions, on my life and on the long campaign for women’s rights.
"Re-reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall while preparing for my own employment tribunal for equal pay was an incredibly potent experience. I felt her voice and her sense of indignation speak to me across the centuries."
The Brontë Parsonage Museum has two writers-in-residence for 2020, who will both write new poetry as there research Anne Brontë's life and work, then share their responses digitally later this year.
Toria Garbutt is a spoken word artist from the former mining town of Knottingley in West Yorkshire. She has been a regular support act for Dr John Cooper Clarke. [...]
Jasmine Gardosi is a multiple slam champion and Birmingham Poet Laureate finalist. (David Knights)
What'sOnStage reports that Emma Rice has found her Cathy and Heathcliff for her forthcoming stage adaptation of Wuthering Heights.Initial casting has been announced for Emma Rice's adaptation of Wuthering Heights, which opens at the National Theatre later this year before embarking on a UK tour.BBC Culture wonders about 'the most terrifying images in history' and Paula Rego's work is mentioned.
Lucy McCormick (Post Popular, Collective Rage) will play Cathy in the stage version of Emily Brontë's novel, alongside John Pfumojena (The Jungle) as Heathcliff.
The piece is co-produced by Rice's company Wise Children and the National Theatre in association with York Theatre Royal. After running in London in September it will play at the Lowry in Salford and tour to cities including Canterbury, York and Bristol, with further stops to be announced. (Alex Wood)
But to my eye, the formidable figures we encounter in Rego’s work – from The Policeman’s Daughter (1987) who portentously polishes a jackboot to her portrait of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre in the menacing red room – invariably defy fear rather than embody it. (Kelly Grovier)On Vox, director Céline Sciamma is quoted as saying the following about her film Portrait de la jeune fille en feu.
We began with shooting the exteriors for eight days. I wanted it to be kind of gothic, so it’s colorful, but it’s more Brontë sisters, the gray and the rain. And it was super sunny [when we shot the exteriors]! Cinema is about welcoming things with enthusiasm, especially things that you don’t have power over. You have so much power over everything that sometimes it can be super disturbing that you don’t get what you expect, especially with period pieces where you design everything. And the fact that the sun came in, we were like, this is good news, and we have to bring back this light now to our castle in the Parisian periphery [where the interiors were shot]. (Emily Todd VanDerWerff)The New York Times discusses 'Why Tales of Female Trios Are Newly Relevant'.
It has always seemed right and proper that the Brontës and (the original) Kardashians came in threes, and of course, there’s an entire pop-music history of female trios, going back to the Supremes. (Megan O’Grady)A contributor to The Independent describes her youthful obsession with a boy:
Even the night before, when I was ranting on and on about him, she stopped abruptly and said: “Hang on a minute, you sound like Cathy in Wuthering Heights.” She started reciting the bit when she tells Nelly, “I am Heathcliff!. He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.” I had to agree there were some similarities in her depth of feeling. (Charlotte Cripps)Essex Live lists things to see and do locally and one of them is a trip to
41) Northey IslandSatire website Reductress tells (makes up, really) the story of a 'Woman [who] Decides to Briefly Consider Reading ‘Jane Eyre’ Every 3 Years for Rest of Life'. Zip06 has a quiz to test your knowledge about Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. Brussels Brontë Blog has a post on the recent talk on Brontë Mind Mapping by Mark Cropper.
Northey Island is owned by the National Trust who call it ‘the closest you’ll get to true wilderness in Essex’.
To visit you have to arrange for a permit and you can’t cross over at high tide. It’s referred to as ‘bleak, remote and quiet’ and ‘the Wuthering Heights of Essex’. (Tommy Wathen, Clare Youell, Lottie O'Neill, Elliot Hawkins)
Domestic imperialism in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Henry Rider Haggard’s She, a history of adventure Ataya, Nabila Adel, American University of Beirut, Department of English, 2013
This thesis aims to discuss the Victorian understanding of gender politics through Imperial thought and discourse in both Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and in Rider Haggard’s She: a History of Adventure. In both novels, the “woman question” was a source of anxiety for patriarchal Victorian society as it was detrimental to the progress of Imperial Britain. Dimensions of gender interplay constituted fundamental aspects to the definition of domesticity and in turn to the security and maintenance of imperial power. For Haggard, the “woman question” is addressed in his imperialist novel not only as problematic but also as a means to question the success of male sovereignty over Imperial Britain. As for Brontë the “woman question” is answered through Jane Eyre’s manipulation of society in Victorian England. Jane Eyre is the embodiment of the “New woman” who rises in the novel as the subject and the object of the patriarchal society which cleverly empowers her to move independently through the Victorian milieu. Using a feminist-imperial theory to reinterpret the social advancement of women in the Victorian age, this thesis studies the anxieties presented by the “woman question” and its implications that reshaped the positioning of women in society and the understanding of imperialism in Victorian Britain. After having read the works of various feminist-imperialist critics on the representation of female roles in Victorian novels, I have decided to exclude biographical interpretations of Charlotte Brontë’s orphaned life and of Rider Haggard’s disappointment with British politics in South Africa. Moreover, I have steered away from the traditional psychoanalytical and feminist interpretation of Jane Eyre through the studies of Freud, Gilbert and Gubar respectively. Instead, to understand the “woman question” in a new light I focus on interpreting the progress of women through domestic agency as a performa...
A Lost Collection of Robert Burns Manuscripts: Sir Alfred Law, Davidson Cook, and the Honresfield CollectionPatrick G. Scot
University of South Carolina
Scholar Commons, Faculty Publications, Department of English Language and Literatures
This essay traces the formation by William Law of Littlesborough, Lancashire, of a major collection of literary manuscripts and books, including works by Robert Burns, the Brontes, and Walter Scott; recounts the unlikely role in the 1920s of Davidson Cook, a cooperative society manager from Barnsley, in encouraging the then-owner Sir Alfred Law, M.P., of Honresfield House, to make the collections available for scholarly use; summarizes available information on the partial dispersal of the collection in the late 20s and early 1930s, and the disappearance after Sir Alfred's death in 1939 of much of the collection, including major items; and reviews in detail the current state of knowledge about the Honresfield Burns manuscripts, based on the scholarly access that was provided nearly a hundred years ago.
Influence and Legacy: The Brontë Sisters and Anne RiceAlexandru-Ionuţ Micu, PhD Student, ”Al. Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi
“Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture”, said Allen Ginsberg. Those born in the 20th century have the luck to enrich their minds with literary masterpieces belonging to their predecessors. A novel or a poem is worth reading when it boosts one’s imagination, leading to introspection. I pause, while reading, to ponder over an idea that impressed me; at the same time I’m thrown back to various states and memories. It’s unbelievable what we discover about ourselves by simply reading. Great writers have been inspired especially by classics. In the gothic genre we run across Matthew Lewis, Anne Radcliffe or Edgar Allan Poe; at first, one would be surprised to learn that novels “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights” include elements of the gothic. Ill tempered characters wight for their loved ones and for their principles. Women silence men, supporting their points of view; an image unbearable in the first half of the 19th century. Novels belonging to the Brontë sisters hold the same energy as they did a century ago. No wonder they are avant-la-lettre and thought provoking. Horror writer Anne Rice admits she was influenced by the Brontës; her vampires possess the same force and cruelty like negative characters Heathcliff and Mr. Brocklehurst. They owe
supernatural powers, destroying everything around them. Moreover, misfit Catherine
Earnshaw resembles Rice’s creatures. They cannot find inner peace, struggling with dual
personalities. Catherine’s volcanic temper ends in no spiritual reconciliation; she’s stuck
between her nature and patriarchal pressures. She belongs to Heathcliff for eternity, but marries Linton. Jane Eyre fights for freedom of speech, trying to win over man’s authority; stubborn, smart, she rejects St.John’s marriage proposal or Helen’s spiritual limits. Like Lestat (“Interview with the Vampire”), she is willing to enforce her status in society in order to be accepted by the mob. Thus, mentalities can be shaped slowly but surely in order to reach that particular aim.
When reflecting on the importance of the book fair, [Tananarive] Due was reminded of the time she interviewed Anne Rice for a Herald article ahead of the 1992 Miami Book Fair. That interview inspired Due to write her first novel. Whether it’s “Jane Eyre” or “Frankenstein” or “The Iliad,” stories push people to ask life changing questions, Rice told her. “And it was not just an escape, but an escape that improves you,” Rice said. “You go back feeling different, and that’s what literature should do.” (Amanda Rosa)
The Brontë Society has not yet revealed all the details of Anne's celebrations but we know that the creative partner will be Samira Ahmed as well as some of the names that will visit the Parsonage: Maggie O’Farrell (June), Ruta Sepetys, Andrew Michael Hurley (April), Jess Moor and Nuala Ellwood. The Brontë Parsonage will host the exhibitions Anne Brontë: 'Amid the brave and strong' and
Crossing the pond, in New York (January 24th/25th) at the New York Public Library the piece Anne Brontë: A Woman Of Courage which weaves together excerpts from Anne's novels along with sections of her poems, letters and diary entries will be presented. The Lost Voice of Anne Brontë is "a Victorian Melodrama of Murderous Intrigue, Madness and Malice" written by Cate Whittaker that will be premiered in Sydney (January 31st) and later be performed in Haworth as part of the Brontë200 celebrations.
Anne Brontë will also be present in the editorial Brontë releases: Nick Holland will publish Crave the Rose: Anne Brontë at 200, 're-evaluating the legacy of the youngest Brontë sister on the 200th anniversary of her birth'. Saraband publishes Adelle Hay's Anne Brontë Reimagined: A View from the Twenty-first Century (after Franklin's Charlotte Revisitation and O'Callaghan's Emily Reappraising) trying to answer 'who was the real Anne, how was her reputation destroyed, and why has she been so overlooked?'
Our annual dose of retellings of the Brontë opus will be represented this year by a Jane Eyre retelling: Rose Lerner's The Sea May Burn, Lily Tuck, winner of the National Book Award, publishes the novella Heathcliff Redux (February) and other stories where "a married woman reads Wuthering Heights at the same time that she falls under the erotic and destructive spell of her own Heathcliff". Tanya Landman retells Jane Eyre (January) adapted for readers with difficulties. Penguin in its Vintage Minis collection selects texts from Jane Eyre and Villette with Independence (March) as a common subject. A couple of theatres plays will also be published: Jordi Mand's Brontë: The World Without (May) and Andrew Sheridan's Wuthering Heights (February) (more on this one later in the post). The Brontë biographical fiction will also be present. In August, Finola Austin will publish Brontë's Mistress:This dazzling debut novel for fans of Mrs. Poe and Longbourn explores the scandalous historical love affair between Branwell Brontë and Lydia Robinson, giving voice to the woman who allegedly corrupted her son's innocent tutor and brought down the entire Brontë family.
The greatly anticipated graphic novel Glass Town by Isabelle Greenberg will be published in February:A graphic-not-quite-biography of the Brontës, and their Juvenilia. Four children; Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne have invented a world so vivid that they can step right into it. But can reality be enough, when fiction is so enticing? And What happens to an imaginary world when its creators grow up. Plots are spiralling, characters are getting wildly out of hand, and a great deal of ink is being spilt.For even younger readers, We Are the Brontë Sisters (Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum) by Brooke Vitale (June): 'An 8x8 with 2 sticker sheets based on an episode from the PBS KIDS animated television series Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum starring the Brontë sisters'. The scholar niche will also have a couple of publications scheduled by Palgrave for June: Charlotte Brontë, Embodiment and the Material World, edited by Justine Pizzo and Eleanor Houghton and Wide Sargasso Sea at 50, edited by Elaine Savory and Erica L. Johnson which of course deals with the fiftieth anniversary of Jean Rhys's Jane Eyre prequel.
And the Brontës will return to the stages in 2020. New adaptations of Jane Eyre by Elizabeth Williamson will open in Hartford, CT and by Christine Calver in Pequot Lakes, MN, both in February. In Manchester, the Royal Exchange Theatre will present a new production of Wuthering Heights, adapted by Andrew Sheridan:Experience a very different side to literature’s most electric couple in this gripping reinvention of the classic tale. Bryony Shanahan’s production of Andrew Sheridan’s searing script is a ferocious, wild and utterly exhilarating celebration of passion, of desire – and of the female imagination that created this indelible masterpiece. Visceral and vicious, physical and poetic, tender and true: Emily Brontë never felt quite like this before.Another new Wuthering Heights (devised by the Inspector Sand Company) will be premiered in Southampton (in May):
Does it take a village to raise a monster?Blackeyed Theatre will continue its Jane Eyre tour (adapted by Nick Lane) in the Netherlands (January), UK (January-May) and even China (June).
Channelling Emily Brontë’s piercing wit and fierce emotion, Inspector Sands present this classic story of obsessive love and revenge in a thrilling new version for our times.
Expect violence, passion, peril, social awkwardness, high winds, heavy rain, loud music and mud.
“My mother believed we could accomplish great things,” she told Alice Cooper in a 2016 interview in Billboard. “She told us stories of the Brontës and how they’d written under male names in order to be accepted by the literati; she filled my head with tales of Dickens and all he achieved in terms of social justice through his novels. My mother totally believed in me, and though she died when I was 14, I took her confidence and faith in me to heart and have all of my life.” (Lisa de los Reyes)
Throughout her studies, Rice maintained a keen interest in being a writer. Citing authors such as Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Stephen King and Shakespeare as her influences, Rice published her debut, Interview With the Vampire, in 1976 — a novel in which a conscience-stricken vampire named Louis recounts his history with the vampire Lestat. (Olivia Fricot)
Er wordt een gedicht van Lord Byron geciteerd, maar ook een dansje gemaakt op Once in a Lifetime van Talking Heads. En dat allemaal in een voorstelling over de Engelse schrijver Charlotte Brontë en haar broer Branwell. Theatergroep Dorst – gerund door het toneelechtpaar Trudy de Jong en Theo de Groot (‘samen honderd jaar op de planken’) – maakte eerder al de voorstelling De sisters Brontë en nu dan Charlotte Jane Eyre Brontë & broer Branwell.Dit keer is de tegenstelling tussen broer en zus het uitgangspunt: de degelijke Charlotte, die een beroemd schrijver wordt, versus losbol Branwell, die uitermate getalenteerd was als schrijver, schilder én levensgenieter, maar aan dat laatste (drank, drugs, vrouwen) ten onder ging.De Jong en De Groot spelen hun personages in diverse leeftijden: van kinderen die vroeg hun moeder verloren tot volwassenen die zich maar moeizaam kunnen verhouden tot een buitenwereld die hen niet welgevallig is. Zij worstelt met haar vrouw-zijn (naar eigen zeggen waren vrouwen vooral geschikt om pudding te maken en te borduren), hij wordt steeds manischer. Charlotte schreef onder mannelijk pseudoniem Jane Eyre, Branwells gedichten werden geweigerd door literaire tijdschriften. Intussen filosoferen ze over de roem van schrijven, familiebanden en de liefde.In regie van Mirjam Koen hebben de twee acteurs van deze toneeltekst (geschreven door De Groot zelf) een poëtische en ook levendige voorstelling gemaakt. Met een paar houten meubeltjes en een prachtig beschilderd achterdoek (een diffuse wolkenpartij) duiken zij in de geschiedenis van hun personages, maar ze houden ook voldoende afstand. De Groot en De Jong excelleren in een mix van sterke tekstbehandeling en fysiek spel, waarbij De Groot die geëxalteerde Branwell ook nog eens goed binnen de perken houdt.Aldus ontstond een voorstelling over twee getalenteerde kunstenaars waarvan de een zich moeizaam ontplooit en de ander verwoestend schipbreuk lijdt. (Hein Janssen) (Translation)
 |
| © Associated Press |
On the up-and-down, picturesque course, the 197-rider peloton scaled a narrow, cobblestone hill in Haworth, where the Brontë sisters — the famous 19th-century novelists — lived when their father was parson in the town. (Jamey Keaten, Associated Press)
The jump in pace had reduced the gap to under two minutes but it began to go out again as the race moved up the narrow cobbled climb in the village of Haworth, made famous by the Brontë sisters. (Mark McGhee in PezCycling News)
The route passed through Harrogate, Keighley, and Huddersfield before reaching Sheffield, taking in areas made famous by the Brontë sisters and TV series Last Of The Summer Wine. (Rob Hayles on BBC News)
The picturesque West Yorkshire village of Haworth is best-known for being the birthplace of legendary literary sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. The trio wrote a number of 19th Century novels which are widely accepted as masterpieces of literature - including Emily's Wuthering Heights. And the Tour de France riders had some heights of their own to tackle as they climbed up Haworth's cobbled Main Street midway through stage two. (Jonathan Jurejko & Peter Scrivener in BBC Sport)
And here comes the peloton riding eight-or-nine abreast as they approach the cobbles and then squeeze down to four as they tackle the Pave du Haworth. All are safely up and over the top and heading over to Stanbury before tuning left and heading to Oxenhope and up the climb.
This is one steep incline. And on cobbles. The crowds are staying respectfully clear as the septet out front climb up in single file. And there's the pub at the top where I had my 21st a good few years back. (Peter Scrivener in BBC Live Reporting)
In all, there was 3,000m of climbing on Sunday but no ascent looked prettier than the cobbles of Haworth village; once the home of the Brontë sisters. (Matt Lawton in Daily Mail)
So descriptive powers of a high order are needed in the commentary box to give any sense of the passing landscape and its context. Sadly, the ITV team, led by Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen, rarely rose to the occasion: “This reminds me of a Hovis advert,” was their offering from the Brontë sisters’ home town of Haworth. (Martin Vander Weyer in The Telegraph)
And it is hard to think of any greater challenge to the soul than the cultural terrain of Yorkshire: the excruciating passions of Wuthering Heights, tortured love in which landscape and climate form essential elements of the torture. This is literature born in the frigid air of the parsonage. In a group portrait, the Brontë sisters—Emily who delivered Wuthering Heights, Charlotte who delivered Jane Eyre, and Anne The Tentant of Wildfell Hall (sic)— exude a dark, introverted vision of 19th century enslaved womanhood that only the bleakness of the Yorkshire moors could validate.
The Brontës laid a basic foundation of what has become the Yorkshire brand: A forbidding and yet majestic land in which masochism is an essential part of character building. (Clive Irving in The Daily Beast)
Nursing a few muscle aches, the second day saw the cyclists cycle out of York across Ilkley Moor not “Baht ‘at” as in the words of the traditional song but with their cycle helmets on, up the cobbled main street of Haworth made famous by the Brontë family through Todmorden into Huddersfield and ascend the long steep climb to Holme Moss. (The Star)
The second stage from York to Sheffield on Sunday scuttles up Holme Moss and through Haworth, where the Brontë sisters wrote Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, and also diverts briefly into Lancashire. During the 201km ride there are eight climbs: the landscapes are stunning but savage too. (Sean Ingle in The Guardian)Briefer mentions can be found in Irish Mirror, Manchester Evening News, International Business Times, The Mirror, The Huffington Post, The Times (and here), Le Vif, France Info...
Who is your favorite fictional literary hero and heroine and why?The Independent compares Yorkshire and France:
Pip in "Great Expectations" is my favorite hero. Jane in "Jane Eyre" is undoubtedly my favorite heroine. (Nola Cancel)
For every Georges Danton there is a William Wilberforce, for every Emile Zola there is a Charlotte Brontë and for every Dr Antoine Louis (the man who invented the guillotine) there is a James Henry Atkinson (the man who invented the mousetrap). However, in terms of quality, quantity and sheer breadth of achievement (think Claude Monet, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and Louis Pasteur), France wins hands down. (Jack Simpson)Bastrop Daily Enterprise reviews the novel The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton:
Such a concept can't help bring to mind classic tales of women who feel like prisoners within their homes, such as "Rebecca" or "Jane Eyre," but this book fails to create the same feeling of urgency. (Ashley Mott)Carrick Times talks about the Northern Ireland's Perfect Library initiative:
Classic novels like To Kill a Mockingbird and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights can be found within the list alongside future-focused Hollywood movie titles like The Hunger Games and Frank Herbert’s Dune.ArtsHub talks about the theatre play, Loveplay:
Such a device may seem like a piece of Brontë melodrama, but for me the ostracism of women from historical accounts is well symbolised by the muffled, unheard cry. (Amelia Swan)Parma Quotidiano (Italy) talks about the Clinica Literaria in Parma:
Leggi “Le Onde” di Virginia Woolf oppure “L’angelo della tempesta” di Charlotte Brontë; insonnia? Si prescrivono i versi di Ferdinando Pessoa del “Libro dell’inquietudine”; obesità? Potrebbe aiutare “Sostiene Pereira” di Antonio Tabucchi o anche “A mille miglia da Kensington” della scozzese Muriel Spark. (Translation)Librópatas (Spain) mentions Charlotte Brontë's comments on Jane Austen:
Algunas veces el odio era simplemente por cuestiones literarias, como ocurría con Charlotte Brontë y lo poco que le gustaba Jane Austen (odiar a Jane Austen es una especie de deporte literario, por cierto, y hay más escritores que odiaron a Jane). (Translation)
"We want to be the Bronte sisters," Rice said in a 1995 interview with the Houston Chronicle, referring to the sisters who wrote the gothic novels "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights." "We want to go down in history." (Mary Rourke)Jeanette Winterson wonders in The Times, ‘What books could I find where floods and rain played a part?’. Sure enough here is one of the (many) answers.
In Wuthering Heights, rain and storm are as necessary as the landscape itself, perhaps they are the landscape. Cathy’s death turns beginning-summer into downpour. Heathcliff is flood and tempest in human form.Brian from Puck recently left a comment on an old post of ours concerning Emily's use of the word 'penetralium' in the first chapter of Wuthering Heights.
The interesting thing here is that Bronte's may be one of only two uses in English of the word "penetralium." The only other I know is from John Keats, in his Negative Capability letter. I've blogged about Keats' use here.We have been researching among our Brontë books and though we already knew the Brontës had read Keats, we don't know when his Negative Capability letter was published or whether the Brontës might have read it at all. So this remains a mystery for now. However, for more information on this curous word we suggest you head over to Puck and read up on it.
I'd love to hear what you know about "penetralium" and what it means (it has no direct antecedent; as far as I can tell in Latin only the singular "penetralia" was used). Keats and Bronte used the word in very different, but perhaps parallel, senses. Thoughts?
Vampire writers today are taking the story in new directions. What do you think of the vampire fad? (...)Not the first time we read Anne Rice describing Twilight's success and comparing it to Brontë novels.
The concept of the vampire is a great concept, so it's not surprising that many different authors could go to that concept and write fascinating stories. Stephanie Meyer with the “Twilight” stuff really is repeating the basic theme of the Bronte sisters: a young girl fascinated by a mysterious older figure. She's made it a vampire that goes to high school, but it's basically an older man that's both protective and something of a menace. That's straight out of “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights” - the infatuation with Heathcliff, the infatuation with Mr. Rochester. (Bruce Fessier)
She describes Martin Scorsese's set as very calming (despite the fact that she plays a child killer in an insane asylum – she evokes Shutter Island as "a cross between Emily Brontë and B-movies of the 1950s"). "It was old school: everybody's the best, everybody's in their place and there's no rushing around because it's all been done before the actors arrive. I just thought: this is unbelievable to be here, and I don't care what happens. I don't care if I don't end up in the movie." (Gaby Wood)The New Zealand Herald describes the next PechaKucha Night in Auckland with a Brontë (although not exactly positive) reference:
If the book club scones are dry and you're sick of Nancy droning on about Jane Eyre, it might be time to get your fix somewhere else. (Rebecca Parry)The Hindu warns us that Jane Eyre is a fictional character. In its review of Me Cheeta: The Autobiography by James Lever
There is (as far as we know) no such thing as a monkey capable of language and literature, but then, nor is there any such thing as an orc or an elf, or Jane Eyre, or Hercule Poirot, or Sartaj Singh, or Rocket Singh .(Aditya Sudarshan)The San Francisco Sentinel reminds us that Emily Brontë was born in a year of the tiger, The Halifax Reader recommends Maureen Adams's Shaggy Muses, Webers in London! are visiting Brontë country, Nerves Strengthened with Tea reviews positively Villete, huffenglish.com posts about loving Wuthering Heights, Le Diffuseur Poétique (in French) posts a long and interesting review of the selection of poetry by Emily Brontë published by Hesperus some time ago: Poems of Solitude, katharsis posts a Jane Eyre inspired magnetic poem. Finally, Unikornis posts about the Brontë sisters in Hungarian.
What books changed your life?Writer Ahmed Faiyaz also mentions the influence of the Brontës (and Dickens as well, just like Anne Rice above) on Daily News & Analysis India.
Great Expectations by Dickens and Jane Eyre by Brontë had a profound influence. I’m not sure any book has ever changed my life. (Anna Metcalfe)
He names Charles Dickens, Emily Brontë and Haruki Murakami amongst his favourite writers. He also compares his character Ruheen Oberoi to that of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Roberta Lowing's forthcoming novel will also have Brontë echoes.
“Jane Eyre and the difficult circumstances she faces in her life to finally achieve happiness and peace was definitely an inspiration for this book [Another Chance],” says Faiyaz. (Banylla Kharkongor)
She has taken a year off to write full-time and is working on a second book. This one lumps together ideas about climate change with Emily Brontë and women in Mexican jails. "I know, I know," she says. "But it all fits together, I promise." (Louise Schwartzkoff)Sebastian Faulks is quoted by the Trivandrum News on the topic of sequels:
“People don’t care about the sequels to the works of authors who are no more. We are certainly not interested to know what happened to Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet; though I’d love to write on what could have happened to Mr. Darcy whom I have thought of been suffering from clinical depression throughout,” he replies flippantly to the question raised by one of the participants on account of his Bond novel Devil May Care. (Shradha S)Well, judging from the amount of sequels, prequels, retellings and mashups we have seen lately we would say that readers - or publishers anyway - do care about them.
IT'S seven years since the Gate staged Alan Stanford's adaptation of Jane Eyre as its Christmas piece. The revival has the weaknesses of the original, but lacks its strengths.Victoria Gendinning's words on how non-fiction publishers mostly want biographies of the same people time and time again are echoed by The Bookseller and the London Evening Standard.
The subtleties and intricacies of Charlotte Brontë's book are missing -- an inevitable problem with transposing any Victorian text to the stage: it leaves us with the bare bones of the narrative but without the ethical and sexual dilemmas of the original. That was partly counterbalanced in the 2003 production by Dawn Bradfield's performance in the title role. But she has been replaced this time around by Andrea Corr, who unfortunately seems to have absolutely no empathy with the role, its context, or its period.
There is no sense of dilemma, no sense of frightened courage, and above all no demure probity underlying the steadfastness of "little Miss Eyre". Corr's Jane is a wooden, sour figure, her performance one-dimensional in emotion, cadence, and appearance; the voice is shrill and unvarying, the facial expression a rictus grin most of the time, and the body language without chemistry.
Stephen Brennan as Rochester battles valiantly to make a connection, but there is little he can do, leaving you wondering why he didn't settle for the flighty Blanche Ingram, vulgar fortune-hunter though she is.
Deirdre Donnelly plays the middle-aged Jane/Narrator, and makes her a placid, slightly wry matron; and of the support cast, Fiona Bell in a variety of roles, and Barbara Brennan as Mrs Fairfax come off best in expressing the spirit of Victoriana.
And while it may seem unfair to criticise the children in the cast since they are not professionals, one would have thought that an audition trawl through school drama classes could have found a few who could be heard.
Bruno Schwengl's extremely low-budget set from the original production is lit without inspiration by James McConnell.
Sadly, there is no Christmas sparkle on offer in this extremely lacklustre production (even though Stanford's direction is rather redolent of pantomime). It will certainly do nothing to lift anyone's seasonal spirits. (Emer O'Kelly)
"like Wuthering Heights," with features that include a fireplace in every room and access to a wrap-around first-floor porch. (Hoa Nguyen)And the Western Mail (Wales) jokes about 'what you could buy with Severn Crossing toll cash' (which apparently is about to 'rise to £5.70'). Here's one of the suggestions:
Women with a Gothic bent might delight in the purchase of a Victorian Shrug Jacket. For the cost of five journeys over the estuary you could be clad in this internet-available garment with a “Mandarin-edged collar and deep frilled cuffs” and in your own personal Brontë drama. (David Williamson)Here it is, in case anyone does feel like indulging in a bit of 'own personal Brontë drama'.
Our heroes are Gilgamesh and Gandalf, our heroines Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess. Beowulf clashes swords with Game of Thrones. Anansi, spider trickster of African and Caribbean folklore, weaves his web opposite a clip from Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke. We go from Gormenghast to Twin Peaks, Magic: The Gathering to The Mysteries of Udolpho, Warhammer to Into the Woods. It’s all interesting — and there’s something for every superfan — but there’s no clear trail of breadcrumbs to follow. [...]There is much to delight: Alan Garner’s eldritch owl service (it’s real!), Brontë’s tales of Glass Town written in her millimetre-high hand, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast manuscript with its illustrations drawn in blood and shadows, an edition of The Hobbit illustrated by Tove “Moomins” Jansson. (Laura Freeman)
A major turning point proved to be Due’s 1992 interview, as a reporter at the Miami Herald, with Anne Rice. Rice had been accused by critics of wasting her talent writing about vampires, but the bestselling author had the perfect comeback. “Rice said, ‘Everybody knows who Jane Eyre is … and everybody knows who Frankenstein’s monster is. These are great, powerful, heroic images that allow you to go outside of yourself to really talk about questions that change you.’” Rice went on to describe the impact of Homer on his listeners, transported by his epic tales of Achilles and Troy. “It was not just escape, but it was an escape that improves you. You go back feeling different. That’s what literature should do.”Nine months later, inspired by the notion that horror fiction could speak to life’s greatest challenges, Due finished “The Between,” a novel about a man whose belief that his near-death experiences have put him in a state of limbo almost destroys his marriage. (Paula L. Woods)
Her writing continues unabated, with a play about author Charlotte Brontë now completed.Christine researched the novelist at the British Library, where she examined four letters, preserved under glass, Charlotte wrote to a professor she fell in love with in Brussels.The play explores Charlotte’s unrequited love for the teacher, and her struggles to be published as a writer in early Victorian England. It centres on her masterpiece novel, Villette. (Maggie Gruner)
Here on Earth (1997)An Oprah's Book Club pick and one of Hoffman’s best-loved novels, Here on Earth draws its inspiration from Emily Brontë’s classic love story, Wuthering Heights. Yorkshire's windy moors have been replaced by contemporary Massachusetts, where March, a single woman, returns after many years away. There, she gets a second chance at love with her old sweetheart—though she'll soon find that resurrecting old ghosts can have unpleasant consequences. (Isabel Montero, Stephen Lovely and Kaytie Norman)
Now the books are my companions on drizzly October days—the books and the ghosts who haunt them. The titles call out to me as I pass—spine-tingling spines. One can hardly imagine how these little packages of dried-out wood pulp could enchant us so. I see my customers go home with The Count of Monte Cristo and Sherlock Holmes and Jane Eyre; they cross the glaciers with Frankenstein’s monster and stand at the crossroads with the woman in white. They come to the Lonely Mountain with the hobbit and talk of poetry and revolution with the man who was Thursday.
Similar to “Wuthering Heights”, in which Heathcliff desecrates the grave of Cathy to kiss her corpse, The Wicker Man combines horror with eroticism, humanity with the Earth. The Wicker Man was ahead of its time back in 1973 and is still pushing the envelope fifty years on. (Katie Doyle)
4. “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush (1978)British artist Kate Bush made the charts at 19 on the strength of this debut single based on Emily Brontë’s 1847 book of the same name. The track went to No. 1 in Britain, making her the first female to have a self-written No. 1 there. (The label wanted a more rocking first single, but Bush refused.)“Wuthering Heights” was inspired by a BBC adaptation of the book. Despite Bush learning that she and Brontë shared a birthday, she never actually finished the novel she’d borrowed from her brother. But she spent enough time with the tome to use several lines from it.Bush threw herself into the recording of the single, according to engineer Jon Kelly. “She was imitating this witch, the mad lady from the Yorkshire Moors, and she was very theatrical about it,” he recalled. “She threw her heart and soul into everything she did, [such] that it was difficult to ever fault her or say, ‘You could do better.'” (Chris Parker)
Alonso Duralde, The Wrap, What the Flick?!USA Today critic Olivia Barker hasn't really enjoyed Joanna Trollope's Sense and Sensibility (a modern retelling of the novel of the same name by Jane Austen). She thinks that,
Growing up with immigrant parents and six older siblings, I have any number of moviegoing memories from my childhood: being allowed to put off my homework because Hitchcock's Notorious was coming on, all of us piling into the car and driving across town to a rep house to see William Wyler's Wuthering Heights, sitting through Ball of Fire and Young Frankenstein with my father and watching him laugh harder than I'd ever seen him do. Sometimes, my family had a sense of humor all its own: No one thinks of these comedies as classics, but we would drop everything or stay up late if We're No Angels (the Michael Curtiz original), Bedtime Story (later remade as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) or The Out-of-Towners (itself also remade) came on television in those pre-VCR days. My parents are no longer with us, but my brothers and sisters and I can always make each other laugh by quoting the waiter on the train from the latter film, telling the sensitive-stomached Jack Lemmon that all they have left is "peanut butter and crackers, and clam juice -- but it's not cold." Happy Thanksgiving. (Sam Adams)
Modernized classics are audacious affairs to begin with, and they work best when the original characters are all but obscured, updated with more than mere iPod-studded nods to a different era (The Flight of Gemma Hardy, a recent retelling of Jane Eyre, is an exquisite example of how to do it right).Another book reviewed today is Diane Setterfield's Bellman & Black. From The Star (Malaysia):
The Thirteenth Tale took Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and echoed and warped it so eerily that the author earned gushing plaudits for her deft interpretation.Hot Press has interviewed Anne Rice and recalls the fact that,
Just as The Thirteenth Tale was homage to Charlotte Brontë, Bellman & Black homages Charles Dickens, but less skilfully. (Nick Walker)
Rice describes Great Expectations and Jane Eyre as huge influences on her as a child. Surely it is no coincidence that they are the stories of orphans who spend time in huge, lonely buildings. At 15, Rice’s mother died after a long battle with alcoholism. Her father sent his daughters to St. Joseph’s Academy – “a dilapidated, awful, medieval type of place”. Rice admits it took her a long time to recover from that painful period. She couldn’t even find solace in writing. (Roe McDermott)Dear Author reviews The Tenant of Wildfell Hall while Alternate Readality reviews Agnes Grey.
Dear readerBefore you begin this review, I must confess something. I am a fan of the Brontës. Their works - with their swirling emotivity, breath-taking atmosphere and complex characterisations - have captured my heart before; as a result, I had high expectations for Frances O’Connor’s directorial debut, Emily (2022). And I was not disappointed in the least. If anything, I cannot wait to see what she does next.I feel compelled to point out that Emily is not a biopic; at least, not in the same way that Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (2022) or even Andrew Dominik’s Blonde (2022) were. O’Connor is not interested in being faithful to Emily Brontë’s life beyond the fundamental elements of its timeline. We know about her father, brother and sisters; we know she died young, but lived fully; we know she wrote Wuthering Heights rather than having become a teacher or governess, and that’s about it. Everything else is from O’Connor’s imagination. Therefore, for once, the posters of this film are accurate in their description: Emily is ‘the imagination behind Wuthering Heights’. O’Connor is not interested in telling us about Emily Brontë. Rather, she uses her as a vessel to explore female creativity, female rage, female passion, female isolation, and mental illness.By letting Emily run rampant through the Yorkshire countryside, O’Connor is more faithful to the legacy of the Brontë sisters, and Emily in particular, than she would have been had she tried to create a stuffy, domestic portrayal of her life. The whole point of the novels written by these three sisters was to escape what they knew, and the unflinching, predestined course they could see in front of them. This film wishes to enter their psyche, and it does so almost physically. Magnificent close-up shots govern the focus of much of the film, as they come so close up to the actors’ faces that we see every wrinkle, every twitch, every flinch of emotion played with such compelling intensity. Emma Mackey, in particular, astounds in these shots. A moment that will stick with me is the closing in of the camera on Emma’s face whilst William Weightman (the curate and her love interest, played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is preaching. She does not blink, she cannot, because although she is relatively deadpan her eyes sparkle with every shifting emotion. Her best performance yet, no doubt about it. These are close shots juxtaposed by longer, still frames where Emily, and often her brother Branwell, rambled the countryside; here, its stillness reminds us of them, as we see how the landscape in her narratives always reflected her own life, as well as that of her characters. There are also elements of horror that make some moments hard to look away from, as we expect a jump scare despite knowing we are watching a historical drama. O’ Connor plays with our expectations using the Brontës’ Byronic tendencies beautifully.The music and sound design also helped to bring me even more into the creative turmoil of Emily’s mind. This film would not be the same without its soundtrack. Beautiful, swelling melodies edge on the characters in their most passionate moments. But, at times, the music is cut off to accompany a harsh cut to black. At other times, sounds are superimposed - be they the voices of Emily reading, the crashing crests of waves over the wind, or birds - to the point where we can feel Emily’s sensory experiences. It was almost synesthetic.With this freedom, O’Connor had the potential to romanticise the Brontës, the hardship they faced, the death and grief they experienced. Instead, she humanises them. Every character is complex and fully fleshed-out. We are disappointed in Emily when she follows Branwell (Fionn Whitehead) in his path of rebellion just as we might criticise Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling) for her righteousness when she reads Wuthering Heights. We despise Weightman, for a split second, when he destroys his relationship with Emily. And yet, we understand every action, and can see every emotional justification they convince themselves with. It is this that O’Connor excels in; indeed, the characterisation reflects the novels she was inspired by. Her exploration of Emily as a woman who struggles with her mental health, who misuses opium to escape her reality and is influenced by her brother to do so, is also never romanticised. Rather, her trauma is explored sensitively.A word of warning, Emily is both sexy and, at times, historically-inaccurate. It is most definitely a 21st century rendition of how Emily Brontë might have lived, through our lenses and sensibilities; but, in my opinion, this only adds to the film’s atmosphere. From the moment Charlotte asks Emily ‘How did you write Wuthering Heights?’ we are transported into an imagined answer, O’Connor’s version of the events. Although a little on the nose, it is the perfect opening and the perfect end. A true fever dream, especially having seen it here in York, where I can now imagine myself walking across the same Dales or Moors.I would recommend this movie to anyone with an interest in the romantic, tragic lives of the Brontës, as well as to anyone with an eye for cinema and an ear for music. The viewing experience was all-consuming. Emily is truly a magnetic debut. (Margherita Volpato)
In no manner a traditional biographical film, Emily employs some truths about Emily’s life but prefers to speculate on how a reserved and socially awkward young woman could conceive of her passionate and cruel novel which deeply criticised the morals and social mores of the era in which it was written. For this purpose, O’Connor’s script gives Emily (Emma Mackey) two great loves: her feckless wastrel brother Branwell (Fionn Whitehead) and a young and handsome curate, William Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Coen).Gone are the notions of sisterly love (although Emily’s relationship with Anne (Amelia Gething) remains close but not crucial). O’Connor eyes Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling) with a certain coldness. On Emily’s deathbed, Charlotte criticises Wuthering Heights for depicting cruel and selfish people. Yet when Charlotte first reads Emily’s manuscript, she is brought to crippling tears of jealousy. If viewers are looking for a more faithful rendering of the shared companionship of the Brontë family, which also includes Branwell, they are better off tracking down Sally Wainwright’s excellent 2016 television film To Walk Invisible. [...]Emma Mackey’s performance as Emily is spellbinding. Mackey personifies O’Connor’s vision of the young woman who is filled with contradictions and complexity. Emily’s eyes can transfix, beguile, be filled with anxiety and disappointment and a simmering rage. Mackey is a 21st Century Emily Brontë but maintains a 19th Century authenticity. The chemistry between Mackey and Jackson-Coen is smouldering. As siblings, and avatars in a way for Cathy and Heathcliff, Mackey also has intense chemistry with Fionn Whitehead (in perhaps his best performance thus far). O’Connor doesn’t go so far as to suggest actual incest but there is something deliberately destructive in Branwell’s relationship with Emily.Brontë purists are going to find Frances O’Connor’s version of the author difficult, because she deliberately eschews a rote biography for the birth of the person who could write Wuthering Heights – a book seen as so shocking by the public of the time that they could only imagine it being written by a man. There will also be complaints about the lack of sisterly affection; Anne being mostly absent from the film, despite being Emily’s closest friend and confidant, will rankle some. O’Connor’s vision is a subversive and sumptuous glimpse of who Emily Brontë could have been, and even though she was unlikely to be the woman the film depicts, the Emily the audience sees on screen has a flesh and blood all of her own. (Nadine Whitney)
During the most isolating era of the pandemic, I decided to read all the Brontë sisters’ novels, partly because they, too, were isolated. In 1850, Charlotte Brontë published an account of their living situation in Yorkshire: “Resident in a remote district, where education had made little progress, and where, consequently, there was no inducement to seek social intercourse beyond our own domestic circle, we were wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the enjoyments and occupations of life.” [...]Maybe reading their work, I thought, could spur me to imagine my way out of my own isolation, or at least understand it better.As I marched into Brontëland, I found that Charlotte’s thoughts and prose gleamed, tidy and ferocious. Anne’s writing was smooth yet sturdy, like a wooden chair made comfy by many, many sits. Then there were Emily’s, in “Wuthering Heights,” which thrilled and frightened me.Now that Berkeley Repertory Theatre is importing Emma Rice’s adaptation of the novel, I decided to look more closely at that fright, seeking guidance from Rice, whose “Brief Encounter” at American Conservatory Theater and “The Wild Bride” at Berkeley Rep have been among the most gorgeous Bay Area shows of the last 15 years.“Everybody always thinks ‘Wuthering Heights’ is romantic, and it so isn’t,” Rice told me via Zoom from her home in Somerset, England. Her company, Wise Children, is based in Bristol. “It’s the most unromantic book ever. It’s about codependency and torture and emotional abuse and physical abuse.”In the book’s most famous relationship, Heathcliff (Liam Tamne at Berkeley Rep) and Cathy (Leah Brotherhead) see their love as the only one worthy of the name. Everyone outside of them is mere obstacle, pawn or nonentity, worthy of a sneer or a laugh, if that.Still, Rice persisted, “that intoxicating, obsessive relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy is just that: It’s intoxicating, but it does not bear scrutiny.” Each projects onto the other and loves the projection, not the human.“They’re both two trapped human beings who find in each other a possibility of a life they can never have,” Rice continued. “… They’re dreaming of their own freedom — her freedom from being a woman and having no rights to her own wealth, her own life, and and his dream of being a free man.“I think they want to smash things. I think they are filled with a rage that they cannot name because they’re in the middle of it.”Accordingly, in the show, she envisions them as punk rockers.Almost 200 years later, Cathy still thrills as a female character. She spurns all the era’s norms for her sex — demureness, selflessness — without becoming a villain.“She wants to be in trouble,” Rice said. “In this world where she has no agency, she goes, ‘I don’t think I give a s—.’ She has these grand passions and no loyalty whatsoever. There’s a sort of missing empathy gene. She’s not in the past at all. She’s in the present.”Rice noted that so much of Heathcliff and Cathy’s love takes place outside on the moors, a forbidding, hostile landscape; she made the moors a chorus of actors in the show.“Their love affair is described so clearly through them being free on the moors. They run, and they travel great distances. What an amazing metaphor it is for freedom,” she said, adding, “Both of them have this amazing life force which is politically repressed, and that is where their codependency comes: They see something in each other.”Running outside by ourselves was about all we could do during the worst of the pandemic. During the wildfires, even that was impossible. As I rattled around inside my 600-square-foot apartment, my furniture became wind-blasted dales and coarse, witchy grasses. Like Cathy, I was ready to wail and roar. Thanks to “Wuthering Heights,” I mostly didn’t have to. (Lily Janiak)
The stage appears to be propped up with neatly shelved books — classics from Hemingway, Joyce and Brontë, among others — and wine and cocktail glasses. (Maya Phillips)
The Scotsman talks about a new auction at Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh (13 Jan 2010 11:00) which includes some fine editions of Brontë books:Books, Maps & Manuscripts - Sale 274Anne Rice is interviewed by L.A. Weekly and insists on the debt the Twilight saga owes to Jane Eyre:
Lot 55
Bronte, Charlotte, Emily & Anne
Life and works. London: Smith Elder, 1890-94. 7 volumes, 8vo, plates, original green cloth, some hinges a little weak
Estimate £100-150
Lot 56
Bronte, Charlotte, Emily and Anne
[Novels]. Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, [n.d.]. 7 volumes, 8vo, green half calf gilt, spines slightly faded; Dickens, C. [Works]. [N.d.] 19 volumes, Daily News Memorial Edition, plates, maroon half morocco, slightly rubbed; Minarik, E.H. Little bear's visit. 1961. 8vo, plates by Maurice Sendak, cloth-backed boards, corners slightly rubbed; Burns, R. Poems. Edinburgh, 1811. 8vo, 2 volumes, engraved plates, modern cloth, pencil to frontispiece of volume 2; Waugh, E. Men at arms. 1952; Robb, J. Murrayfield Golf Club. 1947. Original cloth; and 20 others, miscellaneous (51)
Estimate £200-300
While she hasn’t read the Twilight novels, Rice has seen the movies. “They’re romances for very young kids. They’re about a young woman wanting and needing an older, mysterious figure who’s protective and yet something of a menace,” she says. It’s the Brontë sisters and Jane Eyre. “It was almost genius on Stephenie Meyer’s part to set it in high school. It works perfectly.” (Gendy Alimirung)More Twilight connections. On the Canwest News Service we read one more example of the saga of Wuthering Heights marketed as Bella's favourite:
The sign on a table inside a Toronto bookstore says, "Bella's picks. "Here, among Stephenie Meyer's bestselling vampire novels, are other titles wearing the series's trademark black, glossy jackets: Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights.And YPulse:
The tagline on the cover of Shakespeare's tragic play says "The original forbidden love," while the cover of Emily Brontë's 1847 novel Wuthering Heights features a seal that declares it to be: "Bella and Edward's favorite book."
HarperCollins, the publisher, has boosted sales of the classics by reprinting them with new "gothic" jackets to attract Twilight fans.
"Wuthering Heights has been selling much better ever since Twilight became so popular because fans know it's Bella's favourite book. But these editions in particular, because they look so similar to Twilight, have really taken off," says Trevor Dayton, vice-president, kids and entertainment at Indigo Books & Music Inc.
He says since the retailer started carrying the revamped books in the summer, stores have sold more than twice as many as previous editions, with sales heating up this holiday season.
"I remember reading Emily Brontë in high school. I can't say that I had any interest in reading those books but was told to by the teacher," he said. "I think it's better to have the books packaged in a way that is going to appeal to [readers] and endorsed by an author they clearly love."
Meyer's books, Breaking Dawn, Eclipse and New Moon, were among the top five best-selling books of the year, according to industry tracker BookNet Canada.
The protagonist, Bella Swan, makes reference to Wuthering Heights in the series, comparing her vampire love, Edward Cullen, to Brontë's brooding Heathcliff.
Wuthering Heights, with its Meyer-inspired jacket, has topped British bookseller, Waterstone's classic book chart for the first time since it started recording figures in 1998. "I don't think a vampire's recommendation has ever sent a book to No. 1 before," Simon Robertson, the company's classics buyer, told The Telegraph.
Realizing that Teens Read. As horrified as some critics and literature buffs were at the “Twilight-ification” of classics like “Wuthering Heights” both here and in the UK, the fact that these teen-friendly covers helped centuries-old books top bestseller lists is pretty sweet. (meredith)The Financial Times includes a question with a Brontë reference in its Christmas Quiz:
In his book Tormented Hope, Brian Dillon identifies a disorder shared by Charlotte Brontë, Charles Darwin, Marcel Proust, Andy Warhol, Florence Nightingale, Alice James and Glenn Gould. What is it? (Ludovic Hunter-Tilney)
Unless explicitly said
