A press release from the Brontë Parsonage Museum:Also on the Brontë Parsonage Blog.BARBARA TAYLOR BRADFORD LAUNCHES NEW SEASON OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS EVENTS AT THE BRONTË PARSONAGE MUSEUM
The Brontë Parsonage Museum launches its new Contemporary Arts Programme this month, with an evening with internationally bestselling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford on Saturday 19 September at 7.30pm at the Old Schoolroom, Haworth. The event will see Yorkshire-born Barbara Taylor Bradford return to the UK as part of a special tour celebrating 30 years since the publication of her landmark novel A Woman of Substance and her new book Breaking The Rules. Barbara Taylor Bradford will be discussing her books, career and love of the Brontës with arts critic and journalist Danuta Kean.
This special event is the first in a new season of contemporary arts events to take place at the Brontë Parsonage Museum between September 2009 and March 2010. Other high profile events will include readings by Sarah Waters (on the left) and Tracy Chevalier (on the right), and a talk by screenwriter Peter Bowker who recently adapted Wuthering Heights for ITV1.
As well as its usual mix of visual arts exhibitions, talks and workshops, the museum is currently receiving funding from Arts Council England to develop a season of events that showcase and celebrate women’s writing. Arts Officer Jenna Holmes says:“The Brontës were pioneering women writers and we are delighted that Arts Council England is supporting us to really explore and highlight theThe full details of the new programme are listed below:Brontës’ influence on contemporary women writers today. This special strand of programming includes visits by high-profile women writers such as Sarah Waters and Barbara Taylor Bradford, but it also enables us to appoint a writer-in-residence, Katrina Naomi, to explore the museum collections and work with community groups, as well as allowing us to support emerging women writers and introduce new creative writing projects and events for everyone who comes to the museum”.
Sam Taylor-Wood: Ghosts
Until Monday 2 November
Brontë Parsonage Museum
Landscape photographs of the moors around Haworth, inspired by Wuthering Heights, by major British artist Sam Taylor-Wood. Free on admission to the museum.
A Woman of Substance: An Evening with Barbara Taylor Bradford
Saturday 19 September
7.30pm, Old Schoolroom, Church St, Haworth
Internationally bestselling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford will be visiting the Brontë Parsonage Museum as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations of her landmark novel, A Woman of Substance, and the release of her new book, Breaking The Rules. She will be speaking about her work and the influence of the Brontës with journalist and arts critic Danuta Kean.
Barbara Taylor Bradford was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, and was a reporter for the Yorkshire Evening Post at sixteen. By the age of twenty she had graduated to London's Fleet Street as both an editor and columnist. In 1979, she wrote her first novel, A Woman of Substance, and that enduring bestseller has been followed by 24 others. Her novels have sold more than 81 million copies worldwide in more than 90 countries and 40 languages. Barbara Taylor Bradford lives in New York City.
Tickets are £5 and should be booked in advance.
Bookings: 01535 640188 / jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk
National Poetry Day – Writer in Residence
Saturday 10 October
Brontë Parsonage Museum
Poet Katrina Naomi is the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s first Writer in Residence, and over the coming months will be working in the collections, as well as facilitating a special community project. To mark National Poetry Day, Katrina Naomi will be engaging with museum visitors for the day, to produce new poems inspired by visitor responses.
Katrina Naomi is originally from Margate and now lives in London. Her first full collection The Girl with the Cactus Handshake will be published in October 2009. She won the 2008 Templar Poetry Competition and her pamphlet Lunch at the Elephant & Castle was published later that year. She has received an Arts Council England writer's award and a Hawthornden Fellowship, and has an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths. Katrina is also a lecturer in creative writing for the Open University.
Free on admission to the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
Tracy Chevalier
Friday 16 October
7.30pm, West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth
Novelist Tracy Chevalier will be visiting Haworth to read from and discuss her new novel, Remarkable Creatures. The novel tells the story of Mary Anning, who in nineteenth-century Lyme Regis discovers the first pre-dinosaur fossils which will pave the way for Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Tracy Chevalier is the author of five previous novels, including the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring (1999), The Virgin Blue (1997), Falling Angels (2001), The Lady and the Unicorn (2003) and Burning Bright (2007). Born in Washington, DC, she now lives in London with her husband and son. She is Chairman of the Society of Authors.
Tickets are £5 and should be booked in advance.
Bookings: 01535 640188 / jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk
Peter Bowker and Wuthering Heights
Saturday 24 October, 7pm
West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth
BAFTA winning screenwriter Peter Bowker will talk about his recent work adapting Wuthering Heights for television. Peter will be joined by director Coky Giedroyc and (filming schedules permitting) other key members of the production team to discuss the process of transferring the story from page to screen. The costumes from the ITV production are currently on display at the Parsonage.
Peter Bowker wrote Blackpool for the BBC, and adapted A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2005) and Chaucer’s The Miller’s Tale (2003) for television. His ITV movie Buried Treasure won the BAFTA Lew Grade Award for Most Popular Drama in 2001, and his television film, Flesh and Blood won the Prix Europa and two Royal Television Society awards in 2002. His three part drama, Occupation, about three British soldiers serving in Iraq was shown on BBC1 in 2009.
Tickets are £10 and must be booked in advance. Bookings: 01535 640188 / jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk
From Laptop to Bookshop: The Mslexia Roadshow
Saturday 28 November
Mslexia is a magazine dedicated to women writers. The Mslexia Roadshow offers a day of creative writing opportunities and to hear a successful author discuss her work. Each event can be booked onto individually or you can take part in the whole day.10am – 12pm, West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth
- Mslexia Workshop 1: Writing a synopsis
Led by novelist and founder of Mslexia Debbie Taylor, this creative writing workshop is aimed at novelists. It will help you identify what your novel is really about, and communicate it to an agent or editor.
Tickets £10 and includes admission to the museum; women only; places are limited and must be booked in advance.
Bookings: 01535 640188 / jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk1.30pm- 3.30pm, West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth
- Mslexia Workshop 2: First Paragraph
Led by novelist and experienced creative writing tutor Jane Rogers, this workshop is aimed at novelists and short story writers and will help you create an arresting first paragraph.
Tickets £10 and includes admission to the museum; women only; places are limited and must be booked in advance.
Bookings: 01535 640188 / jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk
Sarah Waters in conversation
6pm, West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth
Sarah Waters will be in conversation with Mslexia founder Debbie Taylor about her writing career and her latest novel, The Little Stranger.
Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature and has been an associate lecturer with the Open University. She has won a Betty Trask Award, the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. In 2003, she was named Author of the Year three times and was also chosen as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. Fingersmith won the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger Award for Historical Crime Fiction and the South Bank Show Award for Literature and both Fingersmith and The Night Watch were shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange prizes. Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and Fingersmith have all been adapted for television. The Night Watch is currently in development with the BBC. The Little Stranger has been long listed for the Man Booker Prize 2009.
Tickets are £8 and should be booked in advance; all welcome.
Bookings: 01535 640188 / jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk
Mr Lockwood’s Confusing Christmas
Saturday 12 December
Brontë Parsonage Museum
It’s Christmas and characters from the Brontës’ novels have escaped the pages of their books and been let loose in the Parsonage, where mayhem unfolds. What would happen if Mr Rochester met Cathy under the mistletoe, or Jane Eyre came across Heathcliff in the graveyard with a shovel? And when will Nelly Dean sort out that strange laughter coming from the attic?
Event takes place throughout the day. Free on admission to the museum.
Jo Brown: The Sunbeam and the Storm
Friday 5 March – Monday 3 March
Brontë Parsonage Museum
Artist Jo Brown exhibits a series of abstract paintings inspired by descriptions of weather in Emily Brontë’s poems.
Jo Brown was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and studied in Yorkshire, at Bretton Hall College then Sheffield Hallam University, gaining a BA (Hons) in Fine Art in 1995. She was artist in residence at Dean Clough, Halifax in 1995 and has since exhibited regularly in municipal and commercial galleries in England, Scotland and the USA. Free on admission to the Brontë Parsonage Museum
Lisa Appignanesi: Mad, Bad and Sad
Wednesday 10 March, 2pm
PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT HAS NOW BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL WEDNESDAY 28 APRIL 2010
West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth
“Charlotte Brontë’s portrait of Bertha Mason, the ‘mad, bad and embruted’ wife of Rochester in Jane Eyre has taken on iconic value. But by the time Brontë penned it, she was drawing on what were already old images of madness, probably garnered from the notorious Bedlam”. Lisa Appignanesi
Lisa Appignanesi will be talking about her latest book MAD, BAD and SAD: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800. Including writers such as Charlotte Brontë, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, this is the history of the study of the female mind over the past two centuries. The book has been shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, the Warwick, the MIND and has won the Medical Journalist’s Award.
Lisa Appignanesi is a novelist, writer and broadcaster, she is former deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, chair of the Freud Museum and president of English PEN.
Admission is £3 and there is no need to book in advance
An Afternoon with Persephone Books
Wednesday 24 March, 2pm
West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth
Persephone Books reprints neglected novels, diaries, short stories and cookery books by women writers such as Dorothy Whipple and Katherine Mansfield. Founder Nicola Beauman talks about the origins of Persephone, how books are chosen and some of the authors.
Admission is £3 and there is no need to book in advance
As we have informed before, tomorrow at the Brontë Parsonage Museum Barbara Taylor Bradford has a rendez-vous with her readers:A woman of Substance: An evening with Barbara Taylor BradfordBarbara Taylor Bradford seems to have quite some fans among The Telegraph & Argus staff as they devote two articles to this event:
Saturday 19 September, 7.30 PM, Old Schoolroom, Church St., Haworth
Internationally bestselling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford will be visiting the Brontë Parsonage Museum as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations of her landmark novel, A Woman of Substance, and the release of her new book, Breaking the Rules. She will be speaking about her work and the influence of the Brontës with journalist and arts critic Danuta Kean.
Best-selling author Barbara Taylor Bradford will be in Haworth this weekend to talk about her 30-year career and the influence of the Brontes on her work. (...) (Emma Clayton)Number two:
Writer Barbara Taylor Bradford is to launch the latest Bronte arts season.Categories: Alert, Brontë Parsonage Museum
Barbara, best-known for A Woman of Substance, will discuss her books, career and love of the Brontes.
She will speak with art critic and journalist Danuta Kean in Haworth on Saturday at 7.30pm.
Barbara’s appearance at the Old Schoolroom, Haworth, is part of a UK tour celebrating 30 years of her most famous work. (...)
Also on the Brontë Parsonage Blog.As Wuthering Heights hits TV screens this August Bank Holiday, viewers can see the costumes from the production on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Plus details of upcoming events with Bonnie Greer and Barbara Taylor Bradford.
Viewers who will enjoy ITV’s new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, to be broadcast over the coming bank holiday weekend, should make a visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth where they can see the original costumes from the production on display. Outfits worn by the cast in the two-part drama, including dresses worn by Charlotte Riley as Cathy and Heathcliff’s (played by Tom Hardy) dramatic long black coat, are displayed within the period rooms of the museum.
The new drama, which hits screens on Sunday August 30 & Monday 31 at 9pm, was filmed at various locations in Yorkshire and was adapted for television by BAFTA-winning screenwriter Peter Bowker. Peter Bowker will be visiting Haworth, along with members of the production team, in October to speak about the process of adapting such a classic novel for television, as part of the museum’s contemporary arts programme of talks and events.
The museum will also be hosting two events with high-profile authors in September, again as part of the contemporary arts programme of events.
On Wednesday 9 September, at 2pm, playwright, critic and broadcaster Bonnie Greer will be speaking about her latest novel Entropy at the Old Schoolroom, Church St, Haworth and tickets (priced £3) will be available on the door.
On Saturday 19 September, international bestselling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford will be visiting Haworth as part of a special tour celebrating 30 years since the publication of her landmark novel A Woman of Substance. The event will take place at the Old Schoolroom, Haworth at 7.30pm. Barbara Taylor Bradford will also be speaking about and signing copies of her new novel Breaking the Rules and will be talking about her love of the Brontës with arts critic and journalist Danuta Kean. Tickets will cost £5 and should be booked in advance.
About Barbara Taylor Bradford
Barbara Taylor Bradford was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, and was a reporter for the Yorkshire Evening Post at sixteen. By the age of twenty she had graduated to London's Fleet Street as both an editor and columnist. In 1979, she wrote her first novel, A Woman of Substance, and that enduring bestseller has been followed by 24 others. Her novels have sold more than 81 million copies worldwide in more than 90 countries and 40 languages. Barbara Taylor Bradford lives in New York City.
For tickets and further information on any of these events, contact the Brontë Parsonage Museum on 01535 640188 / jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk.
Get prepared for a blubfest as the latest adaptation of Emily Brontë's epic tale arrives on the small screen this Sunday and Monday on ITV1.The New Statesman poses a question:
The drama has a stellar cast, including Tom Hardy as Heathcliff, Charlotte Riley as Cathy, Sarah Lancashire as Nelly and Andrew Lincoln as Edgar. (Sarah Wallis)
Will Tom Hardy snarl or simmer as Heathcliff? New adaptation. (Rachel Cooke)The Yorkshire Evening Post goes a little further explaining how the economical crisis has also arrived to the Heights:
I was interested in some of the comments in particular.... "Screen Yorkshire's valuable investment and productive support along with the fantastic crew and facilities in the region" and Hugo Heppell's comment "We hope this production will further cement Yorkshire's reputation in the top destination in the UK for location drama."The Telegraph & Argus goes to Ann Dinsdale, collections manager at the Parsonage:
What a pity that several of the 'fantastic crew' i.e. the editing/ post production team at Yorkshire Television, who worked on Wuthering Heights along with many other excellent drama programmes, are no longer employed in the region, if still in the industry, thanks to the untimely loss of almost 200 jobs in June this year.
The team at YTV were creative, talented and dedicated . What a shame more could not have been done to secure their jobs in the region. Yorkshire needs its own properly-funded film and post production facility. I look forward to watching Wuthering Heights but there will be a part of me thinking of those, whose names will appear in the credits, who no longer have a secure future and may never again be privileged to work on such excellent productions. (Glynis Dickson, email)
“It fits into different settings and has been translated into at least 26 different languages,” she says. “It’s a fascinating book, a huge life-changing novel. It’s part of popular culture, inspiring countless interpretations.”And also in the Telegraph & Argus there's an article on the exhibition of costumes at the Brontë Parsonage. Picture: Jenna Holmes admires the costume worn by actress Charlotte Riley (Source):
Ann says the romantic appeal of Heathcliff is largely down to films, and she hopes the new TV drama will present a more rounded version.
“He’s one of the darkest characters in literature, he’s brutal, violent, cruel, vindictive,” she says. “But there’s a romantic ideal of him, based on films. I hated the 1939 film. It’s largely responsible for the romantic gloss cast over the novel. “A lot of films tend to end with Cathy’s death, but it’s only when you cover the whole story that you get a rounded view of Heathcliff. In later years he’s abusive, broken and middle-aged. He’s not an attractive, brooding young man anymore.” (...)
Peter [Bowker] will visit the Bronte Parsonage Museum in October to talk about the process of adapting a classic novel for television.
And next month Leeds-born best-selling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford will be at the Old Schoolroom, Haworth, talking about her love of the Brontes with arts critic and journalist Danuta Kean. (Emma Clayton)
Bronte Parsonage Museum arts officer Jenna Holmes admires the costume worn by actress Charlotte Riley as she plays Cathy in the latest small-screen adaptation of Wuthering Heights.Another exhibition at the Parsonage, Sam Taylor-Wood's Ghosts is the subject of an article in The Moment (New York Times blog):
Costumes from the two-part drama, which hits the screens on ITV on Sunday and Monday at 9pm, can be seen in the period rooms of the museum at Haworth, the home of the Bronte family including Emily who wrote the Wuthering Heights novel. The costumes also include the outfit worn by actor Tom Hardy who plays Heathcliff.
Visitors can also see details of upcoming events with writer and pundit Bonnie Greer and Leeds-born best-selling author Barbara Taylor Bradford.
The passionate, maddening love between Heathcliff and Catherine in Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” has long been fodder for many artists, from Albert Camus to Death Cab for Cutie. Recently, the photographer Sam Taylor-Wood has expanded the Victorian novel’s influence by shooting the very place that inspired Brontë: the area near the village of Haworth in West Yorkshire. For many years, Taylor-Wood — who shared a country house in the region with her then husband, the art dealer Jay Jopling — photographed the wind-swept lands of heather and moors, and ominous gray skies. In the series, “Ghosts,” which is on display at the Bronte Parsonage Museum through Nov. 2, Taylor-Wood has created romantic, melancholic reflections offset by simple beauty — gray skies, spidery trees, the odd ram — giving a redemptive quality to a harsh landscape. (Marina Cashdan)Another NYT Blog, Paper Cuts, gives voice to John Williams (editor of Second Pass) to select his favourite bookish playlist:
Wuthering Heights, Kate Bush, Pat Benatar and a thousand others. Like the Cure’s Smith, Bush was a teenager when she wrote this, and it was her debut single. But this is a literary adaptation of a very different sort: There’s dewy sentiment lacquered all over it. In a voice so high that LP listeners must have frequently checked to make sure the turntable speed was correct, Bush sings, “How could you leave me / When I needed to possess you? / I hated you / I loved you, too.” The verses just about drown you, but the melody of the chorus provides a lifeline of beauty (“Heathcliff, it’s me, your Cathy / I’ve come home”), and that might be the reason so many performers have been inspired to cover it, from Pat Benatar to the punk band White Flag to Hybrid Kids, whose jokey version from 1979 is both awfully strange and strangely awful. (Joke or not, the vocals sound like a drunken pirate singing reggae at a karaoke night — not pleasant.) (Blake Wilson)Michelle Kerns continues her biased gender-oriented book preferences in the Book Examiner. Now for women:
You love and adore Charlotte Bronte; he won't touch your copy of Jane Eyre regardless of your pleas. (...)Sarah Schmelling, author of Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float mentions the Brontës in an article in The Huffington Post:
75 books every woman should read (...)
9. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
15. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
33. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Or, how about a translation of The Canterbury Tales--which is actually quite raunchy, any Apatow lover would revel in the fart jokes--without having to memorize the Whan that Aprille? Or any Shakespeare play. The Brontës: yes, Heathcliff and Rochester still hold up.Grey Area reviews the radio adaptation Jane Eyre 1994 (recently on BBC7), the original novel is the subject of this post on Totally Tina. För nöjes skull posts about Wuthering Heights in Norwegian and Cheerful Cynicism about Wuthering Heights 1939. Eyrial likes Charlotte Brontë stuff.
The Brontë Parsonage Museum was recently awarded £50000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund to support an exciting programme of developments that will take place at the museum in January 2010. This blog is a forum for people in and around Haworth to keep up to date with the project, and make comments and suggestions.Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Music, Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights
The free local residents day on Saturday 8 August was a great success with 270 local people taking advantage of the offer, almost half of whom were first time visitors to the museum. (...)
Remember if you are intersested in having a more in depth opportunity to give us your input and are able to attend either of our residents evenings on 15 and 23 September, please contact Andrew McCarthy on andrew.mccarthy@bronte.org.uk
I first read Wuthering Heights when I was about 12 or 13 years old. It was a favourite of my mother's, and she bought me a copy.And secondly Helen Dunmore - much loved here at BrontëBlog - is interviewed by Anna Metcalfe.
I remember finding the novel strange, mysterious, dramatic and compelling.
Most of all, it was very touching.
As I grew older, I came to understand that it was a story of revenge, and not a great love story, as so many think it is.
I became addicted to the books of the Bronte sisters - Emily, Charlotte and Anne. Often, my mother would take me to Haworth, where the sisters grew up with their brother, Branwell, at the Haworth Parsonage. Their father was the parson. This is a museum now. My mother also took me over the wild, windswept moors to Top Withens, supposedly the site of Wuthering Heights, which is of course, the name of the house where Catherine Earnshaw lived, not a place.
I grew up in Yorkshire, and Haworth is about two hours from Leeds, the city of my birth. This book, more than any other, influenced me and my writing.
I believe Emily Bronte to be one of the great geniuses of English literature. So influenced am I by the Brontes, I invented a play called Charlotte and Her Sisters, which I used in my novel The Triumph of Katie Byrne. Katie is an actress and appears in the play, but before this happens, I ''take'' her to Haworth to visit the parsonage.
What is so extraordinary about Wuthering Heights is that Emily Bronte used two narrators to tell her story. Also, Heathcliff is the great Byronic hero. Even today, I find the book unputdownable.
Barbara Taylor Bradford is author of ''Heirs of Ravenscar'' (HarperCollins).
Have you ever imitated another writer’s style?Let's continue with Brontëites and the news du jour. Today's Justine Picardie's Daphne release date and both Justine Picardie and Daphne du Maurier can be clearly classified as Brontëites of the highest order.
I’ve been influenced by a large number of writers. I copied the patterns in the poetry of Keats and T.S. Eliot in my teens. I aspire to F. Scott Fitzgerald for precision in writing, and Charlotte Bronte for her daring.
I have a major interest in all things relating to Daphne du Maurier and I love Justine Picardie's writing so I had been waiting eagerly for Justine's new novel `Daphne'. I was not disappointed, once I started reading I could not put it down. The story has an involved plot, which provides the reader with masses of detail and information, making the book a compelling read.The Sigla Blog also writes on the subject of Daphne. The blog owner hasn't read it yet but posts a reflection on it all the same, discussing the idea behind the book and Justine Picardie's recent articles in the press.
The story is told by three people Daphne du Maurier, Alex Symington and a young woman. Despite the three narratives, each of which interweaves with the other two, it is not an unnecessarily complicated novel. The way the story moves chapter by chapter through the different areas of the novel, helps you to hold on to everything that is happening. I think the story about the young woman is what held me the most, probably because, for me, she was the unknown quantity. She was so isolated from all the affection and comfort that most people take for granted...she was lost and alone and when she eventually found herself and we found out her name I was very moved. I like to think that she was called Jane after Wendy's daughter in Peter Pan. There were many other moments that really touched me - references to Guy du Maurier, Gerald du Maurier and the birds, the fact that inevitably Peter Llewelyn Davies was going to throw himself under that train, the young woman in the grounds of Menabilly. There was so much that had to be told and it was done brilliantly.
The elements of the novel that relate to Daphne du Maurier and Alex Symington have been well researched and are very strong factually and the fiction which is the young woman's story brings the whole narrative together beautifully. I lived and breathed every word and I hope other readers will appreciate the detail and complexity of this book as well as enjoying its content. I am sure this will be a book that provokes much interest and discussion and that it will give the author the recognition that she deserves.
What sort of person deserves love? Is it someone whose face resembles the ethereal quality that the symbol of affection embodies? Is it someone whose character is blameless? Is it someone accustomed to hard labor or someone used to riches and leisure? These are some of the questions posed in N.G. McClernan's theatrical adaptation of Jane Eyre. And while the talented cast try their best to paint a portrait of love, far more things than breaking through the bridled, Victorian era stand in their way. [...]Here is a complex image from an article on fashion in the French newspaper Le Figaro:
The 23 characters from the novel are reduced to 16, with four actors taking on various, memorable roles. Bruce Barton, resembling Kelsey Grammar in appearance, recycles his bombastic speaking voice for all the roles, but still manages to entertain. Alice Connorton and Annalisa Loeffler are both chameleons, deserving mention for their versatility. Unlike the novel, the production spends a great deal of time on Jane's experience with St. John Rivers, her cousin and potential mate. As Rivers, Nat Cassidy is much harsher and religious law-abiding that his character is in the novel, but it also helps us to understand why Jane runs back to Rochester. She not only still loves Rochester, but committing to Rivers is clearly a fate that she doesn't want for herself. The audience doesn't want that for her either. As Jane, Murphy is appropriately meek and blunt at the right times. Although her interactions with Bodine can't be wholly described as fiery, when they do get comfortable with each other and their declarations of love, they do come alive together. Bodine, sometimes rigid and humorless for Rochester's restraints, is debonair when he needs to be.
Jane Eyre is an ambitious effort to stage a highly respected, 400 page novel. The fact that they were able to encapsulate the gist of the novel in a two-hour presentation is a feat unto itself. However, some of the technical elements need to be smoother, and some of the staging choices need to be revisited before it can be called a success. And while it does shine in some parts, it won't be winning any new fans of Victorian fiction with the dry and tiresome beginning. Still, there are explorations of views on important themes such as social class, gender relations, morality and religion that are still pertinent today. While you may not be able to identify with corsets and Victorian restraint, the themes discussed in the novel and in this production should be familiar to you as components of the upcoming presidential election. (Cindy Pierre)
À ces néo-George Sand, on préfère les passages plus « loose » où le grand manteau d’officier ceinturé évoque joliment l’allure racée d’une Lauren Bacall qui se serait égarée dans un roman des sœurs Brontë. (Caroline Rousseau)It basically says that the item is reminiscent of Lauren Bacall lost in a novel by the Brontë sisters. Complex, as we said.
Her parents, whose marriage she fictionalized in “Act of Will” (1986), supported Barbara’s early desire to write, buying her a typewriter when she was 10 and introducing her to literature, opera and the theater. As a teenager, she read Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Thomas Hardy and the French novelist Colette. (Robert D. McFadden)
Her original manuscripts are archived in Leeds University’s Brotherton Library, beside those of the Brontë sisters, whose books Taylor Bradford read as a child. (Casey Cooper-Fiske)
Literary enthusiasts will find Hathersage particularly enchanting, as it houses North Lees Hall, the inspiration for Charlotte Brontë's 'Jane Eyre'. (Phoebe Cornish and Isobel Pankhurst)
5. West Yorkshire: HaworthHaworth, forever tied to the Brontë sisters, inspired canonical novels like Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The village’s cobbled streets preserve its 19th-century grace while its stone-built houses, often constructed from locally quarried gritstone, give the buildings their distinct earthy hue. The neighbouring South Pennine moors – central to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights – feature wild moors, which in summer are painted purple and green by blooming heather and bilberry. (Sam Long)
A blow for Brontë fans. The house where Anne, Emily, Charlotte and Branwell were born and raised has been sold for a bargain price to an unknown buyer, even though Brontë fans were planning to buy it. The terraced house in Thornton, Yorkshire, where the Brontë family lived for five years before moving to Haworth in 1820, was sold to a couple for £120,000, gazumping the Brontë Birthplace Trust, who had been hoping to convert it into a museum. Bradford Council turned down their application for funding, saying it wouldn't be a good use of money in these austere times. But all is not lost: another Brontë house is also up for sale. Ponden Hall, high up on the moors, is thought to have been the model for Thrushcross Grange in Wuthering Heights, and is Grade II* listed, with eight bedrooms. Trouble is, the asking price is a meaty £950,000. I think we know the council's answer to that. (Matthew Bell)Barbara Taylor Bradford defends Kate Middleton from the recent attacks by Hilary Mantel in The Telegraph:
Hilary recommended that Kate read Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. I don’t know what Kate has read. It is making assumptions, of course, that she hasn’t read anything. On the other hand, here is a woman who has a good education and was an excellent student. So I wouldn’t presume to suggest Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Gone with the Wind or, indeed, Wolf Hall. It’s making an assumption that Kate has not read books. That is the awful thing we do – and one of the points Hilary was making.The Sunday Times talks about Mia Wasikowska's career and mentions, of course, her Jane Eyre:
Instead, she makes do with being brilliant in films such as The Kids Are All Right and the recent Jane Eyre. She was so good in the latter, Meryl Streep even name-checked her in her last Golden Globes speech. (Giles Hattersley)The Independent briefly reviews the Great Expectations 2012 DVD:
Unlike the recent, more daring deconstructions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, Mike Newell's Great Expectations is close to being a scene-by-scene translation of the novel. (Nicholas Barber)Female First interviews the writer Susanna Jones:
What is your favourite novel?We have a weird reference today. A Brontë reference in the Materials Handling World Magazine:
It changes but, if I had to pick one, it would be Jane Eyre. My favourite contemporary novel is probably The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I've read it so many times and it never fails to move and fascinate me. (Lucy Walton)
[Andy Kaye] is championing the NOVUS project together with University of Huddersfield Senior Lecturer in transport, David Leach, This fine Yorkshire institution is in an area which has a few logistical centuries of supply chain nightmares to resolve with canals that caught fire, trains that were wrecked and road infrastructures over some of the UK's least hospitable terrain better suited to the wild imaginings of Wuthering Heights than 40' articulated trunkers. The perfect birth place for a new focused qualification. (Paul Casebourne)Mymovies.it reviews Anna Karenina 2012 and quotes from Tolstoi himself:
Fra le eroine a lui vicine nel tempo Tolstoj citava Jane Eyre di Charlotte Brönte (sic) e Carmen di Mérimée. Jane ha il coraggio di mettere in discussione il proprio amore perché l'uomo che ama le ha mentito. Dunque rispetto e parità. Carmen non ama più José, si è innamorata di Lucas. Sa che sarà uccisa da José, ma difende la facoltà di cambiare idea. (Translation)Die Welt talks about the German publication of Elizabeth Taylor's A Game of Hide and Seek:
Als sich Elizabeth Bowen im Frühjahr 1951 den neuen Roman ihrer englischen Kollegin Elizabeth Taylor rezensierte, hielt sie mit ihrer Begeisterung nicht hinterm Berg. Sie stellte "Versteckspiel" in eine Reihe mit Jane Austens "Überredung" und Emily Brontës "Sturmhöhe". Und wer Taylors Roman jetzt erstmals in Bettina Abarbanells nuancierter Übersetzung liest, kann Bowen nicht widersprechen. (Rainer Moritz) (Translation)Heavenly Wordliness posts about the Brontës; Kate Shrewsday posts about Charlotte Brontë and phrenology; Tiers & Tiaras presents a Jane Eyre-inspired Wedding Cake.
Think Brontemania and you’re likely to think of a windswept parsonage standing against bleak moorland, overlooking the cobbled streets of Haworth. The Brontes’ former home has been a museum for more than 80 years, and attracts thousands of visitors from around the world.Also The Telegraph and Argus reports that East Riddleden Hall will be open to the public as part of this year's Heritage Open Days:
Numbers have been boosted by the ITV adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic Wuthering Heights, shown last week. Costumes from the drama, including dresses worn by actress Charlotte Riley as Cathy and a long black coat worn by Tom Hardy as Heathcliff, are on display at the museum until the end of the year.
But the Bronte trail doesn’t just lead to Haworth. The literary family left a mark across the district, from Thornton, where the sisters’ birthplace stands in Market Street, to Apperley Bridge, where Charlotte taught, to the Spen Valley, which provided much of the inspiration for her novel, Shirley.
In the TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights, also starring Andrew Lincoln and Sarah Lancashire, both East Riddlesden Hall and Oakwell Hall had a starring role as the Earnshaw family’s moorland home.
Exterior shots of East Riddlesden’s imposing facade were featured, and filming at Oakwell Hall took place in the kitchen, with its huge stone fireplace, parlour, wood-panelled dining-room, used as Mr Earnshaw’s study, the painted chamber and a servant’s room upstairs. Artefacts from the TV drama currently on display at Oakwell Hall include a signed script, a portrait of Cathy, a headboard carved with the names Cathy and Heathcliff, and the deeds to Wuthering Heights which Heathcliff made a drunken Hindley sign.
There was already a Bronte connection to Oakwell Hall long before the Wuthering Heights film crew rolled up. Charlotte Bronte visited the house in the 19th century and it was the inspiration for Fieldhead in Shirley.
Built in 1583, the manor house is set out as it would have been in the 1690s, when it was home to the Batt family. A mix of original and reproduction furnishings provide an insight into late 17th century life. Outside, dotted around a pretty courtyard, is a visitor centre, shop, cafe and ‘Discover Oakwell’ gallery.
The house is set in 110 acres of country park, with delightful walks, nature trails, a period garden and a wildlife area.
Over at Gomersal, an 1830s former cloth merchant’s home, Red House, also has a Bronte link. The home of Charlotte’s friend Mary Taylor, it is featured as Briarmains in Shirley.
“There was no splendour, but taste was everywhere,” wrote Charlotte about the pretty red-brick house, which looks much as it did in her day. Each room brings you closer to the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone-flagged kitchen with its old range and jelly moulds, to the stained glass windows, described in the novel. Charlotte’s Spen connections and friendship with Mary are explored in an exhibition in the barn.
Wandering around the Parsonage Museum, with the sound of crows outside, there’s a fascinating flavour of the Brontes’ domestic and creative lives.
Items on display include Charlotte’s writing materials and their father Patrick’s magnifying glass.
Pre-booked guided tours allow visitors to see treasures from the Bronte Society’s world-famous collections not always on display, including miniature books, made from sugar paper stitched together, which the siblings created as children.
Outdoor activities include guided walks around Haworth, starting in the Parsonage garden, which remains pretty much as it was during the Brontes’ time. A Cyprus Pine tree has grown from saplings planted by Charlotte acquired on honeymoon in Ireland.
Peter Bowker, screenwriter of ITV’s Wuthering Heights, will be at West Lane Baptist Church, Haworth, on September 24 to talk about the process of adapting a classic novel for television.
Next Saturday, novellist Barbara Taylor Bradford will be at Haworth’s Old Schoolroom talking about her love of the Brontes.
Factfile The Bronte Parsonage Museum, Haworth, is open from April to September, 10am-5.30pm and October to March, 11am-5pm. For more, ring (01535) 642323 or bronte.org Oakwell Hall, Nutter Lane, Birstall, is open weekdays, 11am-5pm, and Saturdays and Sundays, noon-5pm. Ring (01924) 326240 or visit kirklees.gov.uk East Riddlesden Hall, Bradford Road, Riddlesden, is open Saturday to Wednesday, 11am-5pm. Ring (01535) 607075 or visit eastriddlesdenhall.co.uk Red House Museum, Oxford Road, Gomersal, is open Monday to Friday, 11am-5pm and Saturdays and Sundays, noon-5pm. Ring (01274) 335100. (Emma Clayton)
East Riddlesden Hall, near Keighley, owned by the National Trust, was one of eight of the charity’s Yorkshire properties taking part in Heritage Open Days programme.Don't forget that Holy Trinity Church at Little Ouseburn - the church Anne attended while working for the Robinson family - will also be open as part of the same initiative.
The 17th century manor house, which has a country garden, grass maze and duck pond, also has links to the Civil War and was the location for the 1992 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights. (Hannah Baker)
SIR – Haworth is a lovely place, I go there often. There’s nothing better than strolling up Main Street to the Bronte Parsonage, and then back down to The Fleece, where on a nice afternoon one can sit outside with a pint of Timmy Taylors, chill out, and watch the world go by.After all this (excepting the hateful clamper, of course), the following article from the Keighley News is hardly surprising, is it?
Just one thing spoils it. Why can’t Bradford Council replace the modern imitation gas lamp, opposite the pub, with a genuine ‘proper’ Victorian gas lamp (adapted to electric of course).
For a few hundred quid it would look much better and more in keeping with the street.
Just one more thing while talking of improvements; get rid of the wheel-clamping ‘Dick Turpin’ – he gives Haworth a bad name.
I Dickinson, Cooper Lane, Horton Bank Top
Keighley and Haworth are helping Yorkshire in its role as one of the most popular tourist destinations in the UK.A town on the other side of the pond - in Texas - also has a Brontë connection, according to the San Angelo Standard Times:
Bradford district comes out as a top spot in a visitor survey which reveals how the county is bucking tourism trends.
And the Brontë Parsonage Museum and Keighley and Worth Valley Railway are among the tourist hotspots.
The city and surrounding area was praised for its “good atmosphere”.
The majority of visitors — 84 per cent — planned to attend museums or other cultural attractions, according to the survey.
Almost 11,000 people visiting the county were quizzed about their opinions, between May 2008 and April this year.
The survey was funded by Yorkshire Forward and managed by Welcome to Yorkshire.
Its aim was to give a breakdown of visitor habits and the results revealed high scores for feeling welcome, customer service and atmosphere and value for money.
Bradford was said to be full of character and had lovely countryside and the Haworth area was good for walking and visiting.
Jim Shipley, of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, said the survey was in line with what the heritage line was experiencing.
“We have noticed that the number of visitors midweek is higher — last year we suffered a drop,” he said. “And there is a distinct increase in the number of foreign visitors. All this is very gratifying. Keeping visitors and ensuring they return involves giving them extra value when they get here — not just a trip on a steam locomotive.”
Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “This is the first time that such in-depth visitor information has been collated.
“Headline results show that 96 per cent of visitors would recommend to a friend and 88 per cent are likely to return, which is excellent.”
Folklore has it that the town of Bronte was named after the author of “Wuthering Heights” when it was founded in the 1880s. . . (Laurel L. Scott)Western Mail reviews The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini.
She left the Caribbean in 1907 for a convent school in England, already by this time a lover of the works of Dickens and the Brontes. [...]The Monthly Review discusses 'a new edition of Jonah Raskin’s The Mythology of Imperialism: A Revolutionary Critique of British Literature and Society in the Modern Age', making a brief reference to Emily Brontë.
But it was Wide Sargasso Sea, published in 1966 after she spent many years as a recluse in Devon, which is best remembered.
The book was written as a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 classic Jane Eyre.
In the novel, set in the Caribbean, Rhys invents a dark and disturbing history for the unfortunate first bride of Edward Rochester, known as Bertha Mason.
Pizzichini said: “Written more than 40 years ago, Wide Sargasso Sea clearly mined Rhys’s memories of life in the lush backwaters and steamy heat of Dominica in her attempt to explain how Bronte’s dishevelled figure locked in the attic came to lose her mind.”
Bethan Jenkins, Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales West, has listed Wide Sargasso Sea as one of her favourite books. She described it as a “strong critique of colonialism with a vibrant feminist edge”. (Robin Turner)
As a big fan of Victorian novels, even the stay-at-home kind, I’m tempted to object that some of what Raskin says about the Victorians (not all of which is negative—he does see important virtues in Dickens, Emily Bronte, and even George Eliot) is tendentiously arranged to make the contrasting case for the modernists who came afterward. Is there too much resolution in the endings of Victorian novels? Well, maybe, but it depends on how good you are at recognizing loose ends, so to speak, that carry the logic of the novel beyond its final distribution of reward and punishment. These novels invest a lot of energy in issues that they cannot finally resolve, and that they all but admit they cannot resolve. In this sense, they do what Raskin’s book also does: teach readers to recognize the contradictions in their lives by following out the contradictions lived by literary characters, even if no one can imagine any immediate or likely resolution to those contradictions. (Bruce Robbins)And it looks like we're in for another ride in the 'Austen-meets-Brontë' review type, as shown by this article from The Telegraph on the BBC's forthcoming Emma adaptation.
Producers seem to believe that passion is good and appeals to modern audiences, while emotional restraint is a distortion of natural impulses therefore bad. Perhaps this is what is behind the new BBC adaptation. It sounds as if what they're going to create is a strange kind of hybrid: Austen crossed with the Brontes or Bridget Jones in a bonnet.Crafty people on the blogs today: Love and Friendship has created several Jane Eyre 2006 icons and Carol's Crafty Creations has pictures of her Wuthering Heights quilt.
In some ways the aim to make Emma alive and readable is laudable but you have to work out how much you can change Austen for it to still be Austen. (Judith Hawley)
In her version of “The Enormous Crocodile,” Aboulker has re-imagined Dahl’s story with a girl sitting by the side of the lake on a hot summer day, as she often did during her holidays. She preferred to isolate herself to the south, and read her favorite authors- Dickens, Brontë or Austen.The Times of India talks about the Times Literature Festival in Delhi, India:
Day one of the fourth edition of the Times Literature Festival ended on a high note as Henry Eliot’s talk on ‘Classics the World is Reading’ received a full house attendance. Through his talk, Eliot, author of ‘The Penguin Classics Book’ and Creative Editor of Penguin Classics in the UK, took the audience on a literary tour of around 4000 years of classics in a session that lasted for 40 minutes. (...)Bollywood Life asks for a second season of Meri Aashiqui Tum Se Hi:
With 19th century romanticism, literature started to become dark and the American novel ‘Moby-Dick’ is an example of it. But Eliot’s book recommendation from this era is the 1847 classic ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brontë. (Surabhi Rawat)
And today is the day when we talk about Colors' popular daily soap Meri Aashiqui Tum Se Hi. The show started in 2014 and aired for a total of two years. Inspired by Wuthering Heights, a novel by Emily Brontë, the series made TV actor Shakti Arora and Radhika Madan big names in the industry. To such an extent that Madan even signed two films in Bollywood after it. With around 446 episodes, the romance between Ranveer and Ishani, characters played by Shakti and Radhika respectively, went on to become a rage.A recent student production in The New Orleans Advocate:
Remarkable women throughout history came to life recently at Mount Carmel Academy’s “Living HERstory Biographical Celebration." Fifty students took an active role in the event, each choosing a historically significant woman to research. Students told their subject’s story, sharing information about her to classmates in creative and interactive ways. The women portrayed included Sonia Sotomayor, Nellie Bly, Elizabeth Tudor, Harriet Tubman, Agatha Christie, Marie Curie, the Brontë sisters, Rosa Parks, Malala Yousafzai and Ada Lovelace.The Manchester Evening News mentions one of the Coronation Street plots that involved Wuthering Heights:
In one of their most memorable storylines earlier in their friendship an infatuated Mary kidnapped Norris in plot similar to the novel Misery.The Stage publishes the obituary of the actor Andrew Burt:
And she fantasised about her and Norris being Weatherfield's answer to Heathcliffe (sic) and Cathy from Wuthering Heights. (Dianne Bourne)
He found early professional work in rep in Perth, Cheltenham and the Worthing Connaught, where his admired Heathcliff in a 1974 staging of Wuthering Heights prompted The Stage to note of his portrayal: “There are moments when [it] reaches great heights.” (Michael Quinn)The Boar has some Christmas traditions for the book lover:
If exploring a new author or literary genre isn’t for them, people often re-read their favourite books during the Christmas period. Wuthering Heights is a classic for the run-up to Christmas, although I prefer Pride and Prejudice as my annual comfort read – but that’s a debate for another time. These are of course books which lack a festive theme despite their association to Christmas. (Jasmine Dhesi)ElectricLit interviews Charlotte Whittle, the English translator of the Norah Lange novel, Personas en la sala:
Heather Cleary: Excellent. So, what is People in the Room about?The Times interviews the author Barbara Taylor Bradford:
CW: The scenario is that a seventeen-year-old girl — the novel’s narrator — lives in a well-to-do suburb of Buenos Aires, and spends hours spying on three mysterious women, whom she assumes to be spinsters, and who live in the house opposite her own. One night, she is struck by the arresting image of their three faces arranged in the form of a “pale clover.” Lange said in an interview that the image came to her after she saw the famous portrait of the three pale-faced Brontë sisters by their brother Branwell, who erased himself, but whose ghostly outline can still be seen in the painting.
Amid much literary speculation attempting to root Bradford’s oeuvre within the traditions of the romantic poets and the Brontës, [Piers] Dudgeon came up with a scoop in his biography. Barbara’s mother was not just illegitimate, but her real father (Barbara’s grandfather) was very likely the Marquess of Ripon. I wonder how she had reacted to this exciting news. (Andrew Billen)A press release from the Folkteatern (Göteborg, Sweden) announces the upcoming productions, including a Jane Eyre for next year:
Vårens premiär på Stora Scenen blir en helt ny dramatisering av den feministiska romanklassikern Jane Eyre av Charlotte Brontë. Regisserar gör Ragna Wei och för dramatiseringen står Tone Schunnesson, uppmärksammad för sin debutroman Tripprapporter från 2016.Bon Dia (Andorra) mentions Charlotte Brontë in an opinion column:
För mig handlar Jane Eyre om flera saker. Viljan och längtan att slå sig fri och bli någon! Viljan att upptäcka sig själv och världen. Det handlar också om hur man balanserar att ge sig själv till någon annan utan att fullständigt att förlora sig. Sedan har Jane Eyre en mörkare sida, som är den riktigt intressanta, som handlar om att förvara och utplåna kvinnor som uppför sig, för tiden, oförklarligt, säger Tone Schunnesson.
Medverkar gör Andrea Edwards, Karin de Frumerie, Nina Jemth, Lena B Nilsson, Jonas Sjöqvist, Francisco Sobrado, Helmon Solomon och Emma Österlöf. Koreograf är Damjan Kecojevic och kompositör Chris Lancaster. Premiär för Jane Eyre blir det den 2 mars 2019.
El debat està obert i polaritzat, i com la Charlotte Brontë va escriure el 1847, “el convencionalisme no és moralitat. El fariseisme no és religió. Atacar una cosa no vol dir agredir l’altre”. Amb aquestes paraules s’obre la novel·la de John Irving [The Cider House Rules] amb aquestes paraules es tanca aquest escrit. (Elena Aranda) (Translation)Coming Soon (Italy) reviews the film Colette:
Come ora in Colette, affresco biografico su una delle scrittrici di cui la Francia è più orgogliosa, femminista e in lotta per il riconoscimento del suo talento, raccontata in un film che potrebbe parlare di una delle sorelle Brontë, non fosse per l’epoca. (Mauro Donzelli) (Translation)El Universal (México) goes a bit further than the traditional Cumbres Borrascosas description of the political summits:
Decido, entonces, divagar sobre la semana, contar cómo vienen las temáticas a los escritores. Lo primero ha sido Cumbres borrascosas, la novela inicialmente incomprendida de Emily Brontë, con su desgarrador juego de matryoshkas y hoy convertida en un clásico de la literatura inglesa. Apropiada para un encuentro de guerra económica, de desavenencias y de desplantes. Pero he aquí que de golpe todo se distiende, la cumbre fluye, los acuerdos aparecen. (Teódulo López Meléndez) (Translation)Feminist books on Onedio (Turkey), like A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf:
Kendine Ait Bir Oda, Virginia Woolf'un 1928 yılında kapılarını kadınlara yeni yeni açmakta olan Cambridge Üniversitesi'ndeki kız öğrencilere hitaben yaptığı bir konuşması üzerine şekillenmiştir. İngiltere'de kadınların seçme ve seçilme hakkını elde etmelerinden bir yıl sonra yayımlanan kitap o tarihten günümüze feminizm tartışmalarının locus classicus'u olageldi. Jane Austen ve Charlotte Brontë'den, kadınların niçin bir Savaş ve Barış yazamadıklarına[.] (elainebenes) (Translation)Christian Bookaholic reviews favourably The Other Wife by Juliet Bell; Psychologie's LifeLabs approaches the Brontës and Jane Eyre in a very simplistic way, in our opinion in Psychologies LifeLabs. The Eyre Guide continues analyzing the Jane Eyre manuscript.
HaworthHaworth is also recommended by Newstalk (Ireland) among other literary destinations in Britain.
As an author who grew up in Yorkshire, the home of the Brontës has to feature in any list of favourite places.
I remember falling in love with Wuthering Heights and insisting my mum and I climb to Top Withens. It’s an unforgiving walk, but my mother, knowing how much it meant to me, did as she always did and gamely trudged on.
I loved and still do their little childhood journals, written in handwriting which is ever so tiny. By the time I was 10 years old I was already writing stories and what the Brontës taught me was the real power of the imagination.
Apart from a brief foray to Belgium, Charlotte spent much of her life in Haworth, yet her novels read as though they were written by someone who had real worldly experience.
A few years ago I was invited to the Parsonage to talk about my books.
Had you told me as a child that I’d be back at that museum some day having become a successful author I wouldn’t have believed you. It really was quite emotional.
It seems that only Shakespeare himself is held in higher esteem than the beloved Brontë sisters, Emily, Anne and Charlotte – at least, judging by the 8 million visitors a year who trudge up the hill from the train station to pay their respects at the handsome parsonage where the literary classics Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were born.Still locally, The Telegraph and Argus reports that a Bradford MP
Not surprisingly, the whole village is given over to Brontë-linked tourism, but even without the literary associations Haworth is still worth a visit, though you'll be hard pushed not to be overwhelmed by the cottage industry that has grown up around the Brontës and their wonderful creations.
From Leeds, the easiest approach is via Keighley, which is on the Metro rail network. Bus 500 runs from Keighley bus station to Haworth (15 minutes, hourly) and continues to Todmorden and Hebden Bridge. However, the most interesting way to get from Keighley to Haworth is via the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway.
Where to stay Virtually every second house on Main St offers B&B; they're mostly indistinguishable from each other but some are just that little bit cuter. There are a couple of good restaurants in town, and many of the B&Bs also have small cafes that are good for a spot of lunch.
Charlotte Brontë’s doctor, Amos Ingham, lived and worked in Ashmount Country House (01535 645 726,ashmounthaworth.co.uk), on Mytholmes Lane, a five-minute walk from the Parsonage. A Victorian villa with original stained-glass windows, commanding valley views. Top-notch comforts including sumptuous beds and linen sheets, power showers and superb breakfasts: double b&b £75-£185.
Where to eat Cobbles and Clay (01535 644 218, cobblesandclay.co.uk), 60 Main St, a delightful café serving organic food on painted crockery with excellent vegetarian dishes. For superior pub grub: the Old White Lion (01535 642 313, oldwhitelionhotel.com), 6-10 West Lane, near the Parsonage. The locally sourced steaks are very good. Three-course set menu £17, or £20 for two à la carte courses. (Fionn Davenport)
has called for the Government to combat the theft of valuable Yorkshire stone. [...]The Guardian's Think of England features Hull and mentions briefly
Mr Galloway said: “I have put down two parliamentary questions on the widespread thefts after a constituent’s request for me to look into it. I have drawn the minister’s attentions to this and asked what measures could be introduced to combat it.
“I know that the police have been doing all they can to detect these thefts – from heritage sites such as Bolling Hall, Haworth cemetery and the Brontë Cemetery at Thornton – and I want to make their job easier. I’m thinking along the lines of those introduced to help stop metal theft.
“For instance, I think it would be important to prevent traders paying cash for the stone, increasing the penalties for those convicted and perhaps we could look at some sort of register of stone traders, together with giving the police and local authorities powers of entry to yards?”
Hull Truck Theatre (2 February). The innovative theatre is also staging Charlotte Brontë's classic Jane Eyre (16-20 April), when Nick Lane directs an intriguing new adaptation of the timeless story.The Liverpool Echo recommends it too.
Oak Ridge — The Jefferson Community Players are casting for their first program of the 2013 season, "Famous Females in Fiction".The Asian Age quotes the famous 'Reader, I married him' from Jane Eyre. Cielos de Azafrán posts in Spanish about the novel and Bettina's Impressions writes about the 2011 adaptation. Walking about Britain shares map and tips for the walk from haworth to Top Withins. Finally, we dare you not to get all excited when reading the latest update from the Brontë Parsonage on Facebook:
Dina Nicholas of the Players is developing the program, which will have weekend performance dates in late April. Casting is by appointment only. To make an appointment, contact Dina at dmnich@me.com or at 862-324-6686.
The program will feature dramatize scenes with well known fictional characters. Some of the characters under consideration are: Anne Shirley, Jane Eyre, Gigi, Eliza Doolittle, Hermione Granger, Katniss Everdeen, Elizabeth Bennett, Jane Marple, Scarlett O'Hara, Josephine March, Elphaba, Portia, Ophelia, Regina Giddens, Wendy Darling and Mary Russell. Familiarity with the books and characters is helpful, but not required.
We're on a countdown till Saturday February 9 now, and our grand reopening with the exciting historically accurate refurbishment, and a few surprises in store! If you think you know the Museum you'll be astonished and delighted. Can't wait to show you!
And now for the historical moment of the day. It happened yesterday on BBC's University Challenge when a member of the Imperial College, London said this:Bill Paxman: Timothy Dalton, Orson Welles, Toby Stephens and Michael Fassbender are among the actors which have played which romantic figure, the creation of Charlotte Brontë?
Inspector Clouseau.
Central to the Women's prize (formerly the Orange prize) co-founder's case was the book's liberation of both sexes – men "allowed to have feelings", women not reduced to husband-hunters. By being more "ambitious", [Kate] Mosse concluded, Brontë "changed what it was possible for women to write, for women and men to be, and for men to write". She turned out to have won the argument on the night, though not quite the vote. An audience poll at the end narrowly elected Austen as queen of English literature (51% to Brontë's 47%), but as the pre-debate split had been 55% to 24% with 21% don't knows, all the swing vote had gone to Brontë. (John Dugdale)The Times Literary Supplement adds:
The fight got just a little dirtier from here. We heard:Allison Pataki lists in The Huffington Post her favorite novels about unforgettable leading ladies. Guess who is number one:
- But Austen had to end her books with marriage, because she wrote comedies.
- Mark Twain wanted to dig up Austen and beat her skull with a shin bone (Erica Wagner).
- He’s in denial!
- Brontë was the first punk.
- Brontë's like Tracey Emin.
- Austen, who was my wife’s great, great, great Aunt ... (that one, the audience).
Sam West proposed that you have to be in the right mood to read Austen, whereas Brontë sets the mood; that aside, he wouldn’t want to be in a world without either – which was a very charming and measured thing to say, but by this stage all heads in the audience were twitching to locate the voting boxes which were being passed around. (Rozalind Dineen)
1. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë: One of my favorite books of all-time. I always wonder if I would have the internal fortitude to make it through just one day in Jane's life, let alone an entire lifetime. I love that, after an existence spent in haunted mansions and on ferocious moor lanscapes, Jane does eventually get her "happy ending," but that it's not picture perfect. It's messy and complicated and real. And, best of all, it's on her terms and does not require her to compromise her own scruples.From time to time someone asks Barbara Taylor Bradford about her favourite novels or authors and Wuthering Heights comes up. This time it is The Independent:
You have been involved in a number of campaigns to increase literacy and are an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust, encouraging young people to read. What did books mean to you as a child? (...)The Gloucestershire Echo visits some Yorkshire hotels and gives you a Haworth classic typo for free:
Books were my friends and they've taught me about life and have taken me on adventures. Wuthering Heights is still my favourite – it's one of the greatest novels in English literature. (Oscar Quine)
The road from Halifax to Bradford offers a scenic drive through Brontë country, with the Brontë Parsonage museum at Howarth a Mecca for literary tourists.Keighley News reports an exhibition/event related to the Tour de France crossing Yorkshire and the Brontë Parsonage Museum:
The main street in Howarth is awash with Brontë-themed bookshops and cafes and best enjoyed from the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. (Max Hall)
A woolly bike project is steering a course to Haworth.Scout Magazine makes a field trip around Grouse Mountain (North Shore Mountains of the Pacific Ranges in North Vancouver, British Columbia) but the author of the article cannot hide her Brontëiteness:
Yarn artist, Cassandra Kilbride, famous for her crochet street art, is holding workshops at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
The sessions, on May 27 and 29, are among 20 being held across Yorkshire to create woolly bikes, inspired by the county’s landscape and literature.
The finished bikes will form part of a trail for the Yorkshire Festival 2014.
“Cassandra is inviting people to join her in creating the bikes – to knit, crochet, sew or weave your own bit of a bike,” said a spokesman. Admission to the workshops is free, but places must be booked at yorkshireswoollybikes.co.uk.
Maybe I’ve read too many Brontë novels but I love cycling to Grouse Mountain on a foggy day. The gruelling uphill trial is rewarded with dramatic views and grounded by the delicious pastries at Ambleside’s Savary Island Pie Company. It’s a gothic melodrama that takes place all in one afternoon! (Rebecca Slaven)
Wuthering Heights is a very enjoyable evening’s entertainment, and if the imposing backdrop of the mansion is disappointingly unacknowledged in this production, there are torrents of drama and intrigue and an excess of love and hatred to keep an audience engaged. Dress warmly though, for the wuthering is highly realistic… (Kim Edwards)The Sydney Morning Herald reviews the novel Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse:
The story of the hapless bride who innocently marries an older man only to be disillusioned at best and terrorised at worst has steadily worked its way through 19th and 20th-century literature and thence film.Arlene Schindler tries to convince you in The Huffington Post that if you are over fifty you and a woman you shoud try a bisexual relationship:
Jane Eyre discovered Rochester's wife going not so quietly mad in the attic, while Daphne du Maurier managed to render the first wife, the eponymous Rebecca, even more threatening from the grave. (Sue Turnbull)
You may be sarcastically asking, "Am I supposed to nuzzle up to the serene woman in my book club? Maybe we could read Jane Eyre and exchange foot massages?"The Daily Times (Pakistan) is devoting a series of articles to Muhammad Rafi (1924-1980), one of the more important Indian playback singers of all time:
It was now time to adapt Emily Brontë’s famous novel Wuthering Heights in Indian version as ‘Dil Diya Dard Liya’. Dilip Kumar’s role as the oppressed one later turning into a bully in retaliation to Pran’s tyranny was an excellent piece of acting. Waheeda Rehman played heroine opposite Dilip Kumar with side heroine Shyama. If Lata excelled in ‘Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aai’ and ‘Kaya Rang-e-Mehfil Hei Dildarum’, Rafi excelled in raag Kalawati based song “Koi sagar dil ko behlata nahin” along with “Guzre hain aaj ishq main” with concluding climax lines “O bewafaa tera bhi youn hi toot jaae dil”; excellent piece of poetry by Shakeel. It only matches Saif uddin Saif’s poetry in the Pakistani movie ‘Saath Laakh’ song “Qarar looteney waale” wherein the beloved is given negative entreaty in desperation. Another solo “Dilruba main nei tere pyar main” and duet “Sawen Aei” with Asha are added beauty of this movie’s music. Despite excellent treatment imparted by the director, this movie did not do well commercially. Probably the theme was too serious for the happy-go-lucky cinemagoers of that time. (Dr Amjad Parvez)Maggie K. Sotos in The Minnesota Post reports an incident in a Glasgow performance of Peter Pan where an actor broke the fourth wall and proposed to his girlfriend on stage:
And thus Sandor Sturbl, the Dutch actor, proposed to his girlfriend during a recent show in Glasgow. The twist? Sturbl was playing Peter Pan, his girlfriend was the actress playing Wendy. Mid-song, this fairy-tale stud busted out of character, professed his real-life adoration for his co-star, and dropped down on one knee.Los Angeles Times interviews Brannon Braga, executive producer of the new TV series Salem:
You can’t help but squeal a little. The unconsummated romance between Peter Pan and Wendy Moira Angela Darling burns on par with Heathcliff and Cathy, or Captain Ahab and his white whale; to see the love play out in reality is undeniably satisfying.
I think the thing to know is that “Salem” is a unique animal. If you like being scared and you like horror, it’s a great show. But it’s also a really heartfelt show, not a tongue-in-cheek show. We want the characters to seem real, and at the heart of the show is really an epic romance. To quote myself, it’s like “Wuthering Heights” meets “The Exorcist.” (Jevon Phillips)Book Reporter interviews the writer Deanna Raybourn:
BRC: While I happen to love novels written in first person, many people seem to dislike them. Why did you choose to write in that tense? Have you heard comments from readers about this?Dawn (Pakistan) reports a recent conference on Karachi: ‘Literature and human rights’ by Shamil Shams:
DR: I never set out to deliberately write in first person; it’s just the viewpoint that feels most natural to me. When I was growing up, all my favorite authors wrote first person at least part of the time --- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charlotte Brontë, Agatha Christie, Daphne du Maurier, Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, Harper Lee, Charles Dickens, Dodie Smith. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve added more to the list --- Sarah Caudwell, Elizabeth Peters, E. M. Delafield, Rose Macaulay.
He said when Kishwar Naheed and Fehmida Riaz were associated with movements, but Perveen Shakir was not. However, all the three were equally committed to the cause of human rights.Mónica Fernández-Aceytuno writes in República de las Ideas (Spain):
On the Western front, the classical novels of Jane Austin (sic) and Brontë sisters reflected the problems and status of women in the society of their times. (Hasan Mansoor)
La primera vez que mis ojos leyeron la palabra misántropo, quedándose detenidos como si hubieran tropezado con una piedra, fue en las “Cumbres Borrascosas” de Emily Brontë, esa novela que rezumaba, entre vientos despiadados y brezos florecidos sobre los barrancos, misantropía por los cuatro costados. (Translation)The Times interviews the psychologist and author Tanya Burton who is concerned about the mental child health and mentions Jane Eyre; Bancrofts from Yorkshire posts an interesting article about George Riley Bancroft and his time farming at Top Withins:
The Bancroft family originally took on leases for all three Withens farms, Top, Middle and Lower, and George remembered that the Middle and Lower Withens were demolished, but Top Withens, which even in those days was a popular tourist site with visitors, was left standing “ for t’ Bronte fans…When I took t' tenancy of it, it were getting middlin’ dilapidated.... well it had got vandals in at it, and you can’t beat them. So I asked 'em what they wanted to do abat it…it was'nt safe, and I didn’t want to be responsible for onyone getting killed. They said they would take that property out of t’agreement, and they’d be responsible for that…but, well it’s more or less tummelled dahn now….and it 'ad bin a grand little place.”He remembers a time 60 years ago, when Top Withens had a peat house, where the stock of winter fuel was kept and also remembers visiting the place lots of times when the last tenant, Ernest Roddy, a tall affable man lived there.Today's BBC Radio 3 Words and Music will feature an extract of the infamous Quarterly Review 1848 : Review of Jane Eyre and also fragments from the novel itself.
Unless explicitly said
