An announcement for today, June 30, and this weekend:
SUNDAY, July 2 – THE BRONTE PILGRIMAGE – 1662 Prayer Book church services and the walk between Cowan Bridge and Tunstall as described by Charlotte Bronte in her novel ‘Jane Eyre’. The return walk to Leck (1.15pm) will be followed by Evensong at Leck Church (left-hand picture. Picture by Mrs. J. Dalby. Source). Talks given in the churches on July 2 and the Flower Festival continues at Tunstall (1pm-6pm). For further information, tickets etc please contact Eleanor on 01524274259 or Jane on 015242 74260
Categories: Alert, Brontëana, Jane_Eyre, Talks |
| Fraser Hall village hall in Cowan Bridge. © Copyright John S Turner and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. |
Walk and Worship the Brontë Way
The Vicar of Tunstall, The Revd Carus Wilson set up the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge in January 1824 which Charlotte Brontë and three of her sisters attended before the elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth died of consumption in 1825.She subsequently drew on her memories of this experience as the basis for ‘ Lowood School’ in Jane Eyre. In 1824 all pupils walked to Tunstall Church for Matins- apparently Leck church was not large enough- ate a packed lunch in a room over the porch ( a parvise) and attended Evensong before returning to Cowan Bridge. In 1825 the latter church was expanded and the pupils were saved this long walk.
On Sunday 6 July it is proposed to commemorate this experience by services in both churches starting with Holy Communion at 8am in Leck, St Peter’s Church (car parking available), followed by a visit to the ‘fever’ graves of some of the pupils of the Clergy Daughters’ School.
Those who cannot attend this service can go to the Fraser Hall, Cowan Bridge, where all will assemble to leave as a group at 9.30am ( drinks will be available). The group will then walk to Tunstall following the same route the girls did. (Please wear suitable clothing and footwear) Matins will be held at Tunstall at 11am. The service will be in the style of the period. Bring a packed lunch to eat in the comfort of Tunstall Village Hall-where drinks will be available prior to the return walk.
Refreshments will be then available in the Fraser Hall, Cowan Bridge prior to Evensong at 4.30pm at St Peter’s Leck. As little or as much as you wish, of the Pilgrimage, can be undertaken.
Richard Wilcocks posts in The Brontë Parsonage Blog about last Sunday's Brontë Society May Walk. Check the post for some very interesting pictures as the one on the right (Inside Tunstall Church - ladder to porch room):A couple of dozen walkers, including several children, walked to the 13th century Tunstall Church (the Brocklebridge church of Jane Eyre) from the cottages which are the remains of the original Clergy Daughters School and returned by way of Leck Church, retracing the footsteps of the young girls who were pupils about 180 years ago.More blog entries. Ask the Brontë Sisters posts a very funny article that we encourage you to read,
Tunstall Church was attended by the girls even though it is a far greater distance away from the school than Leck Church, which was then little more than a chapel. The little room in the church tower where the girls ate lunch after climbing up some steps (now replaced by a ladder) is still there.
Several walkers climbed into this room, now a dusty repository for church bric-a-brac. About a dozen small girls would have been able to sit in it, at a guess. A couple of small girls from 2007 looked out of the window, shuddered at the spiders’ nests in the corners and remarked that this was not a good place to eat. (Read more)
Meli at The Little Book Room has tagged the Sistahs for the Eight Things meme.We liked specially this bit:
3) Anne’s dying words were ‘Take courage, Charlotte.’ (I often think that Anne has been badly underrated.) (Pavlov's Cat)Our almost daily selection of blogosphere reviews highlights today this one on Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Kristie's review of Jane Eyre 2006. Art Passion continues with her Brontë frenzy with new brief posts, in French, about Charlotte and Emily Brontë.
After reading it they would be likely to read more of the Brontes, Scott, Hardy, Wordsworth – and Lewis Carroll, Philip Pullman and Harry Potter for that matter. They might well go on to visit Haworth, Abbotsford, Dove Cottage, Oxford and Platform 9 and a half on King`s Cross Station. I enjoyed it so much and found it so full of information and original thought that I plan to write about it in more than one post.Categories: Books, Brontëana, Brontë Society, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights
I know that in one sense it is an ‘academic’ book. Nicola Watson is a Senior Lecturer in Literature at the Open University. It has full, scholarly notes – though not as invasive and irritating footnotes, thank goodness – and an index. The Introduction in particular is a little too loaded with modern academic jargon. Nevertheless, it is not an academic book in the sense of being so learned and abstruse that only half a dozen of Ms Watson`s colleagues would be likely to understand it. The subject is a far more popular one than that.
But in their wisdom the publishers have not only made it look more like a scholarly book than a popular one which is a pity – but worse they have the nerve to charge £45 for it. Yes, you heard me correctly.
Even libraries – which do not buy many new books now anyway – are not going to order this for you.
I tell you what. I challenge Palgrave to hand THE LITERARY TOURIST over to their general division, Macmillan. I then challenge Macmillan to issue another edition – for the general interested reader, with a new, more lively jacket and as a paperback, to cost no more than £10. It still would not (probably) make Richard and Judy but it would definitely reach the parts that a £45 academic book will not reach.
And if Macmillan won`t do it, with my publisher`s hat on, I will.
St John the Baptist Church in Tunstall, located in North Lancashire and famed for its links to the Brontë sisters, hopes to raise the funds for specialist conservation of its windows, stonework and parapets.A recent survey found that several stained glass windows are in urgent need of repair, including those depicting Joan of Arc, St George, and St Michael. [...]The Grade I listed church was attended by the Brontë sisters during their time at school in nearby Cowan Bridge and later appeared as Brocklebridge Church in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. (Sonia Veneziani-Rocha)
The undeniable success of Wicker in 4DX (if many giggly “getting that wick” TikToks are to be believed) raises the question: is there a future for 4DX in erotic movies? Could we next see a Fifty Shades of Grey or Basic Instinct rerelease in 4DX? Could the format have saved Emerald Fennell’s should-be horny Wuthering Heights? Wicker may have opened fifth in the North American box office, but it has already achieved the improbable: unlocking new, tantalizing and ridiculous possibilities in the realm of cinema. (Adrian Horton)
This month sees the 200th anniversary of the birth of that remarkable talent in a remarkable family, Emily Brontë author of ‘Wuthering Heights’ which has been a cornerstone in the canon of English literature ever since it was published in 1847. Emily was born in Yorkshire but was briefly schooled at Cowan Bridge. The School for Clergy Daughters had been founded by the Reverend Carus Wilson at a time when few people believed that girls should be educated at all. Despite the enlightened principle that established it in practice it was a place of abuse and privation later bitterly recounted by Emily’s sister Charlotte in ‘Jane Eyre’. On Sundays the pupils were marched from Cowan Bridge to the church of St John the Baptist at Tunstall where they had to endure fire and brimstone sermons of their patron not once but twice on subsistence rations. For the Brontë family there was a tragic outcome from this regime when two of Emily’s sisters - Elizabeth and Marie - died from complications following an outbreak of typhus at the school. The walk described below in part follows the route to Tunstall Parish Church as well as exploring the lovely countryside nearby. (Bob Clare)The Telegraph & Argus mentions the publication of The Brontë Family: Passionate Literary Geniuses by Karen Smith Kenyon:
An American based woman who lectures on the Brontes and their works has completed a new biography of the family.What are the Vogue UK editors loving this week?
Karen Smith Kenyon has written The Brontë Family; Passionate Literary Geniuses, which is being published this month by London-based Endeavour Media.
A spokesman for the publishers said: “The Brontë Family is a brief and accessible introduction to the siblings – including Branwell – and how their often difficult lives influenced the sisters’ novels in particular. (Miran Rahman)
Hayley Maitland, Features AssistantThe writer Dorothy Koomson chooses the collective upcoming book I am Heathcliff for summer reading in the Daily Mail.
Emily has always been my favourite of the Brontë sisters, so I’m reading Wuthering Heights again ahead of the 200th anniversary of her birth this month. It’s an ever-so-slightly more nuanced study of romance than Love Island, which I’m also completely obsessed with - and has me dreaming of escaping the city for a trip to the Yorkshire moors.
Wuthering Heights, by Emily is a literary work beloved for generations. July 30th marks what would have been Emily Brontë’s 200th birthday. Peter Harrington, the UK’s largest rare bookseller, is offering buyers the opportunity to purchase a first American edition of the novel, at auction, in honor of the occasion. The rare book firm is also offering a collection of poems composed by Emily, Charlotte and Anne Brontë, as well as library sets of ‘The Works of the Sisters Brontë.’ (Jenna Gyimesi)Los Angeles Review of Books reviews A View of the Empire at Sunset:
In The Lost Child, he writes from the points of view of characters who are male and female, black and white, and also channels canonical British authors in a story whose cast of narrators includes not only Emily Brontë but her creation Heathcliff as well. (...)The Brexit sitcom (now even with special guest stars, like the American rude rich cousin) is discussed in The New European. This description of the latest novel of Nadine Dorries made us ROTFLOL loco style:
In telling Rhys’s life (which spanned 1890–1979), Phillips does not even mention the novel that made her famous and landed her on thousands of reading lists, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966). (...)
In Wide Sargasso Sea, the authoritative, long-term family servant Christophine tells Antoinette, the doomed Creole, “[w]oman must have spunks to live in this wicked world.” Antoinette, who lacks spunks, fades into a blank-eyed “doll” by the end of the chapter. In A View of the Empire at Sunset, a Dominican servant named Josephine tells young Gwen that “if you want to survive in this world you mustn’t let people read what you thinking. Now change your face […] Good, now your mouth is fixed I want you to look yonder with your eyes, and don’t blink. That is how your face must be when you talk with people, you hear? Make your eyes dead like so.” Fake indifference until you make it. (Erica Johnson)
The week’s unpleasantness has overshadowed the launch of Dorries’ new book, Shadows In Heaven, set in the west coast of Ireland during wartime. A masterpiece of in-depth research, the first 55 pages alone feature characters called Paddy, Seamus and Mrs Doyle, plus multiple mentions of twinkling eyes, red hair, whiskey, Guinness, stew, potatoes and variations on the phrase “so he does”.And now for something completely different. After the launching week of the Ministry of Silly Brexits, Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald discusses Monty Python:
There’s also the memorable sentence “her breasts ricocheted about like rocks in socks”, leaving readers to ponder how much time there can possibly be left before public demand forces Nadine to retreat from politics and devote herself full-time to literature, the Brexit Brontë our times truly deserve. (Steve Anglesey)
I could go on and on talking about Monty Python sketches (“Wuthering Heights in Semaphore” is a personal favorite), but I just recommend checking it all out for yourself. (Holly Taylor)More Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever. In Madison, WI:
Regardless of gender, age or ability to dance, we’re all invited to don red dresses and undulate wildly and freely just like Kate Bush in the video to her 1978 hit song “Wuthering Heights” on Saturday afternoon at James Madison Park. The song, based on the Emily Brontë novel by the same name, is central to the Most “Wuthering Heights” Day Ever, an international dance event now in its third year. (Joel Patenaude in Madison Magazine)In Townsville (Australia), Berlin (Germany):
Nun treffen sich die Bush-Fans in Kreuzberg: „Wir wollen auf dem wilden, windigen Moor des Görlis unsere heiße, gierige Stimmung austanzen und unsere Albträume verjagen“, heißt es in der Ankündigung des Flashmobs, zu dem parallel auch in anderen Städten aufgerufen wird. (Maike Schultz in Berliner Zeitung) (Translation)Related to the MWHDE events. Brooklyn Vegan interviews Jonas Bjerre, singer of Mew, who discusses his favourite albums:
Kate Bush – Hounds Of LoveMansplaining à la Catholic in Patheos's Suspended in Her Jar:
This album has “Running Up That Hill”, “Hounds Of Love”, and “Cloudbusting” on it. When I was about 9 or 10, I would sit in the back seat of my parents car, and they’d play Kate Bush over the sound system. She was my first crush, I think, not even knowing what she looked like, just the sound of her voice, and the worlds she created with her music. She wrote “Wuthering Heights” when she was just 18. Can you imagine? Incredible. I don’t tend to listen to Kate Bush that often, because the excitement is often followed by this depressed state in which I feel like I might as well just pack it in.
I have similarly been informed that yes, my true fulfilment and joy is in domesticity, whether I feel it or not. If I don’t feel it, I must be an unnatural woman (weirdly, this same argument was made to Charlotte Brontë by the poet laureate of England, so even very intelligent men can be very stupid about women). (Rebecca Bratten Weiss)The extinction of the middle children in The New York Magazine:
It’s hard to imagine a world without so many of the middle children we know of, she says. There’s Nelson Mandela and Susan B. Anthony and David Letterman and Charles Darwin and Charlotte and Emily Brontë and Martin Luther King Jr. (Adam Sternbergh)El País reviews the film Mary Shelley by Haifaa Al-Mansour:
Mi retina, mi oído, mi memoria y mi espíritu de solterón rancio guardan con infinito celo películas tan atractivas como Sentido y sensibilidad, Regreso a Howards End, Lo que queda del día y otras, Y tengo un recuerdo muy grato de adolescencia con una de las infinitas versiones de Jane Eyre, la que protagonizaba uno de mis actores favoritos, el Inmenso George G. Scott, y cuya preciosa banda sonora, sospecho que era uno de sus primeros trabajos, la firmaba el legendario John Williams. (Carlos Boyero) (Translation)L'Ape Musicale (in Italian) reviews the performances of Brontë: The World Without at the Stratford Festival:
Interessante, per quanto non del tutto riuscita, l'idea di dedicare una pièce alla vita delle sorelle Brontë, sfortunate colonne portanti della narrativa anglosassone. (...)On BBC Radio 4, In Our Time broadcasts again a 2015 episode on Jane Eyre:
Le attrici sono brave ma non straordinarie, almeno in questa produzione, in cui soprattutto Andrea Rankin (Anne) appare costantemente sopra le righe. (Giuliana Dal Piaz) (Translation)
The story of Jane Eyre is one of the best-known in English fiction. Jane is the orphan who survives a miserable early life, first with her aunt at Gateshead Hall and then at Lowood School. She leaves the school for Thornfield Hall, to become governess to the French ward of Mr Rochester. She and Rochester fall in love but, at their wedding, it is revealed he is married already and his wife, insane, is kept in Thornfield’s attic. When Jane Eyre was published in 1847, it was a great success and brought fame to Charlotte Brontë. Combined with Gothic mystery and horror, the book explores many themes, including the treatment of children, relations between men and women, religious faith and hypocrisy, individuality, morality, equality and the nature of true love.WithTheClassics vlogs about Jane Eyre.
With
Dinah Birch
Professor of English Literature and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Liverpool
Karen O’Brien
Vice Principal and Professor of English Literature at King's College London
Sara Lyons
Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Kent
Deborah Lutz’s engaging new study proves that there is indeed room for fresh perspectives. Her highly personal voyage through the sisters’ lives, works and times is less a straight biography than an act of necromancy that allows us to feel the texture of the Brontës’ experience, both inner and outer. She pulls off the hardest trick in literary biography: to make us feel that we know the subjects intimately, and, simultaneously, to make the familiar strange and remind us of the space that separates us from the dead. (...)Shannon Reed explains in The New Yorker what the Spinster Agenda is:
Lutz has a rare capacity for imaginative empathy and so fine a nose for detail that she even revels in the smell of some of the Brontë-related artefacts she has encountered. All lovers of the Brontës should read this book. It will perhaps mean most to those who already have some prior knowledge of the sisters’ lives and works, but it is equally capable of whetting the appetites of those coming to them for the first time.
Q: What are some of the goals of the Spinster Agenda?Western Morning News lists several landscapes which inspired novels. With Wuthering Heights we can, in a way, accept it... but with Jane Eyre we think it is a bit forced:
A: Increasing the prominence of women in the government, a greater reliance on bike-share programs, the elimination of lonely cats, better television adaptations of the Brontë sisters’ work, further research into cloning Benedict Cumberbatch, the immediate green-lighting of an Emma Thompson and Colin Firth movie with lots of clothed sex that’s set in the eighteen hundreds, Glynis Johns in her “Mary Poppins” costume on the hundred-dollar bill, world peace.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847) This timeless classic was inspired by Hathersage, Derbyshire, when the author visited the village in 1845. (...)Hannah Lamarque shares what she has learnt from reading. In The Huffington Post:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1846) This classic novel was inspired by the views of Yorkshire Moors near where Brontë lived.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Brontë has shared invaluable lessons through the course of her work. Brontë's novels consistently featured strong, unequivocally "plain" (her words, not mine) and singular women at their helm. Despite their physical "ineptitude", theysomehow managed to attract the attention of the opposite sex through things like personality, intelligence and inner strength. Huh. Brontë consistently championed relationships which, essentially, were equal and loving (although not always at first). Any connection - in business or otherwise - that we form and nurture should be based on the same ideologies. You owe it to yourself and to the person with whom you're connecting.BBC's Fake or Fortune? will feature St Joan the Baptist church in Tunstall (in the 1820s it was attended by the Brontë sisters during their stay at the Clergy Daughters' School in Cowan Bridge). As reported in The Lancater Guardian:
This week the ancient picture-postcard grade 1 listed church of St John the Baptist in Tunstall once patronised by the Brontë sisters, will take centre stage in the programme.Cary Fukunaga's work in Jane Eyre 2011 is described as 'impressive, finely wrought' (Matt Brennnan) in IndieWire's Thompson on Hollywood and Toby Stephens's Rochester in Jane Eyre 2006 is an 'acclaimed' performance according to Michael Hodges in Radio Times.
He describes it as a classical Gothic romance in the vein of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Rebecca and waxes ecstatic about the lush design he infused the film with, colors popping off the screen. (Jen Yamato in The Daily Beast)
The famed producer/director favored his film to the likes of Jane Eyre and I Walked with a Zombie, and if you fuse these movies together, fans are going to admire his current template of romance and squeaky haunted closets. (Philip Hernandez in The Liberty Voice)Ultimate Classic Rock interviews Dave Edmunds about his album On Guitar... Dave Edmunds: Rags & Classics:
Have any of the artists heard your versions of the songs? (Matt Wardlaw)The journalist and author Teresa Viejo presents her novel Mientras Llueva in Las Provincias (Spain):
I don’t know. I’d like to send a copy to Jeff Beck — not that I’m doing any Jeff Beck songs on there. I’d like Elton John to hear “Your Song,” because I’m quite proud of it. Kate Bush, I think, and the producer, would be interested “Wuthering Heights.” So I might get around to that.
¿Ese perfil de mujer fuerte e independiente, adelantada a su época no le recuerda a personajes como Sira Quiroga de ‘El tiempo entre costuras’? (Rebeca Ruiz)
- Alma me recuerda más a Jane Eyre. He crecido con esos personajes femeninos y han sido mis referentes. Me recuerda a la señora de Winter cuando llega a Manderley, la protagonista de ‘Rebeca’, de Daphne du Maurier. Las referencias siempre están ahí, es algo que te construye. (Translation)
“Heathcliff, it’s me Cathy…” Ahem, sorry, any excuse to revisit Kate Bush’s debut hit. Of course it’s not just the kooky songstress that has been influenced by Emily Bronte’s classic novel. It continues to inspire a range of readers from fluttery A-level English students, the parents of recently demised Aussie film star Heath (his sister is called Cathy) to a slew of film adaptations. Aptly it’s performed at the Waterside on the night after Valentines Day so drag your mister or missus along for a tale of passion, death, (largely) unfulfilled love and a sexy, brute of a man. What more could you need?Another upcoming rendezvous, albeit in Chicago, is Dance COLective's dance piece Written on the Body inspired by the life and work of the Brontës. The Windy City Times publishes this reminder:
Waterside Arts Centre 1 Waterside Place, Sale, M33. 0161 912 5616 Fri 15 Feb. (Trudie Robinson)
The Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan, hosts modern ensemble The Dance COLEctive Feb. 21-23. Led by Artistic Director Margi Cole, the group presents “Second Journeys,” an evening featuring Cole's Written on the Body, a dance that explores duality by bringing to life literary icons the Bronte Sisters. Also on the program is choreography by Colleen Halloran, Jennifer Kayle and Ellie Klopp. 312-344-6600; $24-$28. (Eric Eartherly)The Lancaster Guardian has a list of indoor attractions in Lancaster, UK. Among them we found the Church of St John the Baptist in Tunstall:
Built around 1415, the church impresses with its size, but is probably better known for its upper room in the south porch. Here, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, and their sisters Maria and Elizabeth, would climb up to eat their "packed lunch" between services. From 1824 they lived for a year at a cottage in nearby Nether Burrow as pupils of the Clergy Daughters' School. Brocklebridge Church in Charlotte's novel, "Jane Eyre", was based on Tunstall Church.Via On LiveAuctionTalk we have discovered that the Roycroft Inn in East Aurora, NY a has a curious Brontë related detail:
The Roycroft community located on the campus here was a focal point for people interested in the Arts and Crafts movement. Opened in 1905, the inn lodged thousands of visitors from around the world.At least this journalist is not claiming that Charlotte Brontë sat cosily by the fire there! Well, at least we've finally solved what the actual Brontë connection was.
The floor plan and furniture in the inn are original or authentic reproductions. This is how it looked 100-years-ago complete with wicker furniture, Roycroft lamps and William Morris wallpaper. Carved into the bedroom doors lining the halls are the names of famous people. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charlotte Bronte, Henry David Thoreau, and Susan B. Anthony are among them. (Rosemary McKittrick)
Wright's inclination for atmosphere is more Bronte than Austen, although he also has a feel for intimacy - particularly between sisters Elizabeth (Knightley) and Jane Bennet (Rosamund Pike) - that's welcome. (Craig Mathieson)Valentine's day of course provokes some Brontë references around:
Anyone who has ever wrestled with an undeniable craving for literary romance knows that subtle passion is far more powerful and evocative than exaggerated sentimentality. How can those bodice-ripping page-turners with steroid-injecting heroes and two-dimensional heroines possibly stand up against the witty banter of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, the quasi-incestuous obsession of Catherine and Heathcliff, or the thwarted longing of Pip and Estella. (Truc Doan in The Harvard Independent)
They are our kings and queens of hearts, our icons of romantic love: Heathcliff and Catherine, Rhett and Scarlett, Romeo and Juliet. (Loni Ingraham in Towson Times)
These five strange gentleman have fascinated females for generations. Some of them are Byronic, others flat out demonic, but all have an unexplainable appeal and the capacity for deep devotion - which unfortunately sometimes manifests as dangerous obsession (i.e. kidnapping, murder, blood drinking). Fellas, take heart: you don't need to be handsome to be on this list, or rich, or even necessarily alive. But you absolutely cannot be blond. (...)On the blogosphere today: Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod offers a podcast with a radio adaptation of Wuthering Heights (The Ford Theatre, aired January 4, 1949). Lights, Camera... History! posts Jane Eyre 2006. Novel Destinations briefly comments on the new exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum: No Coward Soul. Maylinn, Great Books that I liked, Diario de Hogare (in Spanish), The Pink Room (in Swedish) and Il Pendolo (in Italian) talk about Jane Eyre. A brief biography of Charlotte Brontë appears on Newsdotcom (in Indonesian). Girl Detective reviews the Dame Darcy illustrated version of Jane Eyre. A life in the Day posts about Wide Sargasso Sea. Dirty Dude Reviews talks about Wuthering Heights 2003 (the MTV version):
2. Heathcliff "Wuthering Heights"
"He's not a rough diamond-a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man."
Heathcliff is a foundling who grew up to destroy almost everyone around him with his thwarted passion for his foster sister, Catherine Earnshaw. He is volatile, abusive, vindictive, and sorta insane. But hey, at least he's loyal. You will know him by his intimidating size, the crazy look in his eyes and his conspicuous lack of a last name.
3. Mr. Rochester "Jane Eyre"
"...you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or contrary ..."
Mr. Rochester is the mercurial master of the mysterious Thornfield Hall, who falls for the humble governess, Jane Eyre. What sets Mr. Rochester apart from other romantic heroes is that he is talkative, friendly - even funny sometimes. I don't want to ruin anything for you but let's just say the skeletons in his closet are big enough to earn this good-hearted fellow a place on the dark side. You will know him by his self-depreciating humor and his missing hand. (Audrey Brockhaus in The Hub)
I think it's a worthy endeavor to create modern updates for classic stories but my sweet baby not like this. Not like this at all. (Craig)So right.
In the past, police and prosecutors haven't charged many people with the crime — it's usually reserved for prostitutes or guys with HIV who spit on cops arresting them — but lately there's been a flurry of cases in South Florida. All of them involve an HIV-positive guy and an HIV-negative woman. Not exactly Jane Eyre. (Tamara Lush)Categories: Brontëana, Dance, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights
Haworth, a former wool manufacturing village, and the Parsonage are the starting points to explore the world of the Brontë sisters. A fascinating journey and experience awaits in the neighbouring county of Lancashire that includes the chance to stay in part of the former school house that the four sisters attended.Still locally, Inside Halton reports that Haworth will be lighting its Christmas tree tomorrow.
Nestled within the verdant setting of the Lune Valley at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire is the “Brontë Cottage”. Dating back to the 1750s, the grade II listed former school house is both unassuming and cosy in appearance, belying its place and significance in the history of the Brontë family.
An inscribed plaque at the gable end of the building details the provenance of the place and reads “Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte & Emily Brontë lived here as pupils of the clergy daughter’s school 1824-25”. It was the inspiration for “Lowood School” in the literary classic Jane Eyre.
The cottage has been sympathetically restored, using traditional techniques and materials, by a local couple, who now gives visitors a chance to stay and self-cater in this unique landmark.
The smell of the log burner and creaking floorboards set the rustic scene for new arrivals, while items found during the restoration are on display along with bookshelves of novels waiting for visitors to absorb the character of the period.
The eco-garden facing the cottage backs onto the fast flowing River Leck beside which a towpath provides an exhilarating walk. In fact, walk in any direction and you are surrounded by rolling countryside. One of the nicest, we were to discover, was to retrace the walk the Brontë sisters made to Tunstall Church for Sunday services. The sisters had to make the weekly two-mile pilgrimage across open fields come rain or shine. There remains a small raised annex sitting above the stone entrance to the church that is reached by a ladder, in which the sisters used to eat their lunch while they stayed for the services of the day.
The Brontë family could never have foreseen the immense impact their lives would have on millions of people or indeed the countless adaptations of their writings. It is heartening to think that Patrick Brontë would have at least had an inkling of how his children’s talents were fostering great interest in the world outside. (Ramy Salameh)
Jacqueline Wilson chooses the classic Jane Eyre ("Jane Eyre starts on a cold, bleak winter day, but Jane hides indoors on the window seat and reads a book – and so do I") (Alison Flood)However, the Digital Journal argues that the Classics are not always viewed so cosily:
Books like Wuthering Heights and How to Kill a Mocking Bird being pushed aside for less difficult reads such as The Harry Potter series and The Twilight series. (Jesse Rutigliano)Coincidentally, The Jewish Chronicle discusses Twilight:
I recently made the bold move of going public about my love for Twilight. I argued that it was a classic tale of love and loss, much like my favourite book Wuthering Heights, but I'm starting to think that my attraction to the franchise is rooted in something deeper. (Lauren Davidson)The Times discusses book adaptations:
For every original screenplay idea that makes it to the screen, such as Tree of Life or even Inception, there is a plethora of adapted titles, from contemporary to classic fiction — see Twilight, One Day, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. “These days it’s financially riskier to invest in original material,” [...]This is how the Daily Herald describes Kate Bush:
And yet, says Robert Bernstein, the producer of the recent Wuthering Heights adaptation, being truthful to the book differentiated his film from the previous slew of Wuthering adaptations. “It had been done many times before, but never correctly,” he says. “With the correct age of the protagonists and the dark-skinned element referred to in the book. We were interpreting it as Emily Brontë imagined it: an intense and cruel story set on these wild and desolate moors.” (Kevin Maher)
On the phone from home, she’s funny and solicitous and sweet, more like the British equivalent of a soccer mom than a Brontë character come to life. (Allison Stewart)The Brontë Weather Project has a post on getting to see and handle Charlotte's original letters.
The annual Brontë Society May Walk is scheduled for today, May 13:The route will take us to the cottages that remain from the original Cowan Bridge school. From here, we shall proceed past Leck Beck and over the fields and footpaths to the 13th century Tunstall Church (the Brocklebridge church of Jane Eyre). The church was attended by the girls from the school, though it is a greater distance away from the school than Leck Church (picture). The room in the church tower, where the girls ate lunch, still remains. The route continues through Laithbutts Farm and circles to reach the church at Leck, which has graves of pupils from the school. The road bears round to the left and back to the car park.More information and picture credits in this old post of ours.
The area is one of outstanding natural beauty, being on the edge of the Lake District fells and Yorkshire Dales National Park. These are good views towards Ingleborough and Gragareth, which Charlotte Brontë referred to as "noble summits girding a great hill hollow".
Sophia Tobin will head the creative writing session as part of the Brontë Society’s programme of events to mark 200 years since the birth of Branwell Brontë.Also in Keighley News a local education initiative:
The workshop, called Every Object Can Spark a Story, will draw on the famous Brontë collection.
A spokesman for the event organisers said: “There will be a unique opportunity to see some items up close and then write prose or poetry inspired by the Brontë relics.
“It is suitable for beginners or more experienced writers.”
Sophia previously worked for a Bond Street antique dealer for six years, specialising in silver and jewellery. (Richard Parker)
Year-five children from St Joseph's Catholic Primary School in Keighley have visited the Haworth home of the legendary literary sisters and the landscape which inspired them.Town & Country Magazine reports how the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton is up for sale:
The pupils took part in art and creative writing workshops at the Brontë Parsonage, with museum staff and artist Rachel Emily Taylor, a senior lecturer at Leeds Arts University. (...)
Year-five teacher, Ben Palmer, said: "The visit to Haworth began with a meander into the lives of the world-famous Brontë sisters and this was followed-up with some outdoor learning as the children drew on Emily, Anne and Charlotte's inspiration by venturing up to Haworth moors. It was this bleak landscape that led the children to explore the hardships of Victorian life."
Arts Council England provided funding for the project.
Sue Newby, learning officer at the Parsonage, said the venture had been "a great opportunity" for the museum.
"It's not only given us the chance to work with artist Rachel Taylor – exploring the intriguing identity of Heathcliff through artwork and poetry – but has helped us to reach local children who may not have visited us before," she added.
"There's such a wealth of stunning landscape and unique heritage that we have to share in Haworth – not to mention our museum, once home to the Brontës, the most famous and fascinating literary family in history. All on the children's doorstep!" (Alistair Shand)
The Brontë sisters' childhood home in Yorkshire, which in recent years has been renovated into a coffee shop called Emily's, is up for sale. (...)The Lancaster Guardian remembers how
While many changes were made to the Grade II structure (a designation in the UK used for historic buildings of particular importance), some original features still remain including the fireplace and timber staircase.
De Lucas is now selling the building and the business privately, and is reportedly hoping to get something in the ball park of £250,000 for them both. (Caroline Hallemann)
Tunstall has a rich history, including the local church, St John the Bapstist, which the Brontë sisters attended in the 1820s for a year while attending the Clergy Daughter’s school in nearby Cowan Bridge.The Guardian anticipates next week's best things to do
Following a rapturously received season at the National Theatre in 2015, and a UK tour, Sally Cookson’s innovative reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s trailblazing Jane Eyre (described as “a picture of exultant feminism” by the Observer) returns to the same London venue. Featuring imaginative stage design and an imposing musical score, this is heart-stopping theatre at its best.RTÉ's The Book Show has announced a competition inviting listeners to write a letter to a character from a novel:
At the National Theatre: Lyttleton, SE1, 26 September to 21 October
Oliver Kamm, in The Times, always the Brontëite:The Book Show asked the writer Kit de Waal (My Name Is Leon) to think of a character she’d like to write to and she immediately thought of Bertha Mason - the first Mrs Rochester from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Dragged over from Jamaica to a cold, lonely house in England by her unloving husband Edward Rochester, she became maligned as the madwoman in the attic. Kit de Waal has one piece of advice - Get Out Of Thee!
Some years ago, Kit de Waal, obsessed with the story of Brontë’s misunderstood character, impersonated her in a letter to her husband Edward Rochester and she shared this piece of flash fiction with The Book Show.
I have a six-mile round trip to and from the office. I walk it while listening to Victorian novels on my smartphone. It’s the right sort of literature for London traffic: the narrative pace of, say, George Eliot means that if a passing juggernaut momentarily drowns out the sound, I’m unlikely to have missed a crucial plot twist. In the case of one novel I particularly admire, though — Charlotte Brontë’s Villette — I had to listen again to a chapter for a different reason. The plot hinges on an outlandish coincidence and I couldn’t quite credit that the author had resorted to so implausible a contrivance. She could have done with a ruthless editor insisting she rewrite it.Also in The Times, a review of Susan Hill's Jacob's Room is Full of Books:
Jacob’s Room is Full of Books is a diary of stray thoughts about life and literature. In her reading, Hill is high-brow, low-brow, middle-brow and raised eyebrow. She gives equal shelf room to Vladimir Nabokov’s Lectures on Literature and the Ladybird book The Enormous Turnip. She has not read Jane Eyre, doesn’t think much of Jane Austen, and still gets The Beano Annual for Christmas every year. (Laura Freeman)Press Connect lists some good soundtracks for working or studying:
Jane Eyre (2011). Dario MarianelliBroadway World reports the US premiere of the Monica Salvi cabaret Mad Women in My Attic!:
If you like scenes with little or no talking, and shots of main characters walking through foggy fields, this is a movie for you. Jane, played by Mia Wasikowska, has a horrific upbringing, including time spent at a school for orphaned girls, where abuse is rampant. She becomes a governess, and the rest unfolds. A lot of the communication in this movie comes from glances, facial expressions and body movement. If you prefer banter, check out No. 3 and No. 4. Suggested tracks: Wandering Jane, A Game of Badminton, In Jest or Earnest. (Hannah Schwarz)
The haunting, comedic cabaret show, Mad Women in my Attic! comes to the United Solo Festival on Saturday, October 7th at 4:00 pm. The production played to critical acclaim at the Brighton Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2015. (...)The Times reviews the concert by the Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall which included
A semi-autobiographical cabaret set in a lunatic asylum. From Sweeney Todd, to Jane Eyre the musical, from Sunset Boulevard to Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Mad Women in my Attic! is a fantastic romp through showtunes, folk and cabaret songs, celebrating the mentally unstable women that populate music and theatre.
[John] Casken’s Misted Land, the other premiere, took up 15 minutes and didn’t waste any of them. Richard Hosford’s clarinet and the Nash strings darted delectably around a constantly shifting, mysterious landscape, probably not far from Wuthering Heights. (Geoff Brown)A local production of The Mystery of Irma Vep in the Snoqualmie Valley Record:
This play borrows from a smorgasbord of works such as Wuthering Heights, the Hitchcock film, Rebecca, Shakespeare, Victorian penny dreadfuls and the entire selection of American vampire, mummy and werewolf movies. For good reason, Irma Vep has the distinction of being Ludlam’s most popular work, inspiring hundreds of productions around the world.Advisor Professional (in Italian) quotes Anne Brontë:
E se “come diceva un vecchio saggio che il vento non si ferma con le mani” la rivoluzione non si potrà subire, ma soltanto trasformare in una preziosa opportunità. Purtroppo non per tutti. Partendo dalla citazione della scrittrice e poetessa britannica Anne Brontë “Chi non osa afferrare le spine, non dovrebbe mai desiderare la rosa”, i consulenti finanziari non potranno aver paura di giocare la partita, non dovranno temere la concorrenza: anche fosse agguerrita e scorretta, anche non avesse consolidata esperienza, un adeguato approccio e quel metodo affinato nel tempo e perfezionato attraverso la tecnologia. Insomma nessuna scusa, nessun blocco alla concorrenza. (Massimo Donato) (Translation)Newsmonkey (in Dutch) reviews the TV series Anne with an E:
Anne is een intelligent meisje, dat is al snel duidelijk. Ze tatert en tatert en tatert, heeft een levendige verbeelding en ze houdt van lezen en van grootse liefdesverhalen. Ze kan uit het hoofd citeren uit Jane Eyre en ze heeft een uitgebreide woordenkennis die zo ver gaat dat ze kan praten zodat geen van haar klasgenootjes begrijpen waar ze het over heeft. (Geert Verheyen) (Translation)El Digital de Castilla-La Mancha (in Spanish) traces a profile of the author Elena Fuentes Moreno:
Su fascinación por personajes con personalidades fuertes como Heathcliff o Catherine Earshaw, protagonistas de 'Cumbres Borrascosas', o los que pueblan el universo literario de Patricia Highsmith, le llevó a interesarse por el estudio de la psique humana. (Translation)Culturamas (in Spanish) reviews La Composición de la sal by Magela Baudoin:
Mención aparte merece Borrasca, donde Cumbres borrascosas se convierte en una metáfora emocional sobre la que hablan la abuela y la nieta en un día de playa con mucho sol. Aunque podríamos haber elegido cualquier otro, pues ese océano en el que flota el iceberg es lo cotidiano, algo de lo que no se aparta Baudoin, algo que convierte en un estilo literario. (Ricardo Martínez Llorca) (Translation)Cineuropa (in Italian) talks about the latest film by the Taviani Brothers, just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, Una questione privata:
Ambientato nelle Langhe fuori Torino durante la guerra civile in Italia, la storia segue un partigiano di vent’anni noto con il nome di battaglia di Milton (Luca Marinelli), come il poeta inglese del XVII secolo. Grazie al suo migliore amico Giorgio (Lorenzo Richelmy), verrà presentato a Fulvia (Valentina Bellè), una ragazza spiritosamente provocante che ama ascoltare Over the Rainbow di Judy Garland e leggere Cime tempestose di Emily Brontë. Milton si innamora immediatamente di lei e sembra che l’affetto sia reciproco. (Vassilis Economou) (Translation)El Blog Perdido de Laura (in Spanish) reviews The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell. Jane Eyre's Library (also in Spanish) briefly posts about The Brontë Yearbook by Juliet Barker.
We talked about filming Wuthering Heights as we stayed with him in Positano. My wife Sinéad had just finished a film with him. He was a generous host. (Chris Wiegand)So he would have filmed both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights if that plan had succeeded.
Buy a castle and a Lordship:original ballroom and rose garden of Lancashire castle visited by Charlotte Brontë for sale [....]And there's the magic of not giving a damn for actual facts for you.
The Jane Eyre author and art critic John Ruskin were among famous visitors to the property, nestled between the Lake District and the the Yorkshire Dales. [...]
On the edge of the village of Tunstall and nestled between the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, the property is set in 10 acres of grounds that Charlotte Brontë, the author of Jane Eyre, regularly walked through. [...]
Charlotte Brontë frequently visited the house on her way to and from church while she was studying nearby in Leck. (Aneira Davies and Simon Lee)
Patrick Kinmonth’s elegant set conjures the book’s gothic gloom. With scribbles and streaks careening across their dark fabric, curtains and scrims tighten the Metropolitan Opera stage to a more intimate environment. Depending on how the light hits, they suggest everything from the blackboards of Lowood (a Dickensian boarding school) to the bleak moors that Jane roams after discovering Mr. Rochester, her employer and paramour, is already married.Book Riot has recommendations for 'Every Extroverted Myers-Briggs Type'.
Spare arrangements of seating relate power to position. The schoolgirls of Lowood perch on stools, the seat of which lifts to produce a desk. At Thornfield Hall, where Jane works as a governess, an imposing chair for Mr. Rochester rests stage right. After his wife burns down the manor, leaving him blind and broken-spirited, all that remains of the chair is a burned-out metal skeleton.
If only the other elements conspired to be as haunting. Philip Feeney’s score pulls from Schubert and both Mendelssohns yet never extends beyond bland symphonic swells. Unlike the best dance music, whose melodies burrow deep inside you, this barely registers.
Marston’s choreography is equally undistinguished. Moments — the tick-tock precision of Lowood’s students as they sup and study, a posh bash of waltzing gentlepeople — do resonate. Yet they’re swept up in an endless eddy of swirling movements that all look the same. The many pas de deux between Jane and Mr. Rochester fail to capture the lovers’ ardor (too much clutching at and whirling around each other), and their “bantering” is depicted through the extension of a pointed foot at a 45° angle. Although the intent may be to indicate a sharp, candid wit, the effect is vulgar, like they want to trip someone.
In dance, a mediocre vision can be saved, even elevated, by its performers. I fear the cast I saw (there were three) demonstrated unfamiliarity with the source material. As Jane, Isabella Boylston looks the part more than she acts it, emphasizing technical flash over reeling emotion. This is better than Thomas Forster (Mr. Rochester) who performs as if he’s in an entirely different ballet. Though tall, he moves small, seldom manifesting the outsized snarl and passion of one of literature’s most romantic leads.
While many of the secondary roles last a handful of minutes, some performers imbue them with nuance and sensitivity. Playing Mr. Rochester’s deranged wife, Cassandra Trenary uses the Mary Wigman-esque gesticulations to hint at a troubled spirit worthy of our sympathy. Hee Seo appears all too briefly as the kittenish socialite Blanche Ingram; the way she inclines her head says more than any fancy phrase could. Duncan Lyle takes the zealous missionary St. John Rivers who wants to marry Jane for practical reasons and infuses him with grace.
Whether you appreciate these portrayals may depend on your ability to follow the plot, which Marston refuses to compress. With seventeen named characters, eleven scenes, and two Janes (Skylar Brandt plays Jane as a young girl), and one in media res opening, befuddlement seems inevitable. I itched to take a red pen and excise all the needless exposition because what Jane Eyre needs is more and better attention to the inner lives of its protagonists.
Jane, in particular, gets a raw deal. Instead of unpacking the heroine’s rich psychology through her actions, Marston employs a male corps called the D-Men (the D is for demons and death). The men dash around her, throw her to the floor, and hoist her skyward. Often, Jane stands motionless as they billow about, like dancing footmen in a Disney movie. (Erin Bomboy)
ENFJ (EXTRAVERSION + INTUITION + FEELING + JUDGING): THE PROTAGONIST PERSONALITYAlso on Book Riot, a contributor shares how Thomas Hardy helped her process trauma.
JANE EYRE BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË
Protagonists are firm believers of the people, radiating authenticity, concern, and altruism. If something needs to be said, they are the first ones unafraid to stand up and speak up. Jane Eyre is that kind of heroine. With a strong moral compass, she stands her ground even when it is the hardest thing she has to do. Her love for Mr. Rochester goes beyond obstacles in a classic romance we all love. (Laura Melgão)
Tess immediately became one of my new favorite books. I don’t think I’ve ever related so much to a 19th century heroine, even Jane Eyre or Lizzie Bennet. Hardy’s compassion and grasp of his female protagonist’s psychology seems incredibly progressive for a male, Victorian novelist. (Grace LaPointe)Tass asks writer Diane Setterfield about her influences:
The writers who have inspired me include the Brontës, Wilkie Collins and Dickens, but I think I learned a lot about style from French nineteenth and twentieth century writers such as André Gide. he most obvious influences are not always the deepest ones, and I frequently suspect there are echoes in my own adult books of the books I loved as a child. Foremost among these was a beautiful ghost story about childhood loneliness called When Marnie Was There, by Joan G Robinson.Cambridge Network has an article on one of Charles Dickens's lesser-known works: Martin Guzzlewit.
Professor McWilliam continued: “When we think of the 1840s, we think of the publication of major novels such as Jane Eyre and Vanity Fair. The reality is that many readers were as likely to be consuming shockers issued by Lloyd such as Ada the Betrayed. The publisher told his illustrators, tasked with knocking out lurid pictures to accompany his publications: ‘There must be blood...much more blood!’”Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland) reviews the book Die Launen der Liebe. Wahre Geschichten von Büchern und Leidenschaften by Markus Gasser.
Gassers Geschichten steigen aus einem Nebelmeer des Kitsches und der Adjektive auf. Eine «ehebrecherische Liebäugelei», ein «räudiger Februarsamstag» und «prallgliedrige Leiber» passen zu den Rasereien, unter denen Schriftsteller offenbar von Berufs wegen leiden. Man muss nur schauen, wie sie schreiben. Emily Brontë verfasst ihren Roman «Wuthering Heights» mit Herzblut und Energie: Sie «durchlöchert vor Erregung mit der Federspitze das Papier». Wenn ein Schriftsteller – in diesem Fall E. M. Foster – einmal nicht weiterweiss, dann heisst es: «Hier stockte ihm die Feder.» Ist er dagegen wie Paul Bowles schon morgens voller Tatendrang, findet Markus Gasser auch dafür die richtigen Worte: «Er erwachte mit einem ‹Yallah› auf der Zunge.» (Paul Jandl) (Translation)The Times goes in search of 'The best summer party dresses for 2019'. The writer says about one type:
... but that may just be because I feel like a grumpy drag-queen Bo Peep whenever I try them on — less Laura Ashley, more Wuthering Heights. (Harriet Walker)Faintly Familiar posts about Jane Eyre 1944. Jactionary reviews Nelly Dean by Alison Case.
1. Emily BrontëWuthering Heights author Emily Brontë has her own blue plaque in Calderdale which is located on Law Hill House, Southowram, where she lived when she taught at Elizabeth Patchetts school for girls. (Abigail Kellett)
The picture is from August 2018, when the plaque was erected. Source: Halifax Civic Trust.
Both the reading and the hunger were with me for life, a wild freedom and a dark trap, but I think now that it’s not quite so neat. The protagonists of the girls’ canon, from Joey Bettany of the Chalet School to Jo March of Little Women, from Jane Eyre to Esther Greenwood of The Bell Jar, were ostentatiously thin, and not because their high minds were distracted by the vanity of slimming.(...)Mine’s a chef’s salad and a grapefruit juice, please. Jane Eyre, invited to join dinner parties at Thornfield, skulks in corners black-clad and skinny, judging the opulent clothes and curvy bodies of her rivals in love; later she will look with disgust on fat, mad Bertha Mason, the original madwoman in the attic, and on Bertha’s muscled, porter-drinking carer Grace Poole. I wanted to be Jane, Esther, Jo but I knew I was really hysterical, greedy Bertha; Anne Shirley’s dim, cake-loving friend Diana; at best Jo’s plump, frivolous sister Meg. I knew that my failure to be thin was inseparable from my failure to be clever and to control my emotions.It escaped my notice as a child but does not now that Bertha is mixed race and Grace working class, that the ideal female body displaying the perfect control of the ideal female mind is racialised and classed.
She adds the Brontës sisters to her lists of provincials when she engages with the notion of pedigree, who found their inspiration in the landscapes around them, and then there was Jane Eyre from the parocosm who had “invented” the Yorkshire village of Haworth. (Swati Rai)
Jane Eyre (1847). Written by Charlotte Brontë, it combines from both Gothic and Victorian literature, revolutionizing the art of the novel.
Jane Eyre. Esta novela histórica que redefinió la conciencia narrativa se centra en la homónima Jane Eyre, una huérfana nacida en la Inglaterra de 1800. A medida que Jane crece, toma su destino en sus propias manos, lo que se vuelve particularmente conmovedor cuando se encuentra con el melancólico Sr. Rochester en Thornfield Hall. (Translation)
Daily Camera recommends Gin & Gothic, A Brontë Rocktale in Denver. The Brontë Sisters YouTube channel explores the original Brontë church in Haworth, which was replaced in the 1870s due to poor conditions, including water seeping through the graveyard into the church, with a new Gothic-style church preserving the Brontë family vault. Through the Eyes of the Brontés describes a visit to St John the Baptist Church in Tunstall, where the Brontë sisters attended services while at boarding school.
Lewes Today publishes today an intriguing article about literary connections between Jane Eyre and Seaford, East Sussex:Miss Scatcherd, whose real name [Elizabeth Gaskell] w[as] merciful enough not to disclose in her Life of Charlotte Brontë, it seems that was based on Susan Harben (please check the EDIT, at the end of this post):THE recent BBC television adaptation of the story of Jane Eyre set me thinking of its literary links with Seaford, particularly Corsica Hall.It has long been held that the grand-daughter of one Thomas Harben, who came to Seaford from Lewes in the late 1780s , was the model for the stern woman who gave Jane such an unhappy time at Lowood. HER grandson in real life was Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain at the outbreak of the Second World War. (...)
For a short time this little town was graced by the presence of one great man of letters when Alfred, Lord Tennyson lived at the old Seaford House, where it is believed he put the finishing touches to his Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Perhaps he had second thoughts after experiencing life in a place 'which stood four-square to all the winds that blew' for, quite soon after, he and his family moved to the Isle of Wight. Rumours persist that Miss Jane Austen visited Seaford while researching her last (unfinished) novel Sanditon.
Susan Harben, 1785-1848, "dear old aunt Sue" who did not marry and became matron of the Clergy Daughter's School at Kirkby, Lonsdale. This was the school Charlotte Bronte was sent to and, according to "Notes on the families of Chamberlain and Harben", Matron Harben was apparently the model for the Matron in "Jane Eyre". The picture [above] of Susan Harben is from "Notes on the families of Chamberlain and Harben".The picture is courtesy of this website.
"Visual Verse" (Synergy Books, $29.95) combines some of his favorite photos with some of his favorite poems — ones he's written himself and others that he's long admired, such as William Wordsworth, Emily Bronte, Lord Alfred Tennyson, William Shakespeare, Robert Service, Joyce Kilmer and others.The Australian writes about inspiring landscapes in North England and Top Whithens gets a mention:
For bookworms, England's North Country is a real page-turner. The three Bronte sisters -Emily, Charlotte and Anne-were born in Thornton, Bradford, and spent much of their lives in the West Yorkshire village of Haworth, where they lived with their father at the Parsonage.And finally, a new Brontëite is presented, author Jay Mandal.Their writings were heavily influenced by the surrounding Pennine moorlands, especially the area known as Top Withens, which was later famously renamed by Emily as Wuthering Heights in the book of the same name. The Parsonage is now a museum dedicated to the Bronte sisters, and is well worth a visit.
EDIT[M]y favourite books are Il Gattopardo, Wuthering Heights, and To Kill A Mockingbird.
CB remembered Miss [Ann] Evans with gratitude and regard and pictured her as "Miss Temple" in Jane Eyre. Like Miss Temple, Miss Evans left school to be married on 6 July 1826 at Tunstall Church (...) Miss Evans was succeeded as superintendent of the school by Miss -or Mrs.- Harben, a close friend of Carus Wilson. The courtesy title of "Mrs." was given her of the tragic circumstance of her bridegroom having died in church on her wedding day. Mrs. Harben remained at school until 1843.So, as Charlotte and Emily were removed from the school on June 1, 1825, they didn't coincide with Mrs. Harben.
2. The original for Miss Scatcherd is a Miss Andrews, a teacher that had also temporarily been superintendent of the school in Juliet Barker's words (The Brontës, St Martin's Press, 1995, p. 126).
3. Rebecca Fraser also quotes in her biography on Charlotte Brontë (Vintage, 2003, p. 41), that the original Miss Scatcherd was also the writer (by the name A.H.) of one of the letters that the supporters of Carus-Wilson published around 1857 to discredit the way Charlotte Brontë had portrayed Cowan Bridge as Lowood School in Jane Eyre.
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