With... Adam Sargant
-
It's our last episode of series 1!!! Expect ghost, ghouls and lots of
laughs as we round off the series with Adam Sargant, AKA Haunted Haworth.
We'll be...
1 month ago
Friday, June 30, 2006
Surprising and unexpected news at this point: it seems that Jane Eyre 2006 will at least be shown in Bulgaria.
BBC Worldwide has also pre-sold Jane Eyre to Bulgarian TV.
Other unconnected news include an article on capes from - appropriately enough - charlotte.com:
An air of overwrought romanticism, augmented with a cloak, leaves people intrigued about your love life. Think the French Lieutenant's Woman, Jane Eyre, Heathcliff and anyone in a Jane Austen novel.
Yeah, whatever.
The Illinois Times has found the 'use' of 'girls who are suckers for sad boys'. Apparently, we are to thank them for novels like Wuthering Heights:
As long as there are girls who are suckers for sad boys, there will be a place in the global economy for the likes of Syd Matters. You won’t hear me complaining. If those girls can be blamed for The O.C. and James “Rhymes With” Blunt, they also deserve the credit for Wuthering Heights and Elliott Smith.
So, from our hearts, thank you, girls :P
And, finally, what you were waiting for, a new installment of Charlotte Brontë-saurus! :)
Categories: Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Weirdo
BBC Worldwide has also pre-sold Jane Eyre to Bulgarian TV.
Other unconnected news include an article on capes from - appropriately enough - charlotte.com:
An air of overwrought romanticism, augmented with a cloak, leaves people intrigued about your love life. Think the French Lieutenant's Woman, Jane Eyre, Heathcliff and anyone in a Jane Austen novel.
Yeah, whatever.
The Illinois Times has found the 'use' of 'girls who are suckers for sad boys'. Apparently, we are to thank them for novels like Wuthering Heights:
As long as there are girls who are suckers for sad boys, there will be a place in the global economy for the likes of Syd Matters. You won’t hear me complaining. If those girls can be blamed for The O.C. and James “Rhymes With” Blunt, they also deserve the credit for Wuthering Heights and Elliott Smith.
So, from our hearts, thank you, girls :P
And, finally, what you were waiting for, a new installment of Charlotte Brontë-saurus! :)
Categories: Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Weirdo
Months after its publication we come across a review of Voice and the Victorian Storyteller by Ivan Kreilkamp.
Kreilkamp is in general either ignorant of, or indifferent to, Victorian religious “discourse”. There is a striking example in his discussion of the famous episode of extrasensory perception in Jane Eyre, in which Rochester tells Jane that he cried out to her and heard her reply, and Jane realizes that the words he “heard” were those she had actually spoken (“I am coming: wait for me!”):
“I listened to Mr Rochester’s narrative; but made no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told anything, my tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression on the mind of my hearer; and that mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things, then, and pondered them in my heart.”
In citing this passage Kreilkamp omits the third sentence (“If I told anything . . .”) which rationally accounts for Jane’s silence, since he wants this “withholding of speech” to fit into a pattern by which Jane (and Charlotte Brontë herself) “shifts from a vocal to a scriptive mode of communication”. But it is even more significant that he makes no mention of the biblical text which Jane quotes:
“And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.”
In one sense, this passage (Luke 2: 16–20) fits Kreilkamp’s argument nicely, since Mary’s silent and solitary “pondering” is set against a rich framework of oral narrative, proclamation and communal “wonder”; but Mary cannot be deemed to be resorting to a “scriptive mode of communication”, especially given the Magnificat, which she speaks in the preceding chapter (Luke, of all the Gospel writers, gives Mary the most empowered and affirmative “voice”). What Jane Eyre means (or what Charlotte Brontë means her to mean) by invoking this analogy with the Virgin is a matter of dispute. That it bears on Kreilkamp’s argument is not. [...]
On Villette: “It is at times impossible to say why Lucy chooses to suppress rather than express herself; the implication that she likes to suppress herself is what strikes many readers as the perversity of this particular novel. Her descriptions of vocal repression are often so eloquent as to define a poetics of withheld speech: ‘I held in the cry, I devoured the ejaculation, I forbade the start, I spoke and stirred no more than a stone’.”
We suggest you read the whole article if you are interested in this kind of analysis.
Categories: Scholar, Books, Jane_Eyre, Villette, Victorian_Era
Kreilkamp is in general either ignorant of, or indifferent to, Victorian religious “discourse”. There is a striking example in his discussion of the famous episode of extrasensory perception in Jane Eyre, in which Rochester tells Jane that he cried out to her and heard her reply, and Jane realizes that the words he “heard” were those she had actually spoken (“I am coming: wait for me!”):
“I listened to Mr Rochester’s narrative; but made no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told anything, my tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression on the mind of my hearer; and that mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things, then, and pondered them in my heart.”
In citing this passage Kreilkamp omits the third sentence (“If I told anything . . .”) which rationally accounts for Jane’s silence, since he wants this “withholding of speech” to fit into a pattern by which Jane (and Charlotte Brontë herself) “shifts from a vocal to a scriptive mode of communication”. But it is even more significant that he makes no mention of the biblical text which Jane quotes:
“And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.”
In one sense, this passage (Luke 2: 16–20) fits Kreilkamp’s argument nicely, since Mary’s silent and solitary “pondering” is set against a rich framework of oral narrative, proclamation and communal “wonder”; but Mary cannot be deemed to be resorting to a “scriptive mode of communication”, especially given the Magnificat, which she speaks in the preceding chapter (Luke, of all the Gospel writers, gives Mary the most empowered and affirmative “voice”). What Jane Eyre means (or what Charlotte Brontë means her to mean) by invoking this analogy with the Virgin is a matter of dispute. That it bears on Kreilkamp’s argument is not. [...]
On Villette: “It is at times impossible to say why Lucy chooses to suppress rather than express herself; the implication that she likes to suppress herself is what strikes many readers as the perversity of this particular novel. Her descriptions of vocal repression are often so eloquent as to define a poetics of withheld speech: ‘I held in the cry, I devoured the ejaculation, I forbade the start, I spoke and stirred no more than a stone’.”
We suggest you read the whole article if you are interested in this kind of analysis.
Categories: Scholar, Books, Jane_Eyre, Villette, Victorian_Era
An announcement for today, June 30, and this weekend:BRONTË WEEKEND and FOURTH BRONTË PILGRIMAGE
Join us in the beautiful Lune Valley, North Lancashire to celebrate LECK, COWAN BRIDGE AND TUNSTALL’S connections with the BRONTË FAMILY
Friday 30th June, Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd July 2006
A full programme of Bronte inspired events including:-
Displays in TUNSTALL and LECK CHURCHES throughout the weekend
Illustrated talks on the Leck Fever Graves, the Rev Carus Wilson and Brocklebridge (Tunstall) Church
FRIDAY, June 30– ‘An Evening with Jane Eyre’ in Tunstall Church – including Orson Welles celebrated film. (In the right hand picture you can see Turnstall's Church tower and south porch The room above the south porch is where the Brontë sisters ate their Sunday lunch according to Lancashire Churches website. Picture by Tony Boughan)
SATURDAY, July 1- (10am-6pm) Flower Festival at Tunstall and a Georgian Childhood Display at Leck. Children’s Sports and Games, stalls and refreshments in Leck School Field.
SATURDAY EVENING - An Evening of words and music from the period with international concert pianist John Clegg.
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). The weekend marks the attendance of the Brontë sisters at the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge and its appearance, as Lowood School, in Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre.
For further information, tickets etc please contact Eleanor on 01524274259 or Jane on 015242 74260
Categories: Alert, Brontëana, Jane_Eyre, TalksMore US regional performances of Paul Gordon's Jane Eyre. The musical. This time is in Riverton City, Utah. Here are the details:
The Riverton Arts Council will be performing Jane Eyre
June 30, July 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 2006 at the Riverton Civic Center, Sandra Newman Lloyd Auditorium.
Riverton’s own Crystal Jolley and Michael Nelson play the lead roles. With Trisha Wartman, Julie Carrillo, Mike Hollingshaus, Angela Shields, Doug Carlile, Sean Bishop and Elizabeth Ostler rounding out this talented cast.
Jane Eyre is produced and directed by Kim Ostler. Technical director Mark Halvorsen, choreographer Vicki Wartman and sound engineer Scott Reid.
Tickets are $8.00 for adults $6.00 for children and seniors.
Categories: Music, Theatre, Jane_Eyre
The Riverton Arts Council will be performing Jane Eyre
June 30, July 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 2006 at the Riverton Civic Center, Sandra Newman Lloyd Auditorium.
Riverton’s own Crystal Jolley and Michael Nelson play the lead roles. With Trisha Wartman, Julie Carrillo, Mike Hollingshaus, Angela Shields, Doug Carlile, Sean Bishop and Elizabeth Ostler rounding out this talented cast.
Jane Eyre is produced and directed by Kim Ostler. Technical director Mark Halvorsen, choreographer Vicki Wartman and sound engineer Scott Reid.
Tickets are $8.00 for adults $6.00 for children and seniors.
Categories: Music, Theatre, Jane_Eyre
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Precisely on Charlotte Brontë's wedding day, we read on this web something that has truly surprised us:
KEITH URBAN gave NICOLE KIDMAN a special gift for their wedding - a first edition of EMILY BRONTE's WUTHERING HEIGHTS, reportedly acquired by Sotheby's auction house for $200,000 (GBP111,000).
Keit Urban and Nicole Kidman, Brontëites? Seventh million plus two.
Categories: Wuthering_Heights, Weirdo
KEITH URBAN gave NICOLE KIDMAN a special gift for their wedding - a first edition of EMILY BRONTE's WUTHERING HEIGHTS, reportedly acquired by Sotheby's auction house for $200,000 (GBP111,000).
Keit Urban and Nicole Kidman, Brontëites? Seventh million plus two.
Categories: Wuthering_Heights, Weirdo
The Yorkshire Post and This is Bradford publish today articles covering the seventh million visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum.Retired toxicologist Derek Stringer, 73, and his 73-year-old wife Nancy, from Bowness-on-Windermere, were the seven millionth visitors to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, in Haworth, on Saturday.
Mr Stringer, who had never read a word of the novels by the three sisters Anne, Emily and Charlotte has now been prompted to launch into Emily's Wuthering Heights.
The Museum director Alan Bentley presented the couple with a goody bag, inc-luding a collection of the Brontës' novels. They also received a year's free membership of the Brontë Society and were invited to be guests of honour at the museum's open day on Saturday, July 29.
The highest number of visitors ever recorded at the museum since it opened in 1928 was 221,000 in 1974. The figure was attributed at the time to the popularity of a TV mini series, The Brontës of Haworth, and the recent success of the Wuthering Heights film staring Timothy Dalton.Soon after, it was decided that the large numbers of visitors were damaging the 200-year-old building and the numbers were regulated. Now the museum sees about 88,000 visitors a year.
Mr Stringer said: "It has spurred me on to read Wuthering Heights which I have started.
"It's my wife who is the Bronte fan and she has read all the novels."
It was their first visit to the Parsonage museum and they were surprised to learn they were the seven millionth.
"We went because, of course, we are aware of the Bronte heritage and the importance of them in English literature," said Mr Stringer.
"We also wanted to see the environment in which the books were written."
Mr Bentley said: "To celebrate the seven millionth visitor is a real honour.
"Although there have been many additions and alterations to the museum, it remains a place of pilgrimage for thousands of UK and overseas visitors.
"Our aim is to provide an authentic interpretation of what life was like for the Brontës in the 1800s."
The milestone will be celebrated with an open day on Saturday, July 29, which will be free to people living in postcode areas BD20, BD21 and BD22. Identification will be required.
The day will include a dramatic interpretation, free guided walks around Haworth and short talks on the Brontës.
Categories: Brontë_Parsonage_Museum, In_the_News
The performances of the Jane Eyre opera composed by Michael Berkeley (with libretto by David Malouf) in Saint Louis are over, but we have found more reviews and pictures of the production.The Dallas Morning News review the production and incides specially in the Britten reminiscences of Berkeley's opera:
The new opera's compact scale, musical language and even its story suggest comparisons with Benjamin Britten, who was Mr. Berkeley's godfather. Mr. Berkeley's father was another eminent British composer, Sir Lenox Berkeley.
One is especially reminded of Britten's The Turn of the Screw: gloomy manor house, often-absentee landlord, naive young governess, earnest housekeeper, high-spirited young girl, malign ghostly presence. And Mr. Berkeley's score suggests a richer, more complex updating of Britten's manner, with more intricate wreathings of multiple musical strands.
The opera opens with dark growls and grumblings from double bass, contrabassoon and bass clarinet, later answered with sinister high keenings. Woozy string slides evoke the otherworldly s
cenes of Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream. A couple of not-quite-right dances heighten the sense of disequilibrium.Mr. Malouf and Mr. Berkeley seem to have imagined Mrs. Rochester, the psychotic wife locked away in the attic, as a real presence. But Colin Graham's staging, with designer Erhard Rom's higgledy-piggledy big panels and fuzzy projections, made her more ambiguous, like the ghosts in The Turn of the Screw. Mezzo Elizabeth Batton admirably captured her confused obsession and "dark as molasses" voice.
Kelly Kaduce was the very personification of Jane's decency, her soprano gleaming and glowing. Scott Hendricks brought a pleasantly burly baritone, and a presence balancing the rough-hewn and the tragic, to the role of Edward Rochester. Elizabeth Reiter was a bright, perky Adèle, but with an apt strangeness. Robynne Redmon was the sturdy housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax.
Conductor Andreas Mitisek got capable, responsive playing from members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, but one could imagine a tauter, more finely honed performance. The blurry projections looked amateurish, and the first few minutes of the June 16 performance were marred by supertitle malfunctions.
There's about 90 percent of a very good opera here, with a strong tale and well-wrought, richly evocative music. But the happy ending, with Mr. Rochester and Jane reunited, comes out of the clear blue, without adequate preparation or transition. An extra five or 10 minutes might help a lot.
Picture credits: Ken Howard (courtesy of The Opera Critic but discovered by us through this blog)
Categories: Music, Opera, Jane_Eyre, In_the_News
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
The US Biography Channel aires today the episode of Biography Classroom devoted to the Brontë Sisters. Pay attention to the summary of the documentary because it's priceless:
Biography Classroom
“The Brontë Sisters.”
Wednesday, June 28 @ 7:00 am ET
Running Time: 60 Minutes
The fascinating story of Emily, Charlotte, and Anne Brontë, who wrote under the pen names Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell in the 1850s, when women were not allowed to publish under their own names. Charlotte, who wrote Jane Eyre, died in childbirth; and Emily's only work was the romantic classic Wuthering Heights. The sisters, who wrote to stave off boredom, published a joint volume of poetry before their untimely deaths.
It's difficult to, in so few lines, make so many mistakes. Let's accept 1850s... although Emily and Anne died before, but what about this:
An egregious lie: Charlotte Brontë died in childbirth.
A (stupid) arbitrary theory : The sisters wrote to stave off boredom.
A fact so badly expressed that misinforms: The sisters published a joint volume of poetry before their untimely deaths (it seems that the Poems were their last book, not their first one) ?
Categories: Movies-DVD-TV
Biography Classroom
“The Brontë Sisters.”
Wednesday, June 28 @ 7:00 am ET
Running Time: 60 Minutes
The fascinating story of Emily, Charlotte, and Anne Brontë, who wrote under the pen names Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell in the 1850s, when women were not allowed to publish under their own names. Charlotte, who wrote Jane Eyre, died in childbirth; and Emily's only work was the romantic classic Wuthering Heights. The sisters, who wrote to stave off boredom, published a joint volume of poetry before their untimely deaths.
It's difficult to, in so few lines, make so many mistakes. Let's accept 1850s... although Emily and Anne died before, but what about this:
An egregious lie: Charlotte Brontë died in childbirth.
A (stupid) arbitrary theory : The sisters wrote to stave off boredom.
A fact so badly expressed that misinforms: The sisters published a joint volume of poetry before their untimely deaths (it seems that the Poems were their last book, not their first one) ?
Categories: Movies-DVD-TV
Belter Today reports a very brief account of how the Lowood scenes in the new BBC Jane Eyre production were shooted in Bolsover Castle.
STUDENTS from Ripley Academy of Dance and Drama have enjoyed several days on location filming Jane Eyre at Bolsover Castle.
Many of the children were from Belper, including Shannon Moore, Bethany and Courtney McAtee and Hannah and Amy Fildes.The aspiring actors were cast as students for the fictitious Lowood School, while others took on the roles of kitchen, scullery maids and teachers.Principal of the academy Diane Fleming said: "They had a great time dressed in 1800s style costumes, including bonnets and nightdresses."
More info about this production in this post (and links therein).
Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, In_the_News, Jane_Eyre
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
We read on Alarabonline about the publication of a new book in which Charlotte Brontë's novels are discussed in a totally new and unexplored context:Angry Words Softly Spoken
A Comparative Study of English and Arabic Women Writers by Alanoud Alsharekh. Published by Saffron Books
Angry Words Softly Spoken deals with the concept of feminism as a cross-cultural literary device that uncovers the social development of women’s emancipatory progress through the work of both English and Arab female novelists.The main premise of this study relies on many of the theories presented by the 1970’s feminist critical movement, especially that of Elaine Showalter’s tripartite structure.It also suggests a new tripartite structure for the evolution of feminist consciousness in works of fiction involving an inversion of scales in ‘softness’ and ‘anger’ explored through the work of such authors as Charlotte Brontë, Sarah Grand, Virginia Woolf, Layla al-'Uthman, Nawal al Saadawi and Hanan al Shaykh.
About the Author:Dr Alanoud Al Sharekh is a member of the Advisory Council of the London Middle East Institute. She is a specialist in feminist literature in the Arab Middle East and has held teaching posts at both Kuwait University and the Arab Open University.
The works of Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre and Villette, are compared with the literature of the Kuwaiti writer Layla al-'Uthman in Chapter 2: Feminine. Table of Contents here.
Categories: Books, Scholar, Charlotte_Brontë
We have already posted about these performances of Jane Eyre-The musical in Blackpool (that is not the UK's premiere of the musical), but as the show begins today, June 27, a reminder is suitable.Jane Eyre The Musical
Showing 27-06-2006 to 01-07-2006 (Blackpool Grand Theatre)
Performance Times:
Tuesday to Saturday at 7.30pm Wednesday & Saturday matinees at 2.30pm
Book by John Caird (2000)
Music & Lyrics by Paul Gordon
EXCLUSIVE BRITISH PREMIERE‘ (ehem)
My name is Jane Eyre. My story begins, gentle audience, a long age ago, in the dark and lonely attic of Gateshead Hall…’
The famous story of Jane Eyre makes for a dramatic storyline in this gripping new musical. This haunting adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novel opened in 2000 on Broadway, to rave reviews. Composer Paul Gordon (who wrote for artists such as Bette Midler, Smokey Robinson and Quincy Jones) creates a sumptuous listening experience, especially for its memorable melodies and lyrics. The show’s creators come closer than anyone could have imagined to capturing the spirit – and spirituality - of this dark, Cinderella-like story.
Premier Theatre Company, famous for Chess, Mack & Mabel and Ragtime The Musical, return to the Grand, to offer patrons another opportunity to witness a ‘premiere’.
The cast:
With Abbey Dudgeon (Jane Eyre?), Amy Edwards (young Jane Eyre?), Andrew Tuton (Rochester), Ann McLoughlin and Anne Lloydjones (Bertha Mason)
Categories: Theatre, Music, Jane_Eyre
BBC Prime gives a new chance to see In search of the Brontës. Today, June 27, the first episode, A Wish for Wings, is broadcasted at 22:00 (BST). The second one, Gone Like Dreams, will be aired next week (on July, 4).In Search of the Brontës is a BBC dramatised documentary that was first broadcasted in 2003.
In Search of the Brontes is a story of alcoholism and illness, of thwarted passion and unrequited love, of a 19th century quest for fame, and a story of literature.
The Bronte sisters have been described as 'emotionally fragile young women, beset
by family tragedy, channelling their pent-up emotions into some of the most passionate and enduring novels of the 19th century'. All of this is accurate, but there is more...Based on letters written by the three sisters and new research by historian Juliet Barker, this two-part series shatters the myths that have surrounded the sisters since their untimely deaths more than 150 years ago.
This series features extensive dramatic reconstruction, which was filmed partly on location in the sisters' home and on the Yorkshire Moors where they spent their time, and reveals the fascinating truth about the sisters, their wayward brother, Branwell, and their much-maligned father, Reverend Patrick Bronte.
In episode one: A Wish For Wings, the early lives of Charlotte (Victoria Hamilton), Anne (Alexandra Milman) and Emily (Elizabeth Hurran) and their siblings, are revealed. The children are fierce free spirits, whose tender, if eccentric father, Patrick (Patrick Malahide), believes passionately in their education. After his wife's death, Patrick sends his four eldest daughters to boarding school. The conditions were harsh and hastened the deaths of the elder two. (Charlotte used the boarding school as a model for Lowood in Jane Eyre) Eventually Charlotte and Emily return home to Howarth in Yorkshire, where they and their brother, Branwell (Jonathan McGuinness), and baby sister, Anne, are given freedom to roam the moors and read widely. Their creativity begins to blossom and they invent tales of Byronic passion in imaginary kingdoms called Angria and Gondal. It is here that Cathy and Heathcliff begin life.
(Details on the second episode will be published next week)
Production Details
Narrator: Patricia Routledge. Producer/Director: Samira Osman. Executive Producer: Kim Thomas. A BBC/Opus Arte co-production. (Information source)
EDIT:
Our Australian readers are invaded by Brontë rendez-vous in TV, as we posted recently. Today, in Showtime Greats, at 03:20 PM, 1992's Wuthering Heights is scheduled.
Categories: Movies-DVD-TV
An alert for today, June 27, from Orem, Utah.
Orem Public Library
(Orem Public Library, 58 North State Street, Orem, UT 84057)
Tuesday, June 27 -
Love Jane Eyre? How about the classic redux of the story, Wide Sargossa Sea? This month, our book discussion will tackle Fire and Madness.
7pm in the Media Auditorium.
Categories: Alert, Jane_Eyre, Wide_Sargasso_Sea
Orem Public Library
(Orem Public Library, 58 North State Street, Orem, UT 84057)
Tuesday, June 27 -
Love Jane Eyre? How about the classic redux of the story, Wide Sargossa Sea? This month, our book discussion will tackle Fire and Madness.
7pm in the Media Auditorium.
Categories: Alert, Jane_Eyre, Wide_Sargasso_Sea
Monday, June 26, 2006
This book with this beautiful cover - Ghosts and Gravestones of Haworth by Philip Lister - will be released in the next few days (either June 29 or July 1, sources differ). icHuddersfield comments largely on it, its contents and author in an article very much worth reading. If you are interested in the lives (and afterlife too) of so-called ordinary people as well as in the Brontës and their village, then this book is for you.The stories show that Emily Brontë's immortal story Wuthering Heights of the wild unfettered love between Heathcliff and Cathy was at least in part a reflection of a rough-tough area where characters had to be be strong to survive.
And the strange thing is that Philip discovered that several of the main characters had made the same journey as he had, from these parts to Haworth.
Major players in the story are the Heaton family of Ponden Hall, three miles west of Haworth, with a 350-year connection with the hall and a history that can be traced back to 1285 when William de Heton, of Kirkheaton, bought land in the Ponden area.
Over the years they were to acquire extensive properties and wealth with a Heaton Inheritance to be passed from generation to generation.
Naturally, in this story of ghosts, the family had their own Old Greybeard, whose appearance was said to mean imminent death for one more Heaton.
Even more colourful perhaps is the Rev Edmund Robinson, a striking newcomer from Holmfirth.
Now the Rev Robinson was one of only two clergymen to be omitted from the panel of ministers from 1654 to the present day Parish Church on the main street.
Perhaps that is on account of his profitable sideline of coining - clipping the edges off true coins and using the clippings to make new coins. (Philip says it is possible that some of the coins he clipped to make them go further might have come from the church collection!)
Perhaps it's the fact that the reverend gentleman was eventually sentenced to hang for his activities, or could it be because he was suspended and excommunicated for forging licences and performing illegal marriages?
You have to feel sorry for another curate, the Rev Samuel Redhead who was said to have held the position for less than 28 days in 1819-20 after villagers set about sabotaging his appointment.
First Sunday the packed church staged a deliberately noisy walkout thanks to their clogs, the second proceedings descended to farce with the arrival of a half-witted man riding into church facing backwards on an ass and a third starred a drunken sweep trying to embrace the poor cleric.
Happily he was to return many years later - after fleeing from the back door of the Black Bull Inn - to a hearty welcome.
For the rest, this book is a reminder that hereabouts life could be nasty, brutish and short in a place which Philip's grandfather notably said was "two coats colder than any other place in Yorkshire".
In Victorian Haworth the main killers were cholera, typhus and tuberculosis, says Philip, with cholera the most feared because it killed people of all social classes.
Add colourful characters like Patrick Brontë, who slept with a pair of loaded pistols by his bedside and discharged them every morning by firing at the church bell tower; John Brown the "Knave of Trumps" who introduced Patrick's son Branwell to freemasonry and probably drink; the Haworth poisoner, the wronged maiden, the hanged highwayman; and Mad Grimshaw minister extraordinary who recruited with Bible and horsewhip and you can see this was no place for shrinking violets.
All tastefully arranged by Philip in sets of 13, whether it be gravestones, more gravestones, the graveyard cookbook - anyone for squirrel burgers, fried worms, grave-snails in garlic or church mice poached in communion wine? - or even 13 provocative last thoughts.
Not recommended bedtime reading for those of a more nervous disposition!
Sounds great, doesn't it? (Except for the cookbook!) If you like it as much as we do, you can get it through Amazon or through the publisher's website.
Details:
Paperback 96 pages
Publisher: Tempus Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 0752439588
Price: £8.99 (however, both websites offer a cheaper price)
Categories: Books, Haworth
Express & Star also confirm our affirmation that Haworth is a lovely, lovely place. It seems that it is true that you can't really appreciate what's around you, thus the British newspapers (The Guardian mostly) despise the place. There's no other possible explanation!
Best of Yorkshire
Join us on a picturesque four day excursion to the scenically beautiful county of Yorkshire. Discover for yourself the magnificent moorlands that have inspired the likes of the Bronte sisters, and television shows such as Emmerdale and Last of the Summer Wine.
We visit the beautiful village of Haworth, the market town of Knaresborough and the former spa town of Harrogate, and there is a scenic tour of the Yorkshire Dales via Pateley Bridge, Grassington, Bolton Abbey and Skipton.
The final day is devoted to the wonderful city of York with all of it's award-winning museums, fascinating old shops and delightful tearooms.
Yorkshire is full of Brontë connections. And even if there was no Brontë connection at all, the region is so lovely that one has simply got to go there at least once in a lifetime :)
Categories: Haworth
Best of Yorkshire
Join us on a picturesque four day excursion to the scenically beautiful county of Yorkshire. Discover for yourself the magnificent moorlands that have inspired the likes of the Bronte sisters, and television shows such as Emmerdale and Last of the Summer Wine.
We visit the beautiful village of Haworth, the market town of Knaresborough and the former spa town of Harrogate, and there is a scenic tour of the Yorkshire Dales via Pateley Bridge, Grassington, Bolton Abbey and Skipton.
The final day is devoted to the wonderful city of York with all of it's award-winning museums, fascinating old shops and delightful tearooms.
Yorkshire is full of Brontë connections. And even if there was no Brontë connection at all, the region is so lovely that one has simply got to go there at least once in a lifetime :)
Categories: Haworth
Branwell Brontë was born on a day like today in 1817. All men in the Brontës' lives - excepting perhaps William Weightman and very few others - have been misunderstood and vilified over time, and Branwell undoubtably so.Patrick Brontë educated his children in a very modern way, but that is not to say he didn't feel especially proud of his only son, or that he hadn't special hopes for him. The sisters themselves seem to have been in awe of him until he was obviously in no fit state to be admired. And yet he did have a privileged mind, which was sadly wasted through bad connections and wrong choices.
Patrick Branwell Brontë had winning ways about him, was talkative, friendly, could trick well-travelled people into believing he had been to London when all he had was a book on London and could write with both his hands in Latin and Greek at the same time.
A few good mysteries remain about his life which will probably never be solved now. But we hope he will be looked in a more sympathetic light and valued for what he did. He might be known nowadays thanks to his connection to his sisters, but good things did come out of his pen. Hartley Coleridge himself congratulated him on his translations of Horace's Odes and encouraged him to work further on them. He got a few poems published in local newspapers as well.
So we encourage you to look for the real Branwell, through his writings and through his biographies. You will learn that he wasn't just the mischievous, drunkard, adulterous brother of the Brontë sisters'. This is a good year to start doing so, as you can see by the recent new edition of Daphne Du Maurier's The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë (introduced by Justine Picardie), the fictional account of his life by Douglas A. Martin, and the forthcoming edition of his selected poems in September 2006.
Categories: Reminder, Branwell_Brontë
Sunday, June 25, 2006
The Montreal Gazette steps forward as a counsel for the defense of Haworth after the unscrupulous attack of the Guardian's public prosecutor some days ago:
Cities should take advantage of their literary heritage
With walking tours and on-site readings, urban areas can celebrate local booksWhen I drove on the narrow roads of England's Yorkshire region on a winter night, I recalled a BBC television production of Wuthering Heights that I had watched long ago. I headed to Haworth Village, home of the Bronte sisters. As the car rattled in the gusty wind, I remembered the scene of Heathcliff's nighttime return to his childhood home for revenge.
Regrettably the rest of the article is just for subscribers, but it looks promising.
In The Peninsula (a Qatar newspaper) we read about a school quiz on English and Literature. One of the teams were the Brontë sisters no less!
There were six teams of senior students each consisting of six members with shingles commemorating Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Agatha Cristie, Bronte Sisters, Sarojini Naidu and Tagore. (...) Kimberly Fernandez, Neethu Shaji, Olympia Dutta, Jeslyn Elizabeth James, Geena Mary Felix and Sruthi Sreedhar were the "Bronte Sisters" members.
But who were the winners?
In The New Zealand Herald, Peter Griffin reviews Brain Age on his technology column, the computer game that we presented before.
On first look I wasn't too impressed, but the game becomes addictive in the way Sudoku is (...) Brain Age is a series of mini-games designed to sharpen your mind. (...) There are handwriting exercises that require you to write on the DS' screen and you'll also be required to read extracts from literary greats such as Joseph Conrad and Charlotte Bronte into the DS' speaker.
In The Greenwich Time, another columnist, David Podgurski writes about how love itself, in literature and life - indeed, often in the lives of writers - can so easily border upon madness.
Certainly the classic example is Heathcliff and Cathy in "Wuthering Heights," where the emotional force of the passion breaks the frame of the story (and the participants themselves). By "breaks the frame" I mean that these two characters, like Romeo and Juliet, the other classic example in English lit, seem to exist apart from their story now and survive as cultural exemplars. In the plot, Heathcliff survives the relationship, but Cathy does not, so surely it's a cliche to say that love like that can't last, at least, not in life (and in books, either?). Most of us think that's the allure, the poignance of such tales, of the Romeo and Juliet myth as well - and its status is mythic - that young love can so overwhelm that lives are lost.
Categories: In_the_News
Cities should take advantage of their literary heritage
With walking tours and on-site readings, urban areas can celebrate local booksWhen I drove on the narrow roads of England's Yorkshire region on a winter night, I recalled a BBC television production of Wuthering Heights that I had watched long ago. I headed to Haworth Village, home of the Bronte sisters. As the car rattled in the gusty wind, I remembered the scene of Heathcliff's nighttime return to his childhood home for revenge.
Regrettably the rest of the article is just for subscribers, but it looks promising.
In The Peninsula (a Qatar newspaper) we read about a school quiz on English and Literature. One of the teams were the Brontë sisters no less!
There were six teams of senior students each consisting of six members with shingles commemorating Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Agatha Cristie, Bronte Sisters, Sarojini Naidu and Tagore. (...) Kimberly Fernandez, Neethu Shaji, Olympia Dutta, Jeslyn Elizabeth James, Geena Mary Felix and Sruthi Sreedhar were the "Bronte Sisters" members.
But who were the winners?
In The New Zealand Herald, Peter Griffin reviews Brain Age on his technology column, the computer game that we presented before.
On first look I wasn't too impressed, but the game becomes addictive in the way Sudoku is (...) Brain Age is a series of mini-games designed to sharpen your mind. (...) There are handwriting exercises that require you to write on the DS' screen and you'll also be required to read extracts from literary greats such as Joseph Conrad and Charlotte Bronte into the DS' speaker.
In The Greenwich Time, another columnist, David Podgurski writes about how love itself, in literature and life - indeed, often in the lives of writers - can so easily border upon madness.
Certainly the classic example is Heathcliff and Cathy in "Wuthering Heights," where the emotional force of the passion breaks the frame of the story (and the participants themselves). By "breaks the frame" I mean that these two characters, like Romeo and Juliet, the other classic example in English lit, seem to exist apart from their story now and survive as cultural exemplars. In the plot, Heathcliff survives the relationship, but Cathy does not, so surely it's a cliche to say that love like that can't last, at least, not in life (and in books, either?). Most of us think that's the allure, the poignance of such tales, of the Romeo and Juliet myth as well - and its status is mythic - that young love can so overwhelm that lives are lost.
Categories: In_the_News
Two new editions of Brontë material have appeared this month:
1- Recorded Books LLD releases on CD (it was previously available on cassettes) a Wuthering Heights audiobook read by Flo Gibson.
Wuthering Heights - Unabridged CD - Library Edition
11 Hours /10 CDs
Narrated By: Flo Gibson
Published by:Recorded Books, LLC, June 2006
2.- Kessinger Publishing Company continues editing rare books and this time announces the release of Charlotte Brontë and her Circle by Clement T. Shorter (originally published in 1896). This was the first volume of Charlotte Brontë's letters that was published, when Clement T. Shorter and the infamous T.J. Wise were able to wheedle (in Lucasta Miller's words) Charlotte Brontë's correspondence from Ellen Nussey. Of course the edition is previous to the discovery of the letters to Monsieur Heger.
ISBN: 1425484603
Format: Paperback, 544pp
Pub. Date: May 2006
Publisher: Kessinger Publishing Company.
Categories: Audio-Radio, Wuthering_Heights, Emily_Brontë, Books, Charlotte_Brontë
1- Recorded Books LLD releases on CD (it was previously available on cassettes) a Wuthering Heights audiobook read by Flo Gibson.
Wuthering Heights - Unabridged CD - Library Edition
11 Hours /10 CDs
Narrated By: Flo Gibson
Published by:Recorded Books, LLC, June 2006
2.- Kessinger Publishing Company continues editing rare books and this time announces the release of Charlotte Brontë and her Circle by Clement T. Shorter (originally published in 1896). This was the first volume of Charlotte Brontë's letters that was published, when Clement T. Shorter and the infamous T.J. Wise were able to wheedle (in Lucasta Miller's words) Charlotte Brontë's correspondence from Ellen Nussey. Of course the edition is previous to the discovery of the letters to Monsieur Heger.
ISBN: 1425484603
Format: Paperback, 544pp
Pub. Date: May 2006
Publisher: Kessinger Publishing Company.
Categories: Audio-Radio, Wuthering_Heights, Emily_Brontë, Books, Charlotte_Brontë
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Two new Brontëites for our ever-growing list:The Independent publishes an interview with Brian Blessed, president of the Council for National Parks and this what he says:
Favourite place in the British Isles?
Top Withins, near Haworth, in real Brontë country. I like the stark isolation and the grandeur. It's the centre of the earth for me.
(Stark isolation, see?)
And another Brontëite, this one totally unexpected, Walter Hill. Yes, the director of action movies like The Warriors, The Driver, 48 hours or Streets of Fire or westerns like Wild Bill surprises us when he says in this interview published in L.A. Weekly:
As this bearish-looking, graceful conversationalist reminded me during a recent interview at the Polo Lounge, “Wuthering Heights is one of the most violent stories anybody has ever cooked up.”
Well, maybe this is not enough to call him an official Brontëite, but we were so surprised that we cannot avoid the mention.
Note: Picture courtesy of this website.
Categories: Brontëites
Today, we find in the press several mentions to Brontë influence (or Brontë absence) in several books, some of them already presented on this blog. Let's begin with the old acquaintances:
The New York Times publishes in its Sunday BookReview two reviews of two books that have been mentioned profusely on this blog:
My Mother's Wedding Dress by Justine Picardie is reviewed by Sarah Churchwell.
The first black dress leads to stories about other meaningful garments, and this private history eventually intersects with more public tales, drawn either from Picardie's professional and social encounters with fashionistas (including Donatella Versace and Karl Lagerfeld) or reflecting on her favorite literary personages (from Pippi Longstocking to Sylvia Plath, Miss Havisham to Daphne du Maurier, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald to Sigmund Freud, and especially the Brontë sisters). (...)
In a sense, Picardie's book is about what constitutes a throwaway: it's about what we keep and what we lose; it's about perishability. Ghosts of the uneasy dead are everywhere, starting with that of the author's sister, lost to liver cancer. Before long, Picardie's thoughts turn to Charlotte Brontë, doomed to watch her siblings die before dying young herself; to the murder of Gianni Versace, to Zelda Fitzgerald's death in a fire.
Reader, I Married Him by Michèle Roberts (who just yesterday we quoted as the reviewer of Words of Love) is reviewed by Lauren Collins.
By including allusions to everything from the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell to Cosmopolitan magazine, Roberts positions Aurora somewhere between Bridget Jones ("Perhaps I should embark on a course of tranquilizers as well as a diet") and Jane Eyre. It's extremely gratifying to find a feminist intellectual who considers eating, drinking, making love and dressing well — and reading and thinking about them — worthwhile projects.
And now for the new additions to the more-or-less-sort-of-wedontknowbutsoundsprettycool 'Let's put a Brontë reference in this review" category:
The Guardian publishes two (probably the editors feel guilty after yesterday's article):
In the review of Gathering the Water (Robert Edric), DJ Taylor (another Brontë-related author as this old post of ours shows) as a matter of fact congratulates the writer for not following the mainstream novelist way:
Its protagonist is a freelance engineer, imported to West Yorkshire in the 1840s to supervise the flooding of a remote valley and the dispersal of its inhabitants, and its introductory trick is to encourage the reader to imagine how a mainstream historical novelist might have surveyed the scene.
What would such a novel contain? Well, those pages of enticing detail on mid-19th century hydraulics, for a start, those processions of ground-down rustics wandering on stage to air their creator's command of the local dialect, and that tumultuous, Brontë-esque love-affair careening to disaster amid a backdrop of lonely pathways and pale hills. Edric, alas, has no interest in this kind of approach.
Finally, The Guardian publishes an article about the recent discussion in its bookclub of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. It seems that when she was asked what were her influences, she said:
Great Expectations, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were the titles that Waters mentioned. "They're probably all there in my books," agreed the author. The varieties of Victorian Gothic were especially fascinating, "all the archetypes of horror" are there.
Not a surprise if you check what were the Top 10 books in her Guardian's list.
Categories: In_the_News, Books
The New York Times publishes in its Sunday BookReview two reviews of two books that have been mentioned profusely on this blog:
My Mother's Wedding Dress by Justine Picardie is reviewed by Sarah Churchwell.
The first black dress leads to stories about other meaningful garments, and this private history eventually intersects with more public tales, drawn either from Picardie's professional and social encounters with fashionistas (including Donatella Versace and Karl Lagerfeld) or reflecting on her favorite literary personages (from Pippi Longstocking to Sylvia Plath, Miss Havisham to Daphne du Maurier, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald to Sigmund Freud, and especially the Brontë sisters). (...)
In a sense, Picardie's book is about what constitutes a throwaway: it's about what we keep and what we lose; it's about perishability. Ghosts of the uneasy dead are everywhere, starting with that of the author's sister, lost to liver cancer. Before long, Picardie's thoughts turn to Charlotte Brontë, doomed to watch her siblings die before dying young herself; to the murder of Gianni Versace, to Zelda Fitzgerald's death in a fire.
Reader, I Married Him by Michèle Roberts (who just yesterday we quoted as the reviewer of Words of Love) is reviewed by Lauren Collins.
By including allusions to everything from the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell to Cosmopolitan magazine, Roberts positions Aurora somewhere between Bridget Jones ("Perhaps I should embark on a course of tranquilizers as well as a diet") and Jane Eyre. It's extremely gratifying to find a feminist intellectual who considers eating, drinking, making love and dressing well — and reading and thinking about them — worthwhile projects.
And now for the new additions to the more-or-less-sort-of-wedontknowbutsoundsprettycool 'Let's put a Brontë reference in this review" category:
The Guardian publishes two (probably the editors feel guilty after yesterday's article):
In the review of Gathering the Water (Robert Edric), DJ Taylor (another Brontë-related author as this old post of ours shows) as a matter of fact congratulates the writer for not following the mainstream novelist way:
Its protagonist is a freelance engineer, imported to West Yorkshire in the 1840s to supervise the flooding of a remote valley and the dispersal of its inhabitants, and its introductory trick is to encourage the reader to imagine how a mainstream historical novelist might have surveyed the scene.
What would such a novel contain? Well, those pages of enticing detail on mid-19th century hydraulics, for a start, those processions of ground-down rustics wandering on stage to air their creator's command of the local dialect, and that tumultuous, Brontë-esque love-affair careening to disaster amid a backdrop of lonely pathways and pale hills. Edric, alas, has no interest in this kind of approach.
Finally, The Guardian publishes an article about the recent discussion in its bookclub of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. It seems that when she was asked what were her influences, she said:
Great Expectations, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were the titles that Waters mentioned. "They're probably all there in my books," agreed the author. The varieties of Victorian Gothic were especially fascinating, "all the archetypes of horror" are there.
Not a surprise if you check what were the Top 10 books in her Guardian's list.
Categories: In_the_News, Books
Sometimes the world seems so small...The recent publication of Literatos y Excéntricos-Los ancestros ingleses de J.L. Borges (Erudites and Eccentrics- J.L. Borges's English Ancestors) written by Martín Hadis (Editorial Sudamericana) has unveiled an unexpected and interesting Brontë-Borges connection.
We read at the Jornal da Paraba the details:
Jorge Luis Borges' great-great-grandfather was William Haslam (1768-1839), a Bolton (Lancashire) methodist priest with amazing similarities with his future great-great-grandson: he loved dearly his books, he was very well-read and suffered hereditary blindness.
The reverend Haslam had six sons. All of them had peculiar and interesting stories, but will focus on the third one: William C. Haslam that married Mary Eleanora Allbutt, Thomas Allbutt's daughter. Yes, the same Thomas Allbutt whose aunts were the Misses Wooller of Roe Head.
Yes, sometimes the world seems really small.
EDIT:
Mr. Hadis has written to us providing (and correcting) more information. Check it here.
Categories: Weirdo
Friday, June 23, 2006
Mr Westwood-Brookes from Mullock Madeley - the auctioneers in charge of Reverend Carus-Wilson's letters - has kindly written to us to let us know the outcome of the auction that took place last June 21.
He tells us the letters were sold to an American buyer for £1,200 (plus 15% buyers premium) whose intention it is to donate them to an American institution for safekeeping.
Originally the letters were estimated to fetch about 70 to 100 pounds so judging by the final sum it seems like they did pretty well!
The sad thing is, we will never know if there is any truth in what they say.
Categories: Brontëana, Charlotte_Brontë, Jane_Eyre
He tells us the letters were sold to an American buyer for £1,200 (plus 15% buyers premium) whose intention it is to donate them to an American institution for safekeeping.
Originally the letters were estimated to fetch about 70 to 100 pounds so judging by the final sum it seems like they did pretty well!
The sad thing is, we will never know if there is any truth in what they say.
Categories: Brontëana, Charlotte_Brontë, Jane_Eyre
This is the second article in The Guardian advising people not to go to Haworth. Why is that? Despite the "hordes" Haworth manages to remain familiar, charming, cosy and quaint, and makes for a lovely day out.
Haworth, West Yorkshire
If only the Brontës had had some talented neighbours - that's all I can say after staggering back from the cobbles of Haworth with everything from Emily pot-pourri to easy payment terms for a Brontë Sunbed. Never, has a birthplace gone so overboard about its first family. Charlotte wrote as early as 1850 about sightseers coming "boring to Haworth" as if they were weevils. It's a cliche of a comparison, but they have swollen to an army of ants.
There just isn't room. The Parsonage has fine things to show but too often it's just a queue. The walk to the waterfalls is like a crocodile outing from school. The whole point of Emily's moors was their wild freedom, but the signs (in Japanese and English, so great is the power of this touro-magnet) point to one tried-n-tested clough, beck and ruin. The tours don't have time for any right to roam.
Parking is complicated and, though the steam train from Keighley is nice, it's crocodile time again for the hike to Brontëland. To cap it all a socking great windmill has been plonked on the neighbouring hillside. Why don't Thornton (the sisters' birthplace) and Cowan Bridge (home of their school) get their act together and divert some of the hordes?
Martin Wainwright
Mr Wainwright, we have been to Haworth several times in August and always the Parsonage felt ample - not completely empty, fortunately for them, but not once did we have to "queue" or encountered "crocodile time" outside.
About the moors. You don't have to go on a tour or go where the Japanese signs point to. You can just follow your own feet and go where they lead you. They are so vast that you have plenty of wild freedom there. Perhaps you simply stayed at the very beginning, but had you taken a step inside more you wouldn't be saying that. And what's wrong with the signals in Japanese anyway? They make up much of the tourists there and should they be left to get lost in the immense space of the moors just so that the place retains its "charm"?
And finally, those places and others scattered around Brontë and Shirley Country do "divert" some tourists, but you will agree with us that tourists with a tight schedule will always choose Haworth - where the Brontës lived most of their lives - as the place to go.
And why does it bother them so much that there are so many Brontë-related products? London, Paris, New York, all have souvenirs selling their best-known features as best they can. They don't expect people to live as in the 1850s just because it's Haworth, do they?
Some people are too into the "off the beaten paths" of the world to appreciate why so many people are going to the same places. Well, you won't be missed.
A very big HMPH!
Categories: Haworth
Haworth, West Yorkshire
If only the Brontës had had some talented neighbours - that's all I can say after staggering back from the cobbles of Haworth with everything from Emily pot-pourri to easy payment terms for a Brontë Sunbed. Never, has a birthplace gone so overboard about its first family. Charlotte wrote as early as 1850 about sightseers coming "boring to Haworth" as if they were weevils. It's a cliche of a comparison, but they have swollen to an army of ants.
There just isn't room. The Parsonage has fine things to show but too often it's just a queue. The walk to the waterfalls is like a crocodile outing from school. The whole point of Emily's moors was their wild freedom, but the signs (in Japanese and English, so great is the power of this touro-magnet) point to one tried-n-tested clough, beck and ruin. The tours don't have time for any right to roam.
Parking is complicated and, though the steam train from Keighley is nice, it's crocodile time again for the hike to Brontëland. To cap it all a socking great windmill has been plonked on the neighbouring hillside. Why don't Thornton (the sisters' birthplace) and Cowan Bridge (home of their school) get their act together and divert some of the hordes?
Martin Wainwright
Mr Wainwright, we have been to Haworth several times in August and always the Parsonage felt ample - not completely empty, fortunately for them, but not once did we have to "queue" or encountered "crocodile time" outside.
About the moors. You don't have to go on a tour or go where the Japanese signs point to. You can just follow your own feet and go where they lead you. They are so vast that you have plenty of wild freedom there. Perhaps you simply stayed at the very beginning, but had you taken a step inside more you wouldn't be saying that. And what's wrong with the signals in Japanese anyway? They make up much of the tourists there and should they be left to get lost in the immense space of the moors just so that the place retains its "charm"?
And finally, those places and others scattered around Brontë and Shirley Country do "divert" some tourists, but you will agree with us that tourists with a tight schedule will always choose Haworth - where the Brontës lived most of their lives - as the place to go.
And why does it bother them so much that there are so many Brontë-related products? London, Paris, New York, all have souvenirs selling their best-known features as best they can. They don't expect people to live as in the 1850s just because it's Haworth, do they?
Some people are too into the "off the beaten paths" of the world to appreciate why so many people are going to the same places. Well, you won't be missed.
A very big HMPH!
Categories: Haworth
icWales talks about a novel by Margiad Evans called Country Dance which has been regarded as the Welsh Wuthering Heights since it was published 70 years ago. The title is not so evocative as Wuthering Heights, though, is it? This is what Country Dance is about:
Country Dance is a story of passion, jealousy and revenge centred around a young girl who grows up in an isolated rural community on the border between England and Wales.
She keeps a diary of everyone she meets but her daily scribblings fall into the wrong hands.
Ann Goodman is a young woman caught between two suitors, one English, the other Welsh.
Her fiancé, Gabriel, an English shepherd, soon flies into a jealous rage when he reads of her encounters with her father's master, the ill-tempered but powerfully charismatic Evan ap Evans.[...]
"Country Dance is a lost classic. It is about relationships and is an observation of a time in the early 20th century when society was divided between the English gentry over the border and the Welsh countryfolk."
If you are curious about it, the book will be serialised by Radio 4:
Country Dance by Margiad Evans, adapted for radio by Arnold Evans, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Monday to Friday July 3 to 7, 10.45pm.
Other Brontë influences include Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann (translated by Anthea Bell) where
The reader will also pick up references to Hamlet and Wuthering Heights, but beyond this game-playing lies a story of odd, intermittent courage and solidarity.
And Words of Love by Pamela Norris:
The book becomes less interesting and provocative when, after a look at Murasaki's The Tale of Genji and the Renaissance poet Mary Wroth, it moves on to Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot.
Sounds unbelievable that a book should become less interesting when it comes to Charlotte Brontë, etc. How odd. Interestingly, this review is by Michèle Roberts, author of Reader, I Married Him.
Categories: In_the_News, Wuthering_Heights, Books
Country Dance is a story of passion, jealousy and revenge centred around a young girl who grows up in an isolated rural community on the border between England and Wales.
She keeps a diary of everyone she meets but her daily scribblings fall into the wrong hands.
Ann Goodman is a young woman caught between two suitors, one English, the other Welsh.
Her fiancé, Gabriel, an English shepherd, soon flies into a jealous rage when he reads of her encounters with her father's master, the ill-tempered but powerfully charismatic Evan ap Evans.[...]
"Country Dance is a lost classic. It is about relationships and is an observation of a time in the early 20th century when society was divided between the English gentry over the border and the Welsh countryfolk."
If you are curious about it, the book will be serialised by Radio 4:
Country Dance by Margiad Evans, adapted for radio by Arnold Evans, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Monday to Friday July 3 to 7, 10.45pm.
Other Brontë influences include Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann (translated by Anthea Bell) where
The reader will also pick up references to Hamlet and Wuthering Heights, but beyond this game-playing lies a story of odd, intermittent courage and solidarity.
And Words of Love by Pamela Norris:
The book becomes less interesting and provocative when, after a look at Murasaki's The Tale of Genji and the Renaissance poet Mary Wroth, it moves on to Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot.
Sounds unbelievable that a book should become less interesting when it comes to Charlotte Brontë, etc. How odd. Interestingly, this review is by Michèle Roberts, author of Reader, I Married Him.
Categories: In_the_News, Wuthering_Heights, Books
The Financial Times has an article on emergency kits and what's necessary and what isn't. Apparently putting Jane Eyre into it seems "entirely wrong".
The emergency kit list from class had recommended “inspirational reading” to relieve stress. Some choose a Bible; I had packed the lightest, tiniest paperback I could find. Unfortunately, Jane Eyre seemed entirely wrong.
So, would you add Jane Eyre or any other Brontë novel to your emergency kit? Wuthering Heights does seem entirely wrong!
Categories: Weirdo, Jane_Eyre
The emergency kit list from class had recommended “inspirational reading” to relieve stress. Some choose a Bible; I had packed the lightest, tiniest paperback I could find. Unfortunately, Jane Eyre seemed entirely wrong.
So, would you add Jane Eyre or any other Brontë novel to your emergency kit? Wuthering Heights does seem entirely wrong!
Categories: Weirdo, Jane_Eyre
Some months ago we presented a luxurious and extraordinary complete edition of the works of Harriet Martineau. This month the publishers, Pickering & Chatto, release the second set of the complete works of Elizabeth Gaskell. In this set, it is included, The Life of Charlotte Brontë:Works of Elizabeth Gaskell
The Pickering Masters ~ 2 Sets of 5 Volumes
General Editor: Joanne ShattockAdvisory Editor: Angus EassonVolume Editors: Linda Peterson, Josie Billington, Alan Shelston, Charlotte Mitchell, Elisabeth Jay, Linda K Hughes, Deirdre d'Albertis, Marion Shaw, Joanne Wilkes.
The Pickering & Chatto edition of The Works of Elizabeth Gaskell is the first comprehensive critical edition of her work to be published. It brings together, for the first time, her journalism, some of which has never been republished, her extensive shorter fiction, which was published in various collections during her lifetime, her early personal writing, including a diary written between 1835 and 1838 when she was a young mother, her five full-length novels and The Life of Charlotte Brontë.
Publication details
1 85196 777 X: Volumes1–3,5&7: £450/$7502376 pp: 234x156mm: 2005
1 85196 782 6: Volumes 4,6,8–10: £450/$695c.2,000 pp: 234x156mm: July 2006
The Pickering & Chatto edition of The Works of Elizabeth Gaskell is fully reset. Copy texts have been carefully chosen, according to the publishing history of individual works. Textual variants are noted at the end of each volume and individual works are accompanied by a headnote detailing the circumstances of publication, together with full explanatory notes. A general introduction to the edition traces Gaskell’s reputation from lifetime reviews of individual works through to late Victorian assessments of her achievement, the waning of her popularity at the end of the nineteenth century and its revival in the mid-twentieth. Throughout this process the role played by biographies and by the publication of her letters will be emphasised. The introduction also discusses the history of the earlier editions and collections of Gaskell’s works and offers a rationale for the organisation of this definitive edition. In addition each volume contains a critical introduction to the text(s) included in the volume.The Editorial Board is comprised of well-known nineteenth-century scholars drawn from universities in the United Kingdom, North America and Australasia, many of whom have written extensively on Elizabeth Gaskell and several of whom have edited individual works or collections of works by her and by other nineteenth-century writers.
Volume 8 The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857). Edited by Linda Peterson (Yale University). (The copy text is the first edition)
Categories: Books, Biography
Thursday, June 22, 2006
As we found out when we heard about Sophie Worsley, who is playing Adèle, Jane Eyre the Musical will be on stage at Blackpool's Grand Theatre from June 27 to July 1.This is Lancashire has an article on it and how it's coming along, especially as far as the 16 children involved are concerned, Sophie Worsley among them.
Jane Eyre The Musical, which will premier at Blackpool Grand Theatre on June 27, has a cast totalling 45, 16 of which are children between the ages of 8 and 14.
And the 16 talented youngsters in the Fylde have been receiving their final coaching in Victorian school day life.
The children have been given special permission to perform, not only for each evening's show, but also for the Wednesday matinee, which has been specially scheduled for the benefit of schools and education establishments.
The famous story of Jane Eyre makes for a dramatic storyline in this gripping new musical.
This haunting adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's novel opened in 2000 on Broadway, to rave reviews and composer Paul Gordon has created memorable melodies and lyrics. [...]
Premier Theatre Company artistic director, Sarah Jane Stone said: "Jane Eyre has been made easy with humour and music and that all important happy ending.
"It is without doubt still a modern day love story.
"All this has been attained without detracting from the original work of Charlotte Bronte which is so highly valued."
The production is being staged using some of the most advanced lighting and sound techniques both being provided by West End professional organisations and the production is set to follow in the steps of the blockbuster Ragtime which took the Grand Theatre audiences by storm last June.
Sounds like a treat! But bear in mind what a limited space of time it will be on stage, so if you are in the area you should get a ticket as soon as possible! Here's how:
Jane Eyre The Musical runs from June 27 to July 1 with performances nightly and matinees on Wednesday and Saturday. The company is offering generous concessions for all those in full time education. Tickets are from £6.50 and are available at the box office on 01253 290190.
As usual, anyone attending this performance is more than welcome to let us know how they liked it :)
Categories: In_the_News, Jane_Eyre, Theatre, Music
An alert for today, June 22, from the Friends of the National Library of Australia in Canberra:
The Friends Winter Bookclub
Gothic Passion in Wuthering Heights
with Dr Rich Pascal
Do you like the idea of reading a book that a number of other Friends are reading then
getting together on a cold, blustery evening to discuss it? Well, we’re planning just
that………..a Winter Bookclub in the Friends Lounge on Thursday, 22 June. The book
is Wuthering Heights and Dr Rich Pascal, senior lecturer in English Literature at the
Australian National University is going to get us started. Rich is an engaging speaker
with a great knowledge of the Gothic Novel and is more than happy to get us thinking a
little more deeply about this timeless classic. (...)
This is not a simple lecture, but rather an interactive discussion forum. Therefore you should only come along if you truly have read the book recently! (...)
The event will cost $10 for Friends and $15 for non-members.
Friends Lounge.
Thursday 22 June, 6 pm
Categories: Alert, Wuthering_Heights, Emily_Brontë
The Friends Winter Bookclub
Gothic Passion in Wuthering Heights
with Dr Rich Pascal
Do you like the idea of reading a book that a number of other Friends are reading then
getting together on a cold, blustery evening to discuss it? Well, we’re planning just
that………..a Winter Bookclub in the Friends Lounge on Thursday, 22 June. The book
is Wuthering Heights and Dr Rich Pascal, senior lecturer in English Literature at the
Australian National University is going to get us started. Rich is an engaging speaker
with a great knowledge of the Gothic Novel and is more than happy to get us thinking a
little more deeply about this timeless classic. (...)
This is not a simple lecture, but rather an interactive discussion forum. Therefore you should only come along if you truly have read the book recently! (...)
The event will cost $10 for Friends and $15 for non-members.
Friends Lounge.
Thursday 22 June, 6 pm
Categories: Alert, Wuthering_Heights, Emily_Brontë
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Thanks to Livvie we have come across one of those odd Brontë-related things that are always equally puzzling and amusing.For sale on eBay there's this print of a pink-skirted Jane Eyre used for a cigar label!
The description of the product doesn't provide us with many more details, such as where it comes from or when it was printed, though. But the starting bid is nearly $50, so the seller must feel pretty confident about this item.
Of course now we know Mr Rochester's favourite brand of cigars! :P
Categories: Weirdo, Jane_Eyre
Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery, writes in defence of the NPG. Apparently, the gallery was recently described as 'one of the biggest collections of second-rate and bad painting in the world'. Some people just can't see past things, right? And that only goes to show that - despite what they are trying to show off - they don't know the first thing about what Art is all about.
Sandy Nairne takes a written tour about the most remarkable portraits housed in the NPG, which of course includes the Pillar Portrait:
Special treasures such as Cassandra Austen's study of her sister Jane, Bramwell Brontë's portrait of his sisters, or Sylvia Plath's drawing of Ted Hughes cannot be dismissed as "bad" when they brought us face to face with their subjects.
Of course, it would all look a lot better if she had spelt Branwell's name right. But anyway, she has a point.
For a better tour around the NPG, do read Margaret Forster's recent article on it, which also includes a mention of this Pillar Portrait and makes a better defence for the Gallery.
Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Branwell_Brontë
Sandy Nairne takes a written tour about the most remarkable portraits housed in the NPG, which of course includes the Pillar Portrait:
Special treasures such as Cassandra Austen's study of her sister Jane, Bramwell Brontë's portrait of his sisters, or Sylvia Plath's drawing of Ted Hughes cannot be dismissed as "bad" when they brought us face to face with their subjects.
Of course, it would all look a lot better if she had spelt Branwell's name right. But anyway, she has a point.
For a better tour around the NPG, do read Margaret Forster's recent article on it, which also includes a mention of this Pillar Portrait and makes a better defence for the Gallery.
Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Branwell_Brontë
BrontëBlog has been provided with some new information about the cast of the new BBC production of Jane Eyre directed by Susannah White. We think it's a good idea to summarize the information that we have until now:
Ruth Wilson (Jane Eyre), Toby Stephens (Edward Fairfax Rochester), Francesca Annis (Lady Ingram) Lorraine Ashbourne (Mrs. Fairfax), Christina Cole (Blanche Ingram), Pam Ferris (Grace Poole), Tara Fitzgerald (Mrs. Reed), Georgie Henley (Young Jane Eyre), Aidan McArdle (Mr. Eshton), Charity Wakefield (Miss Temple). Pictures and more information on this post.
Later we found how Andrew Buchan was chosen to be St. John Rivers, Claudia Coulter as Bertha Rochester, Stephen Tomlin as Dr. Carter, Hester Odgers as Helen Burns and Cosima Littlewood as Adèle. We also knew that Sam Hoare was in the production, now we know that he plays Frederick Lynne.
Now we have the following names and faces:
From left to right: Daniel Pirrie (Richard Mason) ; Alisa Arnah (Georgiana Reed) ; Cara Horgan (Eliza Reed); Rebekah Staton (Bessie).
Ruth Wilson (Jane Eyre), Toby Stephens (Edward Fairfax Rochester), Francesca Annis (Lady Ingram) Lorraine Ashbourne (Mrs. Fairfax), Christina Cole (Blanche Ingram), Pam Ferris (Grace Poole), Tara Fitzgerald (Mrs. Reed), Georgie Henley (Young Jane Eyre), Aidan McArdle (Mr. Eshton), Charity Wakefield (Miss Temple). Pictures and more information on this post.
Later we found how Andrew Buchan was chosen to be St. John Rivers, Claudia Coulter as Bertha Rochester, Stephen Tomlin as Dr. Carter, Hester Odgers as Helen Burns and Cosima Littlewood as Adèle. We also knew that Sam Hoare was in the production, now we know that he plays Frederick Lynne.
Now we have the following names and faces:
From left to right: Daniel Pirrie (Richard Mason) ; Alisa Arnah (Georgiana Reed) ; Cara Horgan (Eliza Reed); Rebekah Staton (Bessie).
(Picture credits (from left to right): Peter Simpkin; Julie Cross; Steve Lawton; Angus Dechar)
From left to right: Emma Lowndes (Mary Rivers); Annabel Scholey (Diana Rivers); Georgia King (Rosamond Oliver); Maisie Dimbleby (Mary Ingram); Letty Butler (Leah).
(Picture credits (from left to right): Sasha Gusov; Fatimah Namdar; Isobel Buchanan; unknown; Andrew Chapman)
We have other names too: Louise Fellows (Parisian guest), Joanna McCallen (Kitchen Maid), Amy Steel & Beth Steel (Miss Dent), Simon Farnaby (The Doctor) and with an undertermined role: Nicholas Clayton and Anne Reid.
Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Jane_Eyre
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
A new Brontëite on the map! Author Katherine Towler, whose latest novel is Evening Ferry, openly admits to having been influenced by the Brontës:
Towler cites Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, George Eliot, Charles Dickens and Jane Eyre as some of her biggest influences. She adds that a good writer should be able to take the reader to another dimension.
The Brontës sure do that :)
And Julie Myerson from The Guardian writes briefly about going to the theatre to see Polly Teale's Jane Eyre:
"Adapted and directed by the wonderful Polly Teale, it brimmed with passion and tenderness. It took me back to my first raw, virginal reading of the novel at 15. I cried before the interval." Julie read her husband's draft screenplay and made some helpful comments: "Hopefully we'll be talking again soon."
Categories: Brontëites, Theatre, Jane_Eyre
Towler cites Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, George Eliot, Charles Dickens and Jane Eyre as some of her biggest influences. She adds that a good writer should be able to take the reader to another dimension.
The Brontës sure do that :)
And Julie Myerson from The Guardian writes briefly about going to the theatre to see Polly Teale's Jane Eyre:
"Adapted and directed by the wonderful Polly Teale, it brimmed with passion and tenderness. It took me back to my first raw, virginal reading of the novel at 15. I cried before the interval." Julie read her husband's draft screenplay and made some helpful comments: "Hopefully we'll be talking again soon."
Categories: Brontëites, Theatre, Jane_Eyre
A new British Jane Eyre theatrical tour begins today, June 20. This time it's The Taunton Thespians company (from Taunton, Somerset, UK) that performs a Jane Eyre adaptation for the stage by Willis Hall.This was originally staged at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield. Hall has captured the essence of the book as it traces Jane's life from childhood. Our Director, Mike Linham, has picked up the challenge of staging this classic Victorian story in wonderful outdoor venues around Somerset.
This is the sixth year Thespians have presented a touring production for the people of Somerset. We are putting on 11 performances of this play right across the county. A list of venues and dates is given here.
Tue 20 June Blackmore Farm, Cannington 7.45pm
Wed 21 June Green Garden, Lydeard St Lawrence 7.45pm
Thu 22 June Cleeve Abbey 7.45pm
Fri 23 June Glastonbury Abbey 7.45pm
Sat 24 June Lovibonds Farm, Burrowbridge 7.45pm
Tue 27 June Dene Court 7.45pm
Wed 28 June Fyne Court 7.45pm
Thu 29 June Fishponds Hotel 7pm (dinner) or 7.30pm
Call 01404 891287, Dinner & show £18.50 Dinner & refreshments £10. Download poster (PDF) with all details.
Fri 30 June Muchelney Abbey 7.45pm
Sat 1 July Taunton Castle 7.45pm
Sun 2 July Taunton Castle 3.00pm
Categories: Theatre, Jane_Eyre
Monday, June 19, 2006
Trashionista is asking people to name who they would cast as the ideal Cathy and Heathcliff. So if your mind is set on someone then head over there and let the world know.
It will be fun to see how many people vote for Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. (None, it is to be expected :P)
Categories: Wuthering_Heights, Websites
It will be fun to see how many people vote for Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. (None, it is to be expected :P)
Categories: Wuthering_Heights, Websites
We recently compiled the Brontë mentions from all the Top 10 lists The Guardian has published. Well, there's one more to add today. According to Elizabeth Buccan, the huge biography The Brontës by Juliet Barker is the fourth best book to get through a divorce.
4. The Brontes by Juliet Barker
Juliet Barker's monumental biography falls into the category of tried-and-tested books that won't let you down. A fiercely revisionist, meticulously researched reassessment of the background, landscape and events that shaped and formed the lives of Patrick Bronte and his children, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, it breathes fresh air and commonsense into the dark myths and fantasies that envelop the sisters in particular. I love it for the hard work that the author invested in it, her detail, her scrupulous integrity and her determination to get at the truth about the individuals and the family as a whole. She argues well and powerfully that "without this intense family relationship, some of the greatest novels in the English language might never have been written".
But just don't wait to read it until when (and especially IF) you get divorced - it's worth it all the same.
Categories: Brontëites, Biography
4. The Brontes by Juliet Barker
Juliet Barker's monumental biography falls into the category of tried-and-tested books that won't let you down. A fiercely revisionist, meticulously researched reassessment of the background, landscape and events that shaped and formed the lives of Patrick Bronte and his children, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, it breathes fresh air and commonsense into the dark myths and fantasies that envelop the sisters in particular. I love it for the hard work that the author invested in it, her detail, her scrupulous integrity and her determination to get at the truth about the individuals and the family as a whole. She argues well and powerfully that "without this intense family relationship, some of the greatest novels in the English language might never have been written".
But just don't wait to read it until when (and especially IF) you get divorced - it's worth it all the same.
Categories: Brontëites, Biography
There are two recent entries on the Catallaxy blog where the Brontës are mentioned and used as examples of their times.
This is what they wrote yesterday:
A doctor noted that the conditions in the factories compared favourably with the great public (private) schools, rife with bullying and sadistic disciplinary practices, where the gentry sent their own children. Others pointed out that the domestic servants of the Tories who supported the reform worked longer hours than the millhands. Various of the Bronte girls, barred from factory work by their class and working as governesses, recorded bitter discontent in their letters at their hours and their pay compared with the situation of the girls in the mills.
Charlotte's comments on Emily's work at Miss Patchett's school are well-known by now:
It gives an appalling account of her duties - hard labour from six in the morning until near elevn at night, with only one half-hour of exercise between. This is slavery. I fear she will never stand it.
So, yes, governessing may have been somewhat more sendetary, but one can't say it was a relaxed kind of work preceisely.
And today they write about one of Patrick Brontë's best know customs:
The Reverend Patrick Bronte, living on the outskirts of a Yorkshire village through the Luddit disturbances, slept with a loaded pistol at his bedside in case of attack. (Each morning he discharged his pistol through the bedroom window into the nearby cemetery).
In fact, if you go to Haworth and look at the side of the church tower facing the Parsonage you will see what it is sad to be said bullet marks from these discharges.
Categories: Websites, Patrick_Brontë, Victorian_Era
This is what they wrote yesterday:
A doctor noted that the conditions in the factories compared favourably with the great public (private) schools, rife with bullying and sadistic disciplinary practices, where the gentry sent their own children. Others pointed out that the domestic servants of the Tories who supported the reform worked longer hours than the millhands. Various of the Bronte girls, barred from factory work by their class and working as governesses, recorded bitter discontent in their letters at their hours and their pay compared with the situation of the girls in the mills.
Charlotte's comments on Emily's work at Miss Patchett's school are well-known by now:
It gives an appalling account of her duties - hard labour from six in the morning until near elevn at night, with only one half-hour of exercise between. This is slavery. I fear she will never stand it.
So, yes, governessing may have been somewhat more sendetary, but one can't say it was a relaxed kind of work preceisely.
And today they write about one of Patrick Brontë's best know customs:
The Reverend Patrick Bronte, living on the outskirts of a Yorkshire village through the Luddit disturbances, slept with a loaded pistol at his bedside in case of attack. (Each morning he discharged his pistol through the bedroom window into the nearby cemetery).
In fact, if you go to Haworth and look at the side of the church tower facing the Parsonage you will see what it is sad to be said bullet marks from these discharges.
Categories: Websites, Patrick_Brontë, Victorian_Era
The British channel LivingTV airs tomorrow 20 June, at 00:05 AM BST, a new chance to see the episode that the Most Haunted paranormal show devoted to the Black Bull pub in Haworth (originally aired on July 5th, 2005). The description of the show is... colourful and.. oh, well, judge for yourself:Description:
This is an old-world pub, which has stood on this spot for more than 300 years
History:
Little is known about the history of the pub. It's always been a pub and a hotel. The attic used to be a dormitory and the upstairs bedrooms were B and B rooms until last year. This was the pub in which Branwell Bronte drank his health away (he bought his Opium in the Apothecary across the cobbled street) whilst his ers were writing their novels in the Parsonage behind the pub (Both Charlotte and Emily also died in the parsonage). Their father, Patrick, was the vicar at the church next door (the church that stands there now was built by Patrick Bronte's successor but it's in exactly the same location).
Branwell Bronte was born on June 26th 1817 and died of chronic bronchitis and consumption on 24th September 1848 - He was laid to rest in the family vault at Haworth Church.
In February 1836 at the age of 19 Branwell was proposed a freemason and later became secretary of the lodge. Meetings were originally held at the Black Bull but then moved to Lodge Street (The chair on the stairway at the pub is a Mason's Chair and is thought to be Branwell's chair).
In the pub there's a print of a picture of Branwell and his famous sisters which he painted himself out of after a family falling out - the story is that he was the actual author of Wuthering Heights and Emily took the manuscript and made slight changes and sold it as her own work.
(Oh, no... not again !)
There is a big graveyard behind the church and it's thought to contain 40,000 bodies, it's also thought that due to subsidence over the years some of these bodies have slipped down the hill and now lie under the pub.
(That's gross...)
It is known that the landlord at the time Branwell drank there was a man called Dan Sugden.
And now the best part:
Ghost ratings:
- In the main bar, a man dressed in beige has been seen sitting at one of the tables
- On the road outside people are seen, you look back and they have disappeared.
- Outside, a girl is heard crying outside in the car park and allotments.
- People often see figures flitting around - usually out of the corner of their eye and a has medium picked up on a man looking for a little girl (his daughter).
- A man in a top hat is often seen sitting at one of the tables (Dan Sugden, the landlord at the time the Bronte's lived in Haworth was a small man who always wore a Top Hat, he was nicknamed 'Little Nosey').
- In the main bar, a child has been seen offering sweets to someone no-one else can see.
- In Room 2, people have woken up to see the dark figure of a man watching them sleep.
- Room 3 is thought to be haunted by a maid. When it was still being used as B+B rooms and one of the owners would clean it she would come back to find everything put back the way it was before - she thinks that the maid doesn't want her taking her job.
Spooky experiences:
- Glasses and ashtrays fly to the floor when there is no-one around.
- The bell by the fireplace in the corner by the Bronte picture rings of its own accord. Also every morning the light above the Bronte picture is turned round.
- People often feel that someone is brushing past them on the main staircase.
- In the main bar, when standing near the front door people often feel as though they are being tapped on the head. A light has also been seen by the front door.
- Very strong fresh cigar smoke is often smelt (it's known that Branwell Bronte loved cigars).
- All over the building things are regularly moved - even if you just look away for a split second.
- In the kitchen pates smash, items move around and footsteps are heard.
- There is a strong smell of sulphur smelt around the house.
- Talking/Muttering has been heard - very distinct but you can't make out the words.
Nothing is mentioned about how the ethylic nature of the place can be related to this...erm.. phenomena. (Picture of the Black Bull, courtesy of this website)
By the way, tomorrow June 20, Fox Movie Channel broadcasts the classical 1944 Jane Eyre, with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles.
06:00 AM ET Jane Eyre (1944) D: Robert Stevenson
Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Weirdo, Branwell_Brontë
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Today we have some references from the online news services that navigate between the overcooked repetitions and the exotic:
1- Let's begin with an interview that appears today at Viet-Nam news, Manh Chuong, translator, talks about his work and tells us that :
I also translate English books into Vietnamese, including books like Charlotte Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (sic), but I find translating from Vietnamese into English much more challenging.
Yes, we believe he doesn't find interesting enough to translate to Vietnamese as he mixes (once again) our Brontës. Really, if you have doubts it's better to say Brontë's Wuthering Heights.
2.- A new press appearance of Lucy Ellman's controversial Doctors and Nurses novel. This time is The Oregonian that reviews it and, of course, mentions its Jane Eyrish substratum.
3.- And finally, the arrival in Darlington of the Ian Dickens' touring production of Wuthering Heights is the origin of this article on ICNewcastle, where Chris Rankin's Linton is highlighted:
Chris has been touring since March with the production which also stars Michelle Hardwick from television's The Royal as Cathy and Barny Clevely from Hollyoaks as Heathcliff.
The big cast also includes Tony Scannell, late of The Bill, and Robert Beck from Emmerdale.
"We've had a couple of weeks break," said Chris, "but Darlington will be our first week back.
"It's been going really well, so I'm looking forward to getting back out on stage again."
Chris has enjoyed playing the role of Edgar Linton, which is a very different part from his previous stage and film roles.
"It's a classic story, one I first read when I was about 16," he says. "Edgar's a great role for me - he goes through a range of emotions.
"He starts out quite pathetic, like a love-lorn puppy. Later he's quite a bitter person - so that's given me lots to work with."
By the way, as all you know perfectly, Mr Rankin will appear again in the new Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, where he will coincide with Imelda Staunton. Maybe this shooting is the reason why Imelda Staunton no longer appears credited on the Brontë AMC website? Who will be our Aunt Branwell in Angela Workman's film? The quest starts once again.
Categories: In_the_News, Theatre, Wuthering_Heights, Books
1- Let's begin with an interview that appears today at Viet-Nam news, Manh Chuong, translator, talks about his work and tells us that :
I also translate English books into Vietnamese, including books like Charlotte Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (sic), but I find translating from Vietnamese into English much more challenging.
Yes, we believe he doesn't find interesting enough to translate to Vietnamese as he mixes (once again) our Brontës. Really, if you have doubts it's better to say Brontë's Wuthering Heights.
2.- A new press appearance of Lucy Ellman's controversial Doctors and Nurses novel. This time is The Oregonian that reviews it and, of course, mentions its Jane Eyrish substratum.
3.- And finally, the arrival in Darlington of the Ian Dickens' touring production of Wuthering Heights is the origin of this article on ICNewcastle, where Chris Rankin's Linton is highlighted:
Chris has been touring since March with the production which also stars Michelle Hardwick from television's The Royal as Cathy and Barny Clevely from Hollyoaks as Heathcliff.
The big cast also includes Tony Scannell, late of The Bill, and Robert Beck from Emmerdale.
"We've had a couple of weeks break," said Chris, "but Darlington will be our first week back.
"It's been going really well, so I'm looking forward to getting back out on stage again."
Chris has enjoyed playing the role of Edgar Linton, which is a very different part from his previous stage and film roles.
"It's a classic story, one I first read when I was about 16," he says. "Edgar's a great role for me - he goes through a range of emotions.
"He starts out quite pathetic, like a love-lorn puppy. Later he's quite a bitter person - so that's given me lots to work with."
By the way, as all you know perfectly, Mr Rankin will appear again in the new Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, where he will coincide with Imelda Staunton. Maybe this shooting is the reason why Imelda Staunton no longer appears credited on the Brontë AMC website? Who will be our Aunt Branwell in Angela Workman's film? The quest starts once again.
Categories: In_the_News, Theatre, Wuthering_Heights, Books
The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 31, Issue 2, July 2006) is already available on-line. We provide you the table of contents and abstracts:Editorial pp. iii-iv(1) Author: Duckett, Bob
ARTICLES
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, and the Meaning of Love pp. 93-100(8) Author: Weisser, Susan Ostrov
Abstract
Charlotte Brontë's novels were a clear departure from the romantic novels in vogue in her time, typified in the work of Jane Austen. No longer were manners, appearance and submissive conformity the ideal. Charlotte believed in a heroine's inner strength, her moral integrity, and her intellectual qualities. The nature of this change is analysed.
The Professor: The Third Participant pp. 101-111(11) Author: Betsinger, Sue Ann
Abstract
The Professor is a new kind of story by a new kind of novelist. Informed by Charlotte Brontë's private reading of the Fall Myth, the novel presents her original hero, Adam's Son, her original heroine, Eve's Daughter, and the significant third participant in Eden. Her uniquely conceived serpent-figure, Hunsden Yorke Hunsden, is an essential influence, crucial to the moral development of the hero and instrumental to the achievement of every good thing in his life.
Painful Life, Azrael, The Weary, and Dr Wheelhouse: The Diverse Legacy of Branwell Brontë pp. 113-119(7) Author: FitzGerald, Sally
Abstract
Three of Branwell Brontë's poems and his unfinished novel are analysed to illustrate the richness of his thought. As more of Branwell's work is published a better appreciation can be made of his skill and his claim to be heard.
'Addresses from the land of the dead': Emily Brontë and Shelley pp. 121-131(11) Author: Stoneman, Patsy
Abstract
In this essay, I adopt the position of several previous critics who have argued that Emily Brontë was influenced by the writings of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and particularly by his poem, Epipsychidion. After sketching an outline of Shelley's life and ideas, and considering the evidence for Emily Brontë's familiarity with them, I summarise what previous critics have made of the relation between the two writers, noting that they have most often singled out Shelley's 'twin soul' idea as linking Epipsychidion with Wuthering Heights. Unlike previous critics, however, I emphasise that the most notorious passage in Epipsychidion is not the 'twin soul' idea but its manifesto of 'free love', which allows Shelley to envisage his love for Emilia as existing alongside that for his wife, Mary. My argument is that, if we accept Emily Brontë's fascination with this poem, it is logical to read her novel as an exploration of the consequences of reversing the genders in Shelley's schema. While Mary and Emilia each accept the other, Edgar and Heathcliff adopt a stance of implacable enmity which not only breaks Catherine's heart, but leaves her ghost begging for entry to a memory in which she exists only as a motive for revenge.
Text based on a talk given at a Day School in Haworth in October 2005 on 'The Brontës and The Poets'.
'A Wild, Wick Slip She Was': The Passionate Female in Wuthering Heights and The Memoirs of Emma Courtney pp. 133-143(11) Author: Fisk, Nicole Plyler
Abstract
Mary Hays's Memoirs of Emma Courtney is an antecedent of, and possible influence on, Emily Brontë. Hays's Memoirs (1796) and Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847) offer parallel representations of the passionate female. While Emily's Catherine Earnshaw has received much attention in academia, Hays's Emma Courtney remains overlooked. I examine Emma as an early 'Catherine', which, in turn, reveals Hays's and Brontë's similar criticism of 'respectable', patriarchal society, which allows no place for such passionate female expression. It is not coincidental that in the course of the novels, both Emma and Catherine are continually upbraided for and warned against their wayward passionate natures, both submit to passionless marriages, and, eventually, both are either psychologically or physically destroyed.
Anne Lister and Lesbian Desire in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley pp. 145-155(11) Author: Longmuir, Anne
Abstract
During the winter of 1838-39, Emily Brontë lived close to Shibden Hall, whose owner was Anne Lister. Lister's diaries reveal numerous sexual and romantic relationships with women, including her 'marriage' to Ann Walker. While critics and historians have speculated about the connection between Anne Lister and Emily, no consideration has been given to the connection between Charlotte Brontë's novel, Shirley, and Anne Lister's life, despite obvious similarities and the likelihood that Charlotte knew of Lister. Like Shirley Keeldar, Lister was a Yorkshire landowner, who adopted a masculine persona and was attracted to a weaker, more feminine woman. But we do not suggest a crude cause-and-effect between Lister's life and Charlotte Brontë's novel. Instead, it is more appropriate to read Lister's diaries as chronicling ideas and attitudes that were part of Charlotte's world and which open up readings of Shirley which would, before the discovery of Lister's diaries, be anachronistic. In this way, Lister's text allows a more explicitly sexual interpretation of female relationships in Charlotte's novel.
(More info on this old post of ours.)
Short Items
The Book She Never Wrote: Charlotte and the Chartists pp. 157-158(2) Author: Hansen, Astrid
Abstract
An account of a visit by Charlotte Brontë to the village of Wilsden in search of information about the Chartists, for a projected novel.
A Necktie and a Lock of Hair: The Memories of George Feather the Younger pp. 159-162(4) Authors: Ian,; Emberson, Catherine
Abstract
An account of a little-known article by John Longbottom featuring memories from Sally and Hannah Dawson of the Reverend Patrick Brontë and the death of Charlotte Brontë.
Face to Face with Charlotte Brontë: The 2006 Exhibition in Charlotte's Room pp. 163-166(4) Author: Salter, Polly
Reviews pp. 167-178(12)
Categories: Journals, Scholar, Brontë_Society
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