Brontë Studies. Volume 43. Issue 3

The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 43 Issue 3, June 2018) is already available online. We provide you with the table of contents and abstracts:

Editorial
pp. 173-175 Author: Amber A. Adams & Josephine Smith

Law Hill and Emily Brontë: Behind Charlotte’s Evasion
pp. 176-187  Author: Chitham, Edward
Abstract:
This article aims to describe the experiences and development in confidence which Emily Brontë gained by her stay at Law Hill, which Charlotte suppressed. Various authors have suggested that this was a crucial period in her life. Hilda Marsden thought Wuthering Heights was ‘born out of intense love for some special point of earth [Shibden and High Sunderland]’. Romer Wilson wrote, ‘Something very serious befell Emily’. Ernest Raymond said, ‘Emily may have experienced a passionate love’ at Law Hill. The following matters will be considered in this article: (a) Emily’s positive relations with some children and adults at Law Hill; (b) the educational practices and circle of acquaintance of the school’s head; (c) the social background of the pupils, daughters of tradesmen, not the gentry; (d) a means by which Emily could visit High Sunderland; (e) Emily’s only recorded adult friendship beyond her family. It also attempts to suggest why Charlotte airbrushed Law Hill from the record.

The Presentation of Joseph in Wuthering Heights
pp. 188-197 Author: Tytler, Graeme.
Abstract: 
Scholars concerned with Wuthering Heights are generally agreed that Joseph is a fundamentally unsympathetic character, basing this judgement as they seem to have done chiefly on his cantankerousness and his religious fanaticism. Yet to confine oneself to such aspects of Joseph’s presentation is to turn him all too easily into a mere caricatural figure. That he is, in fact, a quite complex personage, and not without good points, may be gathered from a careful examination of the comparatively frequent references made to him in the narrative. Thus, for example, quite apart from noting his staunch devotion to the Earnshaws as masters of the Heights, we discover that one or two characters who have been in conflict with him will readily seek his help in moments of crisis, as if they were conscious of the moral virtues by which he time and again proves himself an utterly reliable servant, and one perhaps deserving of the reader’s respect and affection.

‘It is well that he does remain there’: The Importance of Joseph in Wuthering Heights
pp. 198-208 Author: Quinnell, James
Abstract: 
Joseph, almost without exception, is read as an object of satire and ridicule. The fact that our perception of him is filtered through the unreliable narration of Lockwood and Nelly Dean has not been taken into account. We accept that Nelly does not have the whole story about the Earnshaw and Linton families, yet, curiously when one stops to reflect, we accept uncritically her words about Joseph. This article, through tracing Nelly’s words about Joseph, reconceives him. In particular, Joseph’s reading and speaking, often used as reasons to ridicule him, are discussed as being more to his credit. Joseph is also compared with Caleb Balderstone, the servant in Sir Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor (a novel that has been compared to Wuthering Heights), to highlight more positive qualities. The article concludes that Joseph’s loyalty is the quality that matters.

Death and its Aftermath in Wuthering Heights
pp. 209-221 Author: Newman, Hilary
Abstract: 
Death was a common occurrence in Emily Brontë’s world of nineteenth-century Haworth. It was a direct personal experience, too, in that Emily Brontë lost her mother when she was three and her two eldest sisters before she was seven. It is therefore unsurprising that the subject of death was of major importance to her. This article will examine Emily Brontë’s exploration of heaven or what may succeed death in Wuthering Heights. It will also look at the surprising number of recurrences of the words ‘kill’ and ‘murder’ in Emily Brontë’s only novel.

Charlotte’s Copies of Emily Brontë’s ‘Bonnet’ Portrait
pp. 222-247  Author: Heywood, Christopher
Abstract: 
This article introduces two newly found portrait studies, both copied from the watercolour portrait of a bonneted young lady in outdoor costume of the years 1838–40, known informally as the ‘Bonnet’ portrait of Emily Brontë. In a handwriting resembling Charlotte’s, an inscription on the back of the ‘Bonnet’ portrait names the sitter as ‘Emily Bronté | Sister of Charlotte Bronté | Currer Bell’. A newly found pencil copy of the ‘Bonnet’ portrait names the sitter as ‘Emily’, and is signed ‘CB’. This picture matches William Robertson Nicoll’s description of Charlotte’s pencil portrait of Emily, seen during his visit to Haworth in 1879. In addition, an unsigned, red Conté crayon copy of the ‘Bonnet’ portrait has recently been found at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth. Reproduced photographically and captioned ‘EMILY Brontë from a painting by Charlotte Bronte, hitherto unpublished’, this picture illustrated Frederika Macdonald’s article ‘The Brontës at Brussels’, in The Woman at Home for July 1894. The Conté crayon copy negates Clement Shorter’s undocumented surmise that Frederika had taken her illustration from a women’s fashion periodical. This article concludes that the pencil and Conté crayon copies identify the watercolour ‘Bonnet’ portrait as a likeness of Emily Brontë.

An Exercise in Archaeology: Researching the Silent Film Transposition of Wuthering Heights
pp. 248-259 Author: Seijo-Richart, María
Abstract:
The silent film Wuthering Heights (dir. A.V. Bramble, 1920) was the first ever transposition of Emily Brontë’s novel. It was produced as part of the effort of British film production companies to recover the audiences lost during the First World War. I describe how I approached my research of this version from an archaeological perspective, as no known copies of the film remain in existence. I relied on materials such as still photos and press reviews from the period to reconstruct the transposition. Then, the resurfacing of the film’s original script in 2015 compelled me to re-evaluate my initial conclusions in consideration of this new information.

Emily Brontë and Parmenides
pp. 260-262 Author: De Leo, Maddalena
Abstract:
Emily Brontë and the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides are connected through their common belief in an eternal and imperishable Being. May Sinclair had also asserted this in her work on the Brontës.

Reviews
Journeywoman
pp. 263-265 Author: Pearson, Sara L.

Making Thunder Roar: Emily Brontë
pp. 265 Author: Duckett, Bob

Mr Nicholls: A Brontë Story
pp. 266  Author: Powell, Sarah

The Secret History of Jane Eyre: How Charlotte Brontë Wrote Her Masterpiece
pp.267-268 Author: Duckett, Bob

Stone Field
pp.268-269 Author: