The Yorkshire Post has an article on Victorian photography which claims that,
There was also a good market in selling “celebrity” images. In Haworth, there was a brisk trade in pictures of Charlotte Brontë and her father, the Rev Patrick Brontë, and it continued for long after both had died. (Phil Penfold)
While there are two or three pictures of Patrick Brontë in old age, there are no known pictures of Charlotte Brontë.
Pan Macmillan invited writer Cathy Retzenbrink to recommend a few books. One of them is
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
‘Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!’ A wedding that doesn’t happen is also central to the plot of Jane Eyre. When we meet Jane, her parents are long dead of typhus and she is living with a cruel aunt and being tormented by her cousins. By the time she is standing at the altar, she has fallen in love with Mr Rochester, but her happy ending still lies far in the distance. I could endlessly reread this book, and it says something different to me every time.
Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë
Synopsis: Having lost the family savings on risky investments, Richard Grey removes himself from family life and suffers a bout of depression. Feeling helpless and frustrated, his youngest daughter, Agnes, applies for a job as a governess to the children of a wealthy, upper-class, English family. Ecstatic at the thought that she has finally gained control and freedom over her own life, Agnes arrives at the Bloomfield mansion armed with confidence and purpose. The cruelty with which the family treat her however, slowly but surely strips the heroine of all dignity and belief in humanity. A tale of female bravery in the face of isolation and subjugation, Agnes Grey is a masterpiece claimed by Irish writer, George Moore, to be possessed of all the qualities and style of a Jane Austen title. Its simple prosaic style propels the narrative forward in a gentle yet rhythmic manner which continuously leaves the listener wanting to know more. [...]
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Synopsis: Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard. But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again? [...]
Villette – Charlotte Brontë
Synopsis: Lucy Snowe flees England and a tragic past to become an instructor in a French boarding school in the town of Villette. There she unexpectedly confronts her feelings of love and longing as she witnesses the fitful romance between Dr. John, a handsome young Englishman, and Ginerva Fanshawe, a beautiful coquette. The first pain brings others, and with them comes the heartache Lucy has tried so long to escape. Yet in spite of adversity and disappointment, Lucy Snowe survives to recount the unstinting vision of a turbulent life’s journey – a journey that is one of the most insightful fictional studies of a woman’s consciousness in English literature. (Louise Nice)
Strange not to see Wuthering Heights in there.
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