Back in Victorian times

The Irish Times reviews the new book Life Meets Art: Inside the Homes of the World’s Most Creative People by Sam Lubell:

“For artists we’re never going to get to meet, seeing their homes is the closest thing you can get to feeling what they were like,” says Sam Lubell.

We’re poring over Lubell’s latest book, Life Meets Art, a whistle-stop tour through the homes of 250 amazing and creative people. From historic to utterly contemporary, the interiors in the book take in artists, architects, designers, musicians and writers, from da Vinci to Picasso, the Brontës to Bowie, and it’s a fascinating – though occasionally disappointing – ride. (Gemma Tipton)

The Conversation has an article 'in defence of ‘inaccurate’ costumes in period dramas'.

In addition, historian Anne Hollander notes that Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) – the second edition of which was dedicated to Thackeray – likewise plays with the presentation of historical fashion. Though not as overt as Thackeray, Jane Eyre, which is supposedly set at the beginning of the century, also “evokes those same Romantic clothes contemporary with its authorship”.

In this sense, just as costume dramas do today, some 19th-century novels adapted, idealised, and even sexed-up fictional fashions to suit public taste. (Danielle Dove)

324 (in Catalan) thinks that Bridgerton has sparked an interest in... Anne Brontë. We can't imagine two more different things, though.

A l'editorial Viena han detectat que algunes sèries també atrauen lectors cap a gèneres literaris concrets. Per exemple, "Los Bridgerton" o temps enrere "Downton Abbey", han despertat l'interès pels autors anglesos de l'època victoriana i de la Regència, com Jane Austen, Anne Brontë o E. M. Forster. (Pere Gaviria) (Translation)

An article on LitHub adapted from the book The Women’s History of the Modern World by Rosalind Miles mentions Robert Southey's letter to Charlotte Brontë.

When the young Charlotte Brontë wrote for advice to the poet laureate Robert Southey, she was loftily told that “literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life,” and referred back to peeling the potatoes and washing the pots and pans.

Fortunately Charlotte resisted Southey’s advice and beat on into the murky waters of storytelling, that dark and dangerous, ever-beckoning sea. And what a voyage! Charlotte, Anne, and their equally extraordinary and even more original sister Emily, all cruised the wilder shores of love, and their daring is without parallel. Nineteenth-century critics objected strongly to the throbbing eroticism and sadomasochism of their work. Their contemporary, the prominent British writer Elizabeth Rigby, considered Mr Rochester to be a “strange brute,” dark, surly, sarcastic, and “of the brigand stamp.” But the heroines of these novels were also spirited, particularly given the age. Who can forget that great line from Jane Eyre: “I do not think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.”

Jane is shown here as challenging Rochester’s “right to command” and his “claim to superiority,” expressing her defiance of convention and her refusal to be judged as inferior to a man. This is no less than her claim as a woman to the right to control her own existence—to freedom and independence, in fact.

What is as usual overlooked is that Charlotte liked and treasured ('to be kept forever') Southey's reply.

Tatler reports that since the pandemic began and schools closed some (wealthy) families have decided to employ private tutors just like in Victorian times.

It seems the desire for additional support alongside homeschooling has also seen the return of the Victorian aristocrat’s necessity – the governess. Gazing across society’s go-to household staff agency Greycoat Lumleys’ website you will be met with a flurry of advertisements for the top of the range governesses – and not one description resembles the likes of Jane Eyre. Instead, the newly evolved role includes governesses fluent in multiple languages, boasting first class degrees from top universities and even having experience hopping on and off private jets with VIP families. (Davina Motion)

The Telegraph goes searching 'for Britain's windiest place'.

I saw my very first windfarm while living in the Hughes-Armitage world in the early Nineties, during a six-month stint teaching in Lancashire and commuting from my home in Hebden Bridge. On weekend hikes, I discovered the ruin of Top Withens (the inspiration for Wuthering Heights), Stoodley Pike and the expansive moors; the West Riding is one of England’s greatest wind-realms. (Chris Moss)

Writer/director Nicholas Ashe Bateman has written an article on 'Death, Myth and Dreaming in Wuthering Heights' for Talkhouse.