Filming Emily

Please don't miss our post on the forthcoming auction of not-seen-for-nearly-a-century Brontë items announced yesterday. But let us make our point once again today: the Brontë papers in the Honresfeld collection belong in the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

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Onto regular news and pretty surprising too as Emily's biopic starring Emma Mackey began filming in Haworth yesterday (it was quite a Brontë day, wasn't it?). From Daily Mail (with lots of pictures and even a short clip).

Emma Mackey was seen stepping out on set for the first time to film a new biopic about author Emily Brontë. [...]

Dressed in her costume Emma looked markedly different from her edgy Netflix character Maeve Wiley as she prepared to shoot scenes alongside Jackson-Cohen, who plays assistant curate William Weightman.

Emma transformed into the iconic author by wearing a purple cable-knit sweater over a purple-and-white plaid dress.

Her brunette locks were styled into a slick bun with a middle parting, and her hair was partially covered with a knitted bonnet.

The actress was also seen with a long brown coat in her arms, which she appeared to keep on hand so she could warm up when cameras weren't rolling. 

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Oliver, meanwhile, was dressed up in a black suit that he paired with a white shirt, and in between takes he also donned a blue padded coat. 

Marking Frances O'Connor's directorial debut, Emily - which is yet to have a release date - will follow the story of the famous author, best known for her iconic novel Wuthering Heights. 

The upcoming film will see Emma join the likes of Line Of Duty's Adrian Dunbar and Ammonite star Gemma Jones.  

Dunkirk's Fionn Whitehead, The Musketeers' Alexandra Dowling and The Spanish Princess star Amelia Gething complete the line-up. (Roxy Simons and Rianne Addo)

The Yorkshire Post also has an article on the filming.

The University of Alberta's student newspaper The Gateway features The Orlando Project.

A digital database established at the University of Alberta 20 years ago, The Orlando Project gives students and instructors access to a wide variety of literary works by feminist writers from the British Isles dating from the very beginning to the present. The text base includes a list of over 1,400 female British writers — from Charlotte Brontë to  Mary Wollstonecraft — as well as some non-British and male writers. The Orlando project is free for U of A students to use through the library and students can also take part in the Orlando project by submitting an idea for an entry.

Isobel Grundy, a professor emeritus of english and Orlando Project research director works on the database alongside Susan Brown, a professor at the University of Guelph, and Patricia Clements, a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta.

While some may argue that the Orlando Project is a database, Grundy clarified that it’s much more.

“It’s not really a database, because it’s very much angled, less towards number crunching and towards proving statements about things which are, on the whole, more nuanced,” she said.

The database mainly focuses on the British Isles because “it’s the longest English speaking tradition,” but the database still contains diverse international women writers.

“We have a sprinkling of American women, we have very few North American male writers, we have a sprinkling of European writers who have been read in translation by Anglophone authors, and we have a sprinkling of writers in Africa, Australia, Asia, and other places who have either written in English or been important to translate.”

 The Orlando Project databases not only focuses on written work by women writers but also examines the social context the writer lived in, which Grundy explained can have important influences on their work.

“We have tried to have entries that tell you about a writer, the circumstances of her life, and what she produced,” she explained. “One of the core beliefs of the Orlando Project has been that the material conditions are very hard on what is produced and that even the most brilliant and creative writer is going to be very much shaped by the circumstances of her time and her place in her life — that is a relationship which is always of interest.” (Doha Hameid)