Delighted in seeing the word ‘Haworth’ in Brontë’s own hand

Daily Mail reports that Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Nadine Dorries is backing (with words, not with actual money) the Friends of the National Libraries' effort to try and keep the Honresfeld Collection public and in the UK.

And Nadine Dorries, the Culture Secretary, was ‘overwhelmed’ yesterday as she examined a collection of manuscripts by Britain’s greatest Victorian novelists and poets, hidden for more than a century.

The MP offered her total support to a momentous fundraising effort to save the Honresfield Library from being broken up and sold abroad.

The collection contains a number of handwritten texts by some of the country’s best-known writers – including Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns and Charlotte Brontë. [...]

She said: ‘It’s important everybody from every background has access to this because it will inspire writers of the future, it will inspire kids who think, “Books aren’t for me, writing is not for me,” to see something like that and think, “Wow”.

‘And they’ll get that tingle down their spine, that same buzz when they see it and want to do something themselves. And only if that’s in public ownership will that happen.’

FNL’s ambitious project – the first national arts appeal of its kind – has already raised £7.5million, including £4million of taxpayer money donated by the National Heritage Memorial Fund and more than £116,000 in public donations. And the appeal has also won other high-profile supporters including Stephen Fry, the estate of poet TS Eliot and Prince Charles who backed the FNL campaign in the Daily Mail earlier this week.

Mrs Dorries was shown texts at Sotheby’s in London yesterday, where the collection is currently being kept. She said she felt ‘incredibly privileged’ to see the works written by the all-time greats and admitted her ‘enthusiasm as a novelist and reader’ was making her ‘tummy flip’. ‘These are the crown jewels of our literary history,’ she said.

If successful in acquiring the collection, FNL intends to split the works between a consortium of institutions across the country including the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford and the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, West Yorkshire and the British Library.

The unseen letters and manuscripts can be digitalised to ensure they can be accessed easily by schools and young people everywhere. Mrs Dorries said that it was ‘really important’ the works were ‘absolutely shared across the country’ enabling access to a wide range of people.

She delighted in seeing the word ‘Haworth’ in Brontë’s own hand, naming the village where the Bronte sisters were brought up. [...]

The Culture Secretary added: ‘The fact they’re going to go back to their original roots, going home – it’s amazing. They’re going home and that’s fantastic.

‘And everyone can see them. If you live in Yorkshire you don’t have to travel to London to see them. An added advantage of this massive drive by Friends of the National Libraries is that it is levelling up in action as libraries in Leeds, Scotland, Yorkshire, Hampshire and Oxford will all benefit. It’s actually emotional, it really is.’

Professor Kathryn Sutherland, a Jane Austen expert based at the University of Oxford, told Mrs Dorries the impact the collection would have in the public domain.

She said: ‘This has got to go back on public display. There is so much we can do in terms of public engagement with this material .

‘It doesn’t matter where it resides because we can collect it together in so many ways and engage with it creatively too.

‘It’s not just saving heritage it’s creative renewal – we can do a lot, we can stimulate a lot of creativity with this among school children.’ (Izzy Ferris)

If only there was someone in power who could help guarantee that--Oh wait!

Mancunion recommends 'S(b)ooky reads for this Halloween' including

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

Recommended by Victoria

Originally published in 1847, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is one of the most beloved books in the English canon. This is a classic worth its hype. Set against the backdrop of the wild Yorkshire moors, Brontë depicts a love so turbulent and passionate that it stretches to the grave and beyond. Heathcliff and Catherine are two of the most flawed characters in literature, but in Brontë’s hands their stories are wholly absorbing. This ghostly novel is the perfect book to curl up with in autumn and the spooky season (especially with Kate Bush’s eponymous song playing in the background). (Aileen Loftus)

While Varsity recommends a short 'Autumnal Reading List' which includes

Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë

Brontë’s classic is one of my absolute favourites and simply had to be included in this list. The heartrending romance between Jane and Rochester is of course central to the narrative, but Brontë infuses it with gothic elements – the misty moors, the cold and echoing rooms of Thornfield, the spectral appearances of Bertha – that are all intensified by reading it on a blustery autumn afternoon. Even in the very opening of the novel, a young Jane Eyre is confined to the house by the driving November rain, where she attempts to escape her loveless family in the pages of a book. This bleak image is so illustrative of Jane’s entire childhood, it makes her journey towards independence and discovery of love on equal terms all the more fulfilling. (Emma Hulse)

This contributor to The New York Times is curious about the brief biographies on the backs of books on the best-seller list.

So what a pleasure it was to stumble across this refreshing take on Lauren Blackwood, whose debut novel, “Within These Wicked Walls,” makes an entrance at No. 5 on the young adult hardcover list: “When not writing, she’s a physical therapy assistant who doesn’t really know how to settle on one career field.” Welcome to the club, Ms. Blackwood. “Within These Wicked Walls” is a fantasy retelling of “Jane Eyre” starring an exorcist named Andromeda and a handsome young heir named Magnus Rochester. As one exuberant Goodreads reviewer put it, “If you love kissing, creepy stuff and banter for days, PULL UP A CHAIR YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT PLACE.” (Elisabeth Egan)

Book Geeks (India) interviews writer Gayatri Chandrasekharan.

Are you a reader yourself? What are some of your favourite books?

Yes, I love to read though I do it lesser now than earlier as the phone is a big distraction! Some of my favourite books are Animal Farm, Of Human Bondage, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, 1984, Wuthering Heights, all of James Herriot’s books, Fahrenheit 451, Remains of the Day, All the Light We Cannot See, Chronicles of a Death Foretold, Of Mice and Men, Daddy Long Legs, Alice in Wonderland, A Tale of Two Cities, Game of Thrones… there are just too many to list!! (Sankalpita)

iNews reviews the novel Learwife by JR Thorp.

In asking what the grand narratives that shape our culture might look like from the wings, Learwife slots into a strong alternative canon of feminist retellings of classic stories, from Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea to The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. It also riffs on tales from real-life royalty. Thorp has cited Alison Weir’s biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine as particular inspiration, and Tudor-mad readers will detect echoes of Anne Boleyn (accused of adultery and punished for failing to produce a male heir) in Learwife’s unhappy story. (Emily Watkins)

A contributor to Gawker has applied the Omegaverse theory of fiction ('a slightly gross concept originally made popular in erotic fanfiction') to the classics:

There’s no need to be trapped by, uh, Omegaverse-normativity either; classic literature isn’t just full of alpha/omega pairings like Elizabeth and Darcy, or Rochester (an alpha) and Jane Eyre (one of the most well-satisfied omegas in literature). Heathcliff and Cathy are two alphas determined to claim each other or else burn down the world when they can’t, while Dorothea Brooke and Will Ladislaw are star-crossed omegas who finally get the chance to build a nest together. (Mikaella Clements)

The Sydney Morning Herald features the story of the Ivanhoe Reading Circle which has been meeting continuously to talk about books for the last 100 years.

Meetings were mostly harmonious, but there were provocative moments. In 1922 Reverend Rock recorded that a Mr H “woke the ire” of members with his objections to the morality of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and its dialogue, which he said was “maudlin cant”. (Jane Sullivan)

Slash Film thinks that '60 Years Later, The Innocents Is Still One Of The Scariest Films Ever Made'.

The governess is a woman so smothered by her own trapped emotions that it's driven her to ruin, something she can't fully convey in polite society. When she reveals that she's seen the face of Quint, the Heathcliff-esque gardener who died on the steps of the castle, she cannot help but note how handsome he was, even in her terror. To see perfect and poised Deborah Kerr crumble over the course of the film only makes the scares even more troubling. It'd be like watching Tom Hanks play Jack Torrance. (Kayleigh Donaldson)