The Invention of Charlotte Brontë by Graham Watson: How the influential 1857 biography of the writer took on a life of its own,Watson’s generally close adherence to the biographer Elizabeth Gaskell’s viewpoint enables effective narrative structuring, but excludes further exploration. (...)
The story of Gaskell’s research and writing of The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857) has been frequently told within modern Brontë biographies, but it deserves a book to itself. Graham Watson traces Gaskell’s fascination with Brontë from the first stirrings of her curiosity about the identity of the “Currer Bell” who had published Jane Eyre, through their four-year friendship, into Gaskell’s publication of the Life and its scandal-ridden aftermath. Charlotte herself appears as the last of the six Brontë children – no longer the aspiring writer depicted in plays and biopics, struggling for recognition alongside her sisters Emily and Anne, but an increasingly confident literary celebrity, whom Gaskell met in 1850, and who in June 1854 entered into a marriage that ended nine months later with her death in early pregnancy.
As Watson shows, the work of “inventing” Charlotte Brontë was begun by herself, in stories she told Gaskell about her motherless childhood in the Yorkshire parsonage presided over by her temperamental father, an Anglican vicar (and published author) from Co Down, and her grim first experience of boarding school. Gaskell’s pitying response conditioned her views of everything else she learned about Brontë; and while she found allies including Brontë's schoolfriend Mary Taylor, who agreed that “all her life was but labour and pain”, she ultimately had to issue an amended third edition of the Life after others objected to being implicated in Brontë's misfortunes (...). (Jenny McAuley)
Let it be known that audiences and readers aren’t devouring Regency Romance for its distinctly historically accurate nature. Like modern remakes of novels by Austen and Bronte, we’re merely searching for semi-historical, luxurious escapism. After all, who didn’t once dream of being a princess swept off her feet by a noble suitor, or vice versa? (Saskia Kemsley)
MoneyControl recommends novels to read or regret it forever:
Charlotte Brontë's pioneering novel blends romance, mystery, and social commentary through the eyes of a fiercely independent and resilient heroine.
The Wife Upstairs by Rachel HawkinsA modern retelling of Jane Eyre, The Wife Upstairs creates a dual narrative of the two Mrs. Rochesters - one writing a journal while trapped in the attic, while the other lives in the shadow of her husband's dead wife. Rachel Hawkins plays with tension and suspense brilliantly as Jane takes a turn down the paranoia. Perfect if you're looking for a gothic thriller and a mystery to solve while you relax, though you might want to avoid any houses with attics during your trip - just to make sure your imagination doesn't get any ideas. (Ashley Skolrud)
The film’s perspective on its Yorkshire location is a distinctive one: no Wuthering Heights romanticism here, rather a landscape that is wild, hostile and more than a little dangerous. (Wendy Ide)
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