Jar Bancroft of the weblog bancroftsfromyorkshire.blogspot.com
told me about this story ( standing in the KeighleyNews)
A rare first edition copy of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights has sold at auction for a record price.
The three-volume book, published in 1847, fetched £163,250 when it went under the hammer last Thursday, at Sotheby’s, in London. The figure — more than double the pre-sale estimate — is the most ever paid at auction for a copy of the classic novel.
The buyer was an unnamed American dealer.
Andrew McCarthy, director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum, at Haworth, said: “In the context of the worldwide recession it seems a lot of money and is quite surprising, but anything associated with Emily fetches that bit more.
The book was among 123 rare publications, mostly first editions, which together sold for more than £3.1 million.
The seller was a 75-year-old collector.
Also included in the lots was a first edition copy of Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which sold for £85,250 — slightly above its estimate.
A first edition of Scenes of Clerical Life, by George Eliot, which was once owned by the Keighley Reading Society, failed to sell.
woensdag 10 november 2010
maandag 8 november 2010
Umbrella
Click on elizabethgaskell.wordpress.com
I can testify to a magnificent family red silk umbrella, under which a gentle little spinster, left alone of many brothers and sisters, used to patter to church on rainy days. Have you any red silk umbrellas in London? We had a tradition of the first that had ever been seen in Cranford; and the little boys mobbed it, and called it “a stick in petticoats.” It might have been the very red silk one I have described, held by a strong father over a troop of little ones; the poor little lady – the survivor of all – could scarcely carry it.
I can testify to a magnificent family red silk umbrella, under which a gentle little spinster, left alone of many brothers and sisters, used to patter to church on rainy days. Have you any red silk umbrellas in London? We had a tradition of the first that had ever been seen in Cranford; and the little boys mobbed it, and called it “a stick in petticoats.” It might have been the very red silk one I have described, held by a strong father over a troop of little ones; the poor little lady – the survivor of all – could scarcely carry it.
Rond 1760 werden in Frankrijk de termen paraplu en parasol wettelijk vastgelegd. De paraplu werd toen in Europa vooral gezien als een product voor welgestelde dames. Vanaf 1750 begonnen ook mannen in Groot-Brittannië paraplu's bij zich te dragen, onder invloed van Jonas Hanway (1712-1786).
Klik hier voor leuke verhalen mbt de paraplu
zondag 7 november 2010
The Brontë Sisters
Authors: Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, and Anne Brontë. Designer: Kelly Blair. Cover Artist: Unknown. Art Director: Roseanne Serra. Editor: Elda Rotor.
Roseanne Serra, Art Director:
When dealing with our more special Penguin Classics, we are always thinking of how to create a special package. It has to be gorgeous, gifty, something you just have to have for its sheer beauty. I worked with Kelly Blair on Jane Austen: The Complete Novels. I wanted a gorgeous period piece that was also contemporary. In the end, the black silhouette of the tree gave the cover that darkness it needed without being depressing and took a traditional old painting and gave it new life.
Kelly Blair, Designer:
For me, this was one of those magic jobs where everyone was in agreement right from the beginning. This cover is one of the first ideas I sent in to Roseanne, and it was decided upon very quickly. It was my favourite as well. I love that the full cover speaks to the three authors as well as the mood and place of the novels. I look forward to hearing how the Brontë sisters feel about the cover.
Juliette Wells, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English, Manhattan College:
Three sisters, each prodigiously talented but far from conventionally beautiful, are screened from the public world by pen names. Isolated together, they create works of fierce imagination side by side, in a gloomy house abutting the natural world, where they found solace and inspiration. Their originality is acclaimed and despised in equal measure by their contemporaries, who feared such passion in young women. Knowing how soon the shadow of death would fall on them all, who would not prefer to imagine the sisters as portrayed here: a trio of lovely women whose gaze speaks of genius.