It was here she settled down to research and write her best-known book – the definitive and wonderfully-readable biography The Brontës, which was highly acclaimed and won The Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award.
It is a myth-busting blockbuster and the first updated edition is just out, with new nuggets on the world’s most famous literary sisters, their brother, Branwell, and father Patrick. The book, first published in 1994, stems from her own childhood in Bradford, where her father was a wool merchant. She became obsessed with the Brontës and read Mrs Gaskell’s biography on Charlotte Brontë when she was 13.
When she landed a job as curator and director of the parsonage museum, in Haworth, it allowed her to delve deeper into the reality of a story that had been heavily romanticised and fictionalised by everyone from Charlotte’s friend, Mrs Gaskell, to film makers and fans.
“What surprised me most was that they didn’t live in some backward village cut off from society. I spent two years reading local newspapers of the time and they showed clearly that the place described by Mrs Gaskell was quite different to the real Haworth. It was a busy, industrial township with its own subscription library and lots going on,” says Juliet, who is most proud of rescuing Branwell’s reputation. [...]
“He was the leader, the innovator. Where he led, his sisters followed. What I also found was that what was supposed to be the most shameful event in his life never actually happened. He was supposed to have won a place at the Royal Academy, where he spent money on drink and drugs and was sent home to Haworth in disgrace. In fact, he never went there at all. Manuscripts show that his tutor felt he wasn’t quite ready for the academy.”
Her latest version of the book includes new material on Charlotte. “She really struggled to be a writer and an independent woman, but I upset people by taking away her pedestal. She is painted as someone who sacrificed everything to look after her sick father and that’s not strictly true. She was a dutiful daughter, but she was much more complex than that. She used him as a convenient excuse not to go to London or to avoid events she didn’t want to attend.”
“It will soon be just the two of us and this is a big house. It’s time to go and although I will miss it, I’m still going to have a moor to look at, which I’m pleased about. That’s very important to me.” (Sharon Dale)
http://bronteblog.blogspot.com/
It is a myth-busting blockbuster and the first updated edition is just out, with new nuggets on the world’s most famous literary sisters, their brother, Branwell, and father Patrick. The book, first published in 1994, stems from her own childhood in Bradford, where her father was a wool merchant. She became obsessed with the Brontës and read Mrs Gaskell’s biography on Charlotte Brontë when she was 13.
When she landed a job as curator and director of the parsonage museum, in Haworth, it allowed her to delve deeper into the reality of a story that had been heavily romanticised and fictionalised by everyone from Charlotte’s friend, Mrs Gaskell, to film makers and fans.
“What surprised me most was that they didn’t live in some backward village cut off from society. I spent two years reading local newspapers of the time and they showed clearly that the place described by Mrs Gaskell was quite different to the real Haworth. It was a busy, industrial township with its own subscription library and lots going on,” says Juliet, who is most proud of rescuing Branwell’s reputation. [...]
“He was the leader, the innovator. Where he led, his sisters followed. What I also found was that what was supposed to be the most shameful event in his life never actually happened. He was supposed to have won a place at the Royal Academy, where he spent money on drink and drugs and was sent home to Haworth in disgrace. In fact, he never went there at all. Manuscripts show that his tutor felt he wasn’t quite ready for the academy.”
Her latest version of the book includes new material on Charlotte. “She really struggled to be a writer and an independent woman, but I upset people by taking away her pedestal. She is painted as someone who sacrificed everything to look after her sick father and that’s not strictly true. She was a dutiful daughter, but she was much more complex than that. She used him as a convenient excuse not to go to London or to avoid events she didn’t want to attend.”
“It will soon be just the two of us and this is a big house. It’s time to go and although I will miss it, I’m still going to have a moor to look at, which I’m pleased about. That’s very important to me.” (Sharon Dale)
http://bronteblog.blogspot.com/
I've not read Juliet's biography yet, only elizabeth Gaskell's and Rebecca Fraser's, which I enjoyed very much and have actually read several times. I will get this one ASAP!
BeantwoordenVerwijderenxo J~
Ms.Barker may have rescued Branwell's reputation for this one event , but rescuing Branwell's reputation over all is not possible.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenHe was the leader and the innovator...when he was boy. But by 1845, imo ,the Brontë sisters cannot be blamed for keeping him in the dark about thier efforts to be published. He was no longer capable of a sustained effort.
Besides that, Emily insisted it be kept a secret. She was not going to do it otherwise.
Who can doubt Branwell would have babbled immediately about it at the Bull to anyone who would listen?
It could have been Emily wanted it a secret from both Branwell and thier father in part so the sister's efforts would not be trashed in yet another pointless rehab attempt for Branwell. They may have kept it secret to keep it safe
Barker is rather too easy on Branwell ( like his father,the Rev. Bronte) and a bit too hard on Charlotte.
Charlotte told white lies to get out of social events she did not want to attend. But who among us doesn't do that and quite a bit?
Rather than bluntly telling people you don't want thier company, you say " oh I can't because of Papa... " Is that Charlotte's big crime? Where I come from that's called "being nice" .
Imo the one Barker took off the pedestal and rightly was Mrs.Gaskell. From her own experience with Patrick Brontë, Mrs.Gaskell knew he was not the cartoon. mad Irish character she blithely printed.
But in her mind, her novel/bio needed a villain and Gaskell elected him. He was treated shabbily by her from start to finish, and with Ellen Nussey's help I might add.
Urged by Nussey, Patrick agreed to Mrs. G's book to refute, among other things , the outlandish stories in the press about Patrick.
The funny part was Mrs.Gaskell was herself the source of the very falsehoods she was suppose to refute and printed them in the book pretty much as they were printed in the new paper 2 years earlier.
In her 1899 book, "Charlotte Bronte at Home" Author, Marion Harland says about Patrick
...his daughter's steadfast piety may have had more warrant in character and behaviour than the majority of the Brontë cult are ready to admit
Indeed.
For 140 years, no one was not allowed to deviate from the Gaskell line.
Then in 1994 Barker published the first edition of her book showing the facts of the case. Thanks to this land mark publication , Patrick Bronte's reputation is being restored. If one only knows him though Gaskell, Barker's book is a revelation of fact, not fiction
I do agree with Barker that she shows Haworth was bustling with all kinds of activity and her reading the news papers of the day is a huge contribution to Brontë scholarship. This source material is like a treasure chest
Her book is a must read for any Brontë fan imo