Parsonage kitchen

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Haworth Steampunk Weekend

The Brontë Parsonage Museum participates in the Haworth Steampunk Weekend (23rd-24th November):

Join us 23rd-24th November as we celebrate Haworth Steampunk Weekend!
10% off the museum entry price and in the shop for all those in steampunk costume.

Come to the Brontë Parsonage during the Haworth Steampunk weekend and listen to local storyteller Adam Sargent retell stories by the Brothers Grimm as you've never heard them before.
bronteblog/haworth-steampunk-weekend

Ian M. Emberson in-memoriam

Todmorden News publishes an obituary of writer, artist and Brontëite Ian M. Emberson:

He took to painting and writing in early childhood, and pursued those activities all his life, drawing creatively on his life’s experiences in whichever form his work took. The results were always of high quality.
Following National Service (Royal Signals, Cyprus, 1955-57), he went on to earn a living in both horticulture and librarianship in different parts of the country, settling in Huddersfield in 1971 on becoming Music Librarian. He retired in 1986 to concentrate on painting and writing.
His work as an artist is best known through postcards and book illustrations. His publications include eight books of poetry and prose-poems, as well as many journal and magazine articles. In 1996 Bradford Playhouse produced his one-actor play Cockerel Crowing Dawn, based on the life of the Russian composer Mussorgsky. Ian also wrote the libretto for Daniel Bath’s opera The Forest, performed at the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival in 2003. Four other composers have set his poetry to music.
Ian met Catherine through the Brontë Society in 1988, and despite his love for his home village of Thurstonland, and the many musical interests of Huddersfield, he moved to Todmorden to be with her. Ian initially found it difficult to adjust, but soon came to love the town, its wonderful walking country and its swimming pool. He became well known at literary, artistic and musical events. He was a patron of Todmorden Orchestra and an enthusiastic member of Todmorden Antiquarian Society. His talk ‘A Comer-In’s View of Yorkshire’ - based on his semi-autobiographical book Yorkshire Lives and Landscapes - was due to be given to that organisation shortly.
Ian and Catherine worked together on various pieces of Brontë research. One of these led to the discovery of George Sowden’s Recollections of the Brontës – which had lain virtually forgotten for over one hundred years. The Brontë Society have published Ian’s book Pilgrims from Loneliness: an interpretation of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” and “Villette” .
Ian had two children by his first marriage – Beth, who lives in France, and the late Robert, who died in 2012.
His funeral will be at 1.30pm on Monday, November 18, at St Mary’s Church, Todmorden, and from 3pm to 5pm friends are invited to gather at the Bear Cafe to chat about Ian and hear some of his works. (John Greenwood) bronteblog

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Information panel has been placed at Top Withens:

 

Local historian Steve Wood researched the background to the building which has no direct links with the Victorian author or her works, but has been held by many to match the location of the Earnshaw dwelling in the Bronte novel.
The panel tells the story of farming high above Haworth, going back at least 400 years with the first written record of a William Bentley dividing his estate amongst his three sons.
Their tough livelihood had to be supplemented by income from other activities including quarrying and weaving. Read more: plaque-provides-history-for-walkers-visiting-top-withins-on-pennine-way
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Victorian Women and the Economies of Travel, Translation and Culture, 1830-1870

The years 1830-1870 on which the book focuses is a key period for examining the effect of changing travel practices upon gender relations. The coming of the railway afforded women new possibilities for travelling, with cheaper prices and safer conditions enabling more single women to travel independently. At the same time, steam-powered technology was facilitating the expansion of a new print culture that opened up more opportunities for educated women as writers, journalists, and translators, and thereby able to become active participants in a range of social and cultural debates – a participation which was particularly marked in the context of intra-cultural debates that depended upon access to and experience of other cultures. Women’s perspectives lent a unique angle on these exchanges, and it becomes clear throughout the study that the gendered nuances of women’s activity as travellers and translators brought new approaches to debates around cultural authority, imperial agenda, and national dominance that were resonant throughout writing of the period. Read more: victorian-women-and-the-economies-of-travel-translation-and-culture-1830-1870/

Harry Ransom Center's Brontë Family Collection

Austin Chronicle informs of the launch of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas (in Austin) digital archive. One of the notable collections which can be found there is their Brontë collection:Harry Ransom Center's Brontë Family Collection

The holograph works of Charlotte and Emily Brontë make up the bulk of the Ransom Center's Brontë family collection, 1833–1858, along with works by Anne and Patrick Branwell Brontë. The collection is organized into two series: Series I. Brontë Family Works and Letters, 1833-1858 (1.5 boxes), and Series II. Works and Letters by Others, 1850 (.5 box). This collection was previously accessible through a card catalog, but has been re-cataloged as part of a retrospective conversion project.
The Brontë Family Works and Letters Series is divided into five subseries, arranged alphabetically by family member name: Subseries A. Brontë, Anne, 1836-1838; Subseries B. Brontë, Charlotte, 1833-1853; Subseries C. Brontë, Emily, 1837-1842; Subseries D. Brontë, Patrick, 1850; and Subseries E. Brontë, Patrick Branwell, 1834-1836.
Anne Brontë's writings are represented by typescripts of three poems and a list of characters she used in her stories and poems of the fictitious land of Gondal. The Charlotte Brontë subseries is more robust with holograph versions of "The Green Dwarf," "Julia," and "Something About Arthur." Also present is a letter to William Smith Williams, her publisher. Contained in the Emily Brontë subseries are two holograph poems and an essay in French.
The men of the Brontë family are represented in the final two subseries. Patrick Brontë's subseries contains a letter to an unknown recipient, and the Patrick Branwell subseries holds a holograph poem, a short story titled "A Narrative of the First War by Harry Hastings," and a commonplace book in which Patrick Branwell contributed four pages of poetry and sketches.
The Works and Letters by Others Series contains a musical score written by Ernest Powell for a poem by Emily Brontë and a biographical essay on Charlotte Brontë by Harriet Spofford. Also present are two letters, including one from Mary Taylor, one of Charlotte's life-long friends.

Title	Letter to Charlotte Brontë
Creator	Taylor, Mary, 1817-1893

Dear Charlotte, About a week since I received your last melancholy letter with the account of Ann's death and yr utter indifference to every thing, even to the success of your last book. Though you do not say this it is pretty plain to be seen from the style of your letter. It seems to me hard indeed that you who would succeed better than any one in making friends & keeping them should be condemned to solitude from your poverty. To no one would money bring more happiness, for no one would use it better than you would. - For me with my headlong selfindulgent habits I am perhaps better without it, but I am convinced it would give you great and noble pleasures. Look out then for success in writing. You ought to care as much for that as you do for going to Heaven. Though the advantages of being employed appear to you now the best part of the business you will soon please God have other enjoyments from your success. Railway shares will rise, your books will sell and you will acquire influence & power - & then most certainly you will find something to use it in which will interest you and make you exert yourself. What you say of Joe agrees with the melancholy account of him both in his own letters & other people's. I cannot give advice or propose a remedy. All seems to depend on himself & he - like all other people with his disease, is so powerless! His passion for marrying seems just to have come because it is the only thing serious enough to excite him - if that were done what would there be left? Your endeavour to persuade him to repose & quiet is certainly the best that could be made - may you succeed as you deserve! You will certainly do yourself good, tho it will be to both sides a melancholy meeting.
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Harry Ransom founded the Humanities Research Center in 1957 with the ambition of expanding the rare books and manuscript holdings of the University of Texas. He acquired the Edward Alexander Parsons Collection,^[5] the T. Edward Hanley Collection,^[6] and the Norman Bel Geddes Collection.^[7][8] Ransom himself was the official director of the Center for only the years 1958 to 1961, but he directed and presided over a period of great expansion in the collections until his resignation in 1971 as Chancellor of the University of Texas System. wiki/Harry_Ransom_Center

utexas.edu/research/info/

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