Happy New Year.

First impressions: To walk invisible.

I was looking forwards to see "To walk Invisible". The new BBC adaptation of the life of the Bronte Sisters. Tonight it was the time.

bbc.co.uk

First impressions

• Beautiful clothes. Did they wear such beautiful clothes?
• In my imagination Emily is completely different from the actrice playing Emily.
• Charlotte and Anne I found well chosen.
• The house. Great to see all the rooms, to walk with the sisters through it.
• Flossie and Keeper. Love it.
• Big part giving to the situation of Branwell. To my taste a little to much.

I read in radiotimes

Meanwhile, the subject of the drama as a whole is a little unfocused – to some extent it’s chronicling the downfall of Branwell as he succumbs to self-pity and drunkenness (after a doomed affair with an older woman at his tutoring job), but it’s also concerned with the sisters’ literary success and attempts to get published. Doubtlessly the two threads were inextricably linked in real life, but somehow in this case the two halves to the story feel a little disjointed, the sisters’ great literary triumph lacking some of the emotional intensity of their scenes with Branwell and thus feeling a little flat.

I agree.

• Beautiful walks on the moors.
• I loved the meeting between Anne, Charlotte and George Smith and William Smith Williams. I always love this part of their story and it is beautiful filmed.
• I wonder, if you don't know much of the Bronte Sisters and you see the movie, will you understand them better? Will you understand what they mean for literature?

I am going to look again

But these are my first impressions

Merry Christmas to all my readers.

Christmas Eve

Max Nicoll ‏     

Christmas Eve in Haworth

Music On Christmas Morning - Poem by Anne Bronte

Music I love--but never strain
Could kindle raptures so divine,
So grief assuage, so conquer pain,
And rouse this pensive heart of mine--
As that we hear on Christmas morn,
Upon the wintry breezes borne.

Though Darkness still her empire keep,
And hours must pass, ere morning break;
From troubled dreams, or slumbers deep,
That music KINDLY bids us wake:
It calls us, with an angel's voice,
To wake, and worship, and rejoice;

To greet with joy the glorious morn,
Which angels welcomed long ago,
When our redeeming Lord was born,
To bring the light of Heaven below;
The Powers of Darkness to dispel,
And rescue Earth from Death and Hell.

While listening to that sacred strain,
My raptured spirit soars on high;
I seem to hear those songs again
Resounding through the open sky,
That kindled such divine delight,
In those who watched their flocks by night.

With them I celebrate His birth--
Glory to God, in highest Heaven,
Good-will to men, and peace on earth,
To us a Saviour-king is given;
Our God is come to claim His own,
And Satan's power is overthrown!

A sinless God, for sinful men,
Descends to suffer and to bleed;
Hell MUST renounce its empire then;
The price is paid, the world is freed,
And Satan's self must now confess
That Christ has earned a RIGHT to bless:

Now holy Peace may smile from heaven,
And heavenly Truth from earth shall spring:
The captive's galling bonds are riven,
For our Redeemer is our king;
And He that gave his blood for men
Will lead us home to God again.

kleurrijkbrontesisters  The Bronte Sisters and their Christmas holidays.

kleurrijkbrontesisters/christmas-holidays-of-year-1842

I think Charlotte would have been a champion tweeter.

What would the Brontës be like today - queens of social media, perhaps?

“Emily would have detested social media,” says Chloe. “She wouldn’t have adapted.

“I think Charlotte would have been a champion tweeter. Although I have a romantic attachment to Emily and her wildness, you have to admire Charlotte Brontë for her pragmatism, her foresight and determination to bring their voices to the world.” Read more: huffingtonpost

The 200th birthday of Branwell next year.

In an attempt to “get to know Branwell”, Simon Armitage, the Huddersfield-born poet and playwright, has been appointed as a creative partner to the Brontë Parsonage Museum and will help to spend a £97,702 Arts Council grant to celebrate the 200th birthday of Branwell next year, and that of Emily the year after.

The Parsonage Museum’s exhibition, curated by Armitage, is called Mansions in the Sky. It opens in February and will feature Branwell’s writings, drawings and possessions. thetimes

The Happy Cottagers - Poem by Patrick Branwell Bronte

The linnets sweetly sang
On every fragrant thorn,
Whilst from the tangled wood
The blackbirds hailed the morn;
And through the dew
Ran here and there,
But half afraid,
The startled hare.

Read all: poemhunter

Some of the reactions on the social media about 19-12-1848, the date Emily Bronte died.

Nick Holland:
On 19^th December 1848, Emily Brontë, in my opinion the author of the greatest novel ever written, died aged just thirty of tuberculosis. Emily can be a hard woman to pin down, incredibly shy and yet capable of incredibly powerful writing. A woman who shunned romance in real life, and whose most powerful love in life was for her sister Anne Brontë, and yet whose novel and poems are filled with romance. Read all: annebronte

    Brontë Parsonage       

December 19: in 1848, Emily Jane Brontë died in Haworth, aged 30. Her funeral card mistakenly stated she was 29.

The Brontë Society

A poem to mark the anniversary of Emily's death:

It was night and on the mountains
Fathoms deep the snow drifts lay
Streams and waterfalls and fountains...
Down in darkness stole away

Long ago the hopeless peasant
Left his sheep all buried there
Sheep that through the summer pleasant
He had watched with fondest care
Now no more a cheerful ranger
Following pathways known of yore
Sad he stood a wildered stranger
On his own unbounded moor

The History Press‏         

in 1848 writer Emily #Brontë died. she was a crack shot w/ a rifle? \\

The Long Victorian         

Emily Brontë died (1818-1848). “She burned too bright for this world.”

Oxford Classics ‏

#OnThisDay 1848: Emily Brontë dies of consumption at age 30, three months after having caught cold at her brother Branwell's funeral.

Write for Wellbeing  

That chainless soul, #EmilyBronte, died on this day 1848 age 30: “Riches I hold in light esteem,

Catherine Curzon ‏ 

Emily #Bronte's diary, 26th June 1837, showing her working alongside her sister, Anne. Emily died #onthisday in 1848. #twitterstorians

quickhistories ‏     

Today 1848: Emily Bronte died. Review of WH: "How a human being could have attempted such a book...without committing suicide..is a mystery"

@classicpenguins

‘She burned too bright for this world’ – Emily Brontë, WUTHERING HEIGHTS

    Órfhlaith Foyle‏        

Emily Bronté died today 19 December 1848 'I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free.'

Ms. Hester  

Wuthering Heights still contains some of my most favorite romantic and gothic pieces

Write for Wellbeing   

That chainless soul, #EmilyBronte, died on this day 1848 age 30: “Riches I hold in light esteem,

“Riches I hold in light esteem,
And love I laugh to scorn,
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanished with the morn....

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, 'Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!'

Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
'Tis all that I implore -
In life and death, a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.”
― Emily Brontë

La Caída   

Un día como hoy perdimos a la gran Emily Brontë.

Video films of "to walk invisible"

Video films of "to walk invisible"

bbc.co.uk/programmes

Study of Noses, pencil drawing.

Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855), Study of Noses, pencil drawing, ca. February 1831. Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will. Reviewed by Ed Voves and Anne Lloyd.

Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will

The Morgan Library and Museum

September 9, 2016 through January 2, 2017

Reviewed by Ed Voves and Anne Lloyd.

Charlotte Brontë's life was like a Victorian "three-decker" novel. Her incredible rise from obscurity to become a literary sensation with the publication of Jane Eyre in 1847 was followed by staggering family tragedies, then marriage, brief happiness and early death in 1855.

What sounds like the plot of one of her novels was actually Charlotte Brontë's path to immortality.

The Morgan Library and Museum in New York City has organized an exhibition in honor of the bicentennial of Brontë's birth. With the cooperation of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, Yorkshire, and the National Portrait Gallery and the British Library in London, the Morgan's exhibit is worthy of Brontë's life and achievement. Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will sets a standard of curatorial excellence that will be hard to top.

Earlier this year, I reviewed part of this exhibition as it appeared at the National Portrait Gallery. The Morgan's exhibit, drawing upon three international famed institutions, is vaster in scale and superlative in the quality of the objects on display. 

In the earlier post, I focused upon the 1850 portrait of Charlotte Brontë, created by George Richmond. It was a gift to Bronte's father, Patrick, from her publisher, George Smith. In this review, I will comment upon several of the other Brontë treasures on view in the spectacular exhibit at the Morgan.

Born two hundred years ago in 1816, Charlotte Brontë was a product of what used to be dismissively referred to as England's "Celtic Fringe." Her father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë was born in Ireland in 1777, while her mother's family came from Cornwall. Charlotte Brontë was also a strong-willed Yorkshire woman at a time when the northern regions of England were the epicenter of the Industrial Revolution. She also represented, along with her sisters Emily and Anne, the final flowering of the literature of the Romantic Rebellion. Seldom has one little woman embodied so much British history and so much individual achievement in one, very brief life.

And Charlotte Brontë was a little woman.  In physical stature, that is. According to the joyner who made her coffin, she measured four feet, nine inches.

The first object to greet visitors to the Morgan exhibit is one of Charlotte Brontë's dresses, the so-called "Thackeray dress". Brontë is reputed to have worn this dress to an ill-fated dinner party at the home of William Makepeace Thackeray on June 12, 1850. She almost certainly did not wear the dress to dinner. But the story illustrates the "outsider" position of Brontë - and her sisters - in the British literary scene of the 1840's and 1850's.

The Brontë dress on view at the Morgan is of a type known as delaine dress. The word "delaine" originally referred to woolen dresses. By 1850, the term was used for light-weight dresses made of various printed fabrics, including wool-cotton mix as in the case of this dress.

Historian Eleanor Houghton of the University of Sussex has made a detailed study of this dress. She believes that Charlotte Brontë likely wore the dress for daytime business or social meetings, including one with Thackeray prior to the dinner party. The style was certainly acceptable for daytime use in 1850. But it would have been a laughable blunder to wear it at a dinner party when silk dresses were the norm. Charlotte Brontë was extremely sensitive about her appearance, so much so that she refused to have photos taken of herself when she was married in 1854.

Thackeray's thirteen-year old daughter, Anne, left a vivid account of the dinner party. She described Charlotte Brontë as "a tiny delicate, serious little lady, pale with fair straight hair, and steady eyes. She may be a little over thirty; she is dressed in a little barège dress, with a pattern of faint green moss."

According to Houghton, barège was a mix of woolen and silk threads, very much in fashion for evening dresses in 1850. When it came to fabrics, Charlotte Brontë clearly knew her "stuff."

To focus upon the "Thackeray" dress may seem obsessive, when the Morgan exhibit is bursting with "once-in-a-lifetime" treasures, including the manuscript of Jane Eyre. Yet, it is worth considering this dress along with a famous quote by Brontë who was responding to critics of Jane Eyre. "To you I am neither Man nor Woman - I come before you as an Author only - it is the sole standard by which you have a right to judge me - the sole ground on which I accept your judgement."

Brontë published Jane Eyre under the nom de plume, Currer Bell. When she and her sisters, Emily and Anne decided to "earn their fortune" as professional writers they chose enigmatic male names, Currer, Ellis and Acton, respectively. The surname "Bell" was, perhaps coincidentally, the middle name of their father's assistant curate and Charlotte's eventual husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls. 

The Brontë sisters tried every form of employment deemed suitable for gentlewomen to earn their bread. Governessing, managing a school of their own, all that was now at an end. Their hearts were not in it and their brother Branwell's erratic behavior forbade housing students even if they could find any.

A legacy left to the sisters by their Aunt Branwell allowed them some financial freedom, but it wasn't a complete answer. In the autumn 1845, during  this time of uncertainty , Charlotte Bronte came across her sister's Emily's poems. They electrified her. Charlotte faced down Emily's fury and insisted that the poems must be put before the public. The rest is history.

Charlotte Brontë, aka Currer Bell, had the right to insist upon being judged "as an Author only."  Though politically conservative, Charlotte Brontë was in the vanguard of the eminent Victorian women who would stubbornly smash the barriers of the "Old Boy" British establishment.

The "Thackeray" dress, Charlotte Brontë's portable writing desk, the Richmond's portrait and the manuscript of Jane Eyre testify to the front-row place which Charlotte Brontë earned for herself among the "greats" of English literature. But these objects from Brontë's later life can only be understood in terms of the wondrous "little books" and poems which she and her siblings created as children.
On display at the Morgan exhibit is a miniature manuscript book with water color drawings. It is dated to 1828, when the nine-year old Charlotte created this tiny treasure for her younger sister, Anne, later the author of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

There once was a little girl and her name was Ane” reads the opening line of Charlotte Brontë’s first tale, complete with misspelling. Looking at this incredible work of love, one is struck by the unshakable thought that here is “genius" or at least the seed of genius.

The Brontë treasures, currently on view in the gallery of the Morgan Library, certainly testify to one of the great sagas of creativity in human history. Why else would we continue to read Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Villette and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? Why else would we throng to an exhibition such as Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will at the Morgan Library?

arteyewitness

What Time is To Walk Invisible: the Brontë Sisters on TV?

To Walk Invisible will air on Thursday 29th December at 9 pm on BBC1.

Read more: radiotimes

Book lovers, you can now read Jane Eyre in Charlotte Brontë’s original handwriting

To celebrate the bicentenary of Brontë’s birth, Parisian publishing house Éditions des Saints Pères are releasing 1,000 luxury editions of the earliest surviving manuscript copy of Jane Eyre.

Readers will be able to read iconic lines in Brontë’s own hand, from the book’s ominous opening sentence (“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day”) to its famous conclusion: “Reader, I married him”.

The manuscript reveals revisions made by Brontë as she worked, mostly focusing on reshaping Jane’s relationship with Mr Rochester. Brontë frequently struggled during the writing of Jane Eyre, telling her fellow writer and friend Elizabeth Gaskell that:

“It was not every day that she could write. Sometimes weeks or months elapsed before she felt she had anything to add to that portion of her story which was already written. Then, some morning she would waken up, and the progress of her tale lay clear and bright before her, in distinct vision.”

And even on these mornings, Brontë’s obligations as a dutiful daughter sometimes got in the way of her writing. Gaskell recalled that Brontë always had to “discharge her household and filial [daughterly] duties” before she was permitted “leisure to sit down and write out the incidents and consequent thoughts, which were, in fact, more present to her mind at such times than her actual life itself”.

The new gilded edition of Jane Eyre is illustrated with etchings by the 19^th century American artist Edmund Garrett, and one tree will be planted for each copy sold. With prices starting at £229, it’s not cheap – but if you fancy seeing the original manuscript for yourself without buying a copy, you can do so at the British Library.

Read more:
editionsdessaintsperes
stylist/jane-eyre-charlotte-bronte-manuscript
psychologies/inside-charlotte-brontes-mind

Éditions des Saints Pères are publishing their facsimile edition of Jane Eyre this Friday December 2nd (remember the price is £229 for preorders as opposed to £249 for orders after that date). A couple of sites feature this gem. Psychologies interviews Jessica Nelson, co-founder of the publishing house.

The 824-page manuscript contains important revisions and corrections centred around the portrayals of Jane's encounters with Mr Rochester. Written in Brontë's elegant hand, it gives readers unprecedented insight into her creative process. The manuscript's publication marks the culmination of this year’s bicentenary celebrations of Charlotte Brontë’s birth.
Each luxury edition is illustrated with etchings by Edmund Garrett and presented in a deluxe slipcase decorated with iron gilding. As well as being printed on environmentally-friendly paper, Éditions des Saints Pères have pledged to plant one tree for each copy sold. [...]

Anne Brontë, Patrick Branwell, and Emily Jane Brontë.

: http://bit.ly/1H4Y2Sk  The Henry Houston Bonnell Brontë Collection, bequest of Helen Safford Bonnell, 1969

These manuscripts, three in minuscule handwriting, are the work of a group of unusually imaginative teenage siblings. When they were children, the Brontës began inventing characters and scenarios as part of their creative play. Over the years they built a complex web of stories and poems about made-up kingdoms, informed by their extensive reading of literary works and contemporary news. In the notebook on the upper left, Charlotte describes a palace garden with strong echoes from The Arabian Nights. Below left, Branwell describes battles and intrigue in the Angrian chronicle. Above right, Anne's poem is written in the voice of an imprisoned heroine from the kingdom of Gondal. Below right, Emily's poem describes a dream visit from a ghostly figure.

TheMagazineAntiques ‏@AntiquesMag 10 okt.

#antiqueoftheday Miniature manuscript, 1830. In the new show "Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will" @MorganLibrary

THE PURCHASE of a historic book linked with the Brontës has been highlighted by the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The fund showcased the importance of the Haworth-based Brontë Society buying ‘Mrs Brontë’s Book’ in its glossy annual report. The National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) gave the society £170,000 towards the cost of the copy of Robert Southey’s The Remains of Henry Kirke White. Maria Brontë owned the book and it contains annotated scribblings by her daughter Charlotte, author of classic novel Jane Eyre. The book is one of the rare surviving possessions of Maria, and was greatly treasured by the Brontë family while they were living at the parsonage in Haworth.

Amy Rowbottom, a member of the curatorial team at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, this week tweeted about the NHMF report. She wrote: “@BronteParsonage thrilled to see the generous grant we received in the NHMF's latest report. Thank you!” She later told the Keighley News that Mrs Brontë’s Book was a significant acquisition by the society.

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She added: “We continue to be appreciative that the significance of the book was recognised by the NHMF and that their generosity enabled it to return to the museum where it will go on display next year.”

The book was bought earlier this year with added financial support from the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the National Libraries. Members of the Brontë Society were treated to a first glimpse of the book at their annual summer festival.

The NHMF report stated: “After Mrs Brontë’s early death the book became a treasured family item. “The book contains annotations and sketches by members of the family, as well as an unpublished poem and fragment of prose written by Charlotte Brontë. “The book evidently was shared and valued by the whole family as a memento of their mother. “The book was when Maria Brontë’s possessions were shipwrecked off the Devon coast shortly before her marriage to Patrick Brontë in 1812.

“It contains Latin inscriptions in Patrick’s hand stating that this was “the book of my dearest wife and it was saved from the waves. So then it will always be preserved.” The book was sold at the sale held at the Parsonage following the death of Patrick Brontë in 1861 and spent most of the last century in the USA. Ann Dinsdale, collections manager at the Parsonage Museum, believes Mrs Brontë’s book is one of the most significant Brontë items to come to light in many years.

Charlotte Bronte rare letter envelopes to friend up for auction.

Two rare envelopes sent by author Charlotte Bronte to her life-long friend are expected to fetch up to £1,200 when they go under the hammer. The handwritten envelopes were addressed to Ellen Nussey in Leeds and would have contained letters. Bronte and Ms Nussey met at Roe Head School, near Mirfield, in 1831 aged 14 and 13 and they wrote to each other until the author's death in 1855.

Both envelopes are to be sold at an auction in Wiltshire on Saturday. Written in brown ink, the first envelope has a Penny Red stamp and postmarked "Leeds Jan 30 1849" and "Barnsley Keighley and Haworth" with the remains of a black seal. Measuring 10cm by 6cm (4in by 2.4in) it bears a black mourning band to the border. Similarly, the second 11cm by 6cm (4.3in by 2.4in) envelope is also written in brown ink with a Penny Red stamp. It is postmarked "Leeds MR 31 1846" on the front and "Bradford and Haworth" on the reverse. A small printed scrap "Attend to Time" on the reverse has been affixed by Bronte.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge, of Henry Aldridge and Son, said: "These covers are written to her childhood friend and closest confidante Ellen Nussey, who first met Charlotte Bronte in 1831.
"Anything related to Charlotte is desirable but to have a pair of covers written by her to her closet friend offers an incredible opportunity to a collector or museum." The pair exchanged hundreds of letters during their friendship, 350 of those Bronte penned to Ms Nussey were used by Elizabeth Gaskell as the basis to write her 1857 biography The Life Of Charlotte Bronte. Bronte rejected a marriage proposal by Ms Nussey's brother, Henry. Her friend later went on to witness the author's wedding to her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. bbc/news/uk-england-leeds

37 photographes of To Walk Invisible.

37 photographes of To Walk Invisible

yorkpress/photos__York_street_scenes_star_in_new_BBC_drama

To Walk Invisible has been finished

The York Press reports that To Walk Invisible has been finished: Now, the BBC has confirmed the one-off drama, which was filmed across Yorkshire, has been completed and a preview screening is being held.  It is not yet clear when the programme will be shown on television. Well, everything points out to it being broadcast this Christmas. Furthermore, the DVD release is announced for next January 2. Nevertheless, the fortunate people of Hebden Bridge will be able to watch it earlier. In Hebden Bridge Times:

It will be shown on BBC One later this year but people in Yorkshire can watch a preview of the programme, and hear from the writer and director Sally Wainwright, at the Hebden Bridge Picture House on December 13.
“I was absolutely determined to give people in Yorkshire a chance to see To Walk Invisible before everyone else because the Brontë sisters are such an important part of the county’s culture and heritage. “I also wanted to than all those people in Yorkshire who were so helpful while we were filming and who contributed to the film. I hope lots of people will join us for the screening.” The evening will be hosted by BBC Radio 5 live presenter Anna Foster, who will interview Sally Wainwright and executive producer Faith Penhale at the start of the screening. Members of the cast are expected to attend too.

Tickets can be requested here: www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/shows/to_walk_invisible_13dec16

Beautiful photographes of the Parsonage

Beautiful pictures

Sue Abarca Cardo put on her Facebook page

9 noviembre 2016
Fotos del interior de la casa de las hermanas Brontë en Haworth

Passing Charlotte Bronte

I always love passing Charlotte Bronte on my way to work

Kimberley Eve of the blog Victorian Musings

Shirley and the Northern Powerhouse.

From The Telegraph and Argus: Jacqueline Ryder, chairman of the Friends of Red House, said: “This is a very sad time for the Friends. It is particularly disappointing that the council made this decision in the year we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charlotte Bronte’s birth. It is not only the end of the museum but also the Friends’ group. However, we are determined to go out on a high, with an extra special Christmas event.”

The Friends are working with staff at the museum to plan the Red House Christmas event which will take place on Sunday, December 11, from noon to 4pm. The house will be dressed for a Victorian-style Christmas and there will be live music and festive refreshments. The Friends group had appealed to the council to allow them to stay open until Christmas so they could host the traditional event one last time. [...]

The process for gathering expressions of interest to take over the running of the buildings will start soon, with an information pack going online before the end of the month. The Council confirmed it expects to make decisions on expressions of interest in the spring. But if nobody from the community is willing to take over the running of the buildings, they will be put up for sale on the open market. Councillor Graham Turner, cabinet member for resources said: “Nobody wants to close museums but we do need to react to these times of austerity and make savings.” (Jo Winrow)

The Brontës. A Family Writes.

This is a companion book for the Morgan Gallery & Museum's exhibition on Charlotte Brontë:

The BrontësA Family WritesChristine Nelson
ISBN: 9781785510601
Scala Publishers
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 96
Images: 75

The Brontës of Haworth were a prodigiously imaginative literary family. From the earliest manuscripts of Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne – written with a quill pen in a minuscule hand designed to mimic the printed page – to explosive novels, such as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, written in adulthood by Emily and Charlotte, the family’s writings continue to fascinate. This elegantly designed, fully illustrated publication provides an intimate portrait of a singular family of writers through the manuscripts, rare printed books, personal documents, and private letters preserved in the Brontë collection of the Morgan Library & Museum, one of the world’s finest. It accompanies a major exhibition at the Morgan from 9 September 2016 to 2 January 2017. bronteblog

Closure of the Red House Museum scheduled for December 21st.

BBC News features the closure of the Red House Museum scheduled for December 21st.

Kirklees Council said the Dewsbury Museum and Red House closures are part of its museums service reorganisation, which will save £531,000. The council will now see if anyone is willing to take over the running of the building and a decision will be announced next year. However, if no-one comes forward with a viable plan the building may be sold on the open market. Councillor Graham Turner said: "The council did not want to be in this position. Nobody wants to close museums but we do need to react to these times of austerity and make savings.

"I am sorry people will no longer be able to access these museums, but I can assure you we will do everything possible to look after the collections."
He added: "Museums are not just about buildings, it's about using the collections to tell the story of our past and how they influence what we do today."

The thing about the Red House Museum is that it is mostly about the building. If it is eventually sold as private property and turned into flats the whole point of it will be lost. Not to mention the stained glass windows. bronteblog

Red House and Charlotte Bronte

Red House in Gomersal, a village south of Bradford was once the home of Charlotte Brontë's close friend Mary Taylor. This former cloth merchant's residence is beautifully furnished as a family home of the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone flagged kitchens. Charlotte often stayed there in the 1830s and the Taylors appear as the "Yorkes" and the house as "Briarmains" in her novel "Shirley".

Information and photographes of the Red House friendsofredhousegomersal

“Mystery is irksome, and I was glad to shake it off”.

George Richmond: Charlotte Brontë, 1850

What the Brontës Made

Francine Prose

Even those who think they know all there is to know about the Brontë family will likely be surprised by many of the documents and artifacts included in “Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will,” currently on view at New York’s Morgan Library.

Curated by Christine Nelson, the exhibition reinforces our notions of Charlotte Brontë’s daring, ambition, and courage, and of the tragic circumstances over which she prevailed. In one letter, Charlotte describes the 1848 visit to London during which she and her sisters Emily and Anne revealed to her publishers that the novels they had submitted under male pseudonyms (Currer, Acton and Ellis Bell) had in fact been written by women (“Mystery is irksome, and I was glad to shake it off”). The publisher was initially surprised, but nevertheless decided to show the sisters around London, introducing them not as authors but as his “country cousins” the Misses Brown. Read all: nybooks/what-the-brontes-made

Charlotte Brontë from the Beginnings.

Charlotte Brontë from the Beginnings
New Essays from the Juvenilia to the Major Works
Edited by Judith E. Pike, Lucy Morrison
Routledge
ISBN 9781472453686

Composed of serialized works, poems, short tales, and novellas, Charlotte Brontë's juvenilia merit serious scholarly attention as revelatory works in and of themselves as well as for what they tell us about the development of Brontë as a writer. This timely collection attends to both critical strands, positioning Brontë as an author whose career encompassed the Romantic and Victorian eras and delving into the developing nineteenth century's literary concerns as well as the growth of the writer's mind. As the contributors show, Brontë's authorship took shape among the pages of her juvenilia, as figures from Brontë's childhood experience of the world such as Wellington and Napoleon transmuted to her fictional pages, while her siblings' works and worlds both overlapped with and extended beyond her own. bronteblog

Jane Eyre facsimile manuscript to be published for 'Brontë bibliophiles'.

One of Edmund Garett’s illustrations to Jane Eyre.

Illustration: Courtesy of the British Library and Éditions des Saints Pères

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Editions des Saint Pères

Each book is hand numbered from 1 to 1,000

To be released on 2 December 2016

ISBN: 979-10-95457-30-5.

Cover: Avorio

Paper: Fedrigoni Avorio Luxury Paper

Published for the first time

A facsimile of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 manuscript of Jane Eyre, written in the author’s flowing hand, will be published for the first time in December. This edition of the earliest surviving copy of Brontë’s classic joins a roster of facsimiles published by the French press Éditions des Saints Pères, including Madame Bovary, Les fleurs du mal and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. The reproduction is accompanied with etchings by Edmund Garrett from an edition published in 1897. According to the publisher, the fair copy is “neat, with most notable revisions and corrections centred around her portrayal of Jane’s encounters with Mr Rochester”.

This 824 page manuscript of Charlotte Brontë’s elegant and nimble handwriting is one of the British Library’s most precious treasures. Because of the great technical challenge that the task of reproducing it presents, the manuscript has remained unpublished until today. Les Saints Pères has taken on the challenge. An edition limited to 1,000 hand numbered copies

Set in Northern England, during the reign of George III. From the heroine’s turbulent childhood  to her discovery of love and all its tragic implications, to the birth of her first son: Jane Eyre is one of the greatest bildungsromans of all time. In August 1847, Charlotte Brontë received a letter from the publisher Smith and Elder, rejecting her first novel but adding, ‘that a work in three volumes would [be met] with careful attention’. She then sent them this unique manuscript—no earlier drafts are known to survive today. Published in October 1847, the novel was an immediate success.

The three volumes of this manuscript, reproduced using only the finest materials, are presented together in a deluxe slipcase. Included: etchings by Edmund Garrett from an 1897 edition of the novel.

Each volume is hand assembled, bound and sewn with end-band and bookmark. Each book is printed on luxury paper. The slipcase and book cover ornamentations are made using gilded iron. Our books are printed with vegetal ink, on environment friendly paper.

Éditions des Saints Pères co-founder Nicholas Tretiakow hailed the novel as “a compelling gem of English literature, a novel so many of us hold close to our hearts”. “We wanted to rise to the challenge and offer this beautiful and rich manuscript to the public for the very first time,” he said.

Tretiakow’s co-founder Jessica Nelson said that the pair were inspired to set up the press after attending an exhibition of manuscripts and first drafts in Paris 10 years ago. “We were totally moved and astounded by what we saw. We already had a passion for literature but we were astonished,” she said. “Nicholas said that in 10 years’ time we would create our own publishing house and specialise in the production of manuscripts, and that’s what we’ve done.”

According to Nelson, print runs are limited to 1,000 or 2,000 copies per book, with reproductions aimed at bibliophiles, collectors and those passionate about a particular author. The Jane Eyre copies will be priced at more than £200, and Éditions des Saints Pères plans to follow the novel’s release with further titles in English next year. (Alison Flood)

theguardian/jane-eyre-facsimile-manuscript-to-be-published-for-bronte-bibliophiles-edmund-garrett

New film reveals Brontë sisters' forgotten Lancashire links.

In Brontë Footsteps: Tracy Chevalier visits Wycoller from Fully Formed Films on Vimeo.

THE BRONTË siblings’ wanderings around the moors above the Haworth parsonage sometimes took them across the border into Lancashire. And now a short film has been made to spotlight the Red Rose County’s little-known Brontë connections. keighleynews

Charlotte Brontë at The Morgan Library & Museum's Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will exhibition

Kimberly Eve of Victorian Musings is telling about

America finally meets Charlotte Brontë at The Morgan Library & Museum's Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will exhibition September 9, 2016 through January 2, 2017

Read more: kimberlyevemusings

The Fashions Of Anne Brontë And Her Sisters.

Nick Holland is telling on his weblog Anne Bronte

about The Fashions Of Anne Brontë And Her Sisters

Gawthorpe Hall and Charlotte Bronte.

nationaltrust/gawthorpe-hall

The Kay-Shuttleworth family who lived at the Hall in the 19th century came to hear about Charlotte Bronte, who was becoming a well known author, and invited her to stay, which she did on a couple of occasions.

Vesna Armstrong visited the Hall. On her weblog you can see photographes of the Hall and the garden, the Great Barn and the entrances. Vesna Armstrong/gawthorpe-hall-and-charlotte-bronte

13 October 1843 Charlotte writes to Ellen Nussey from Brussels.

13 October 1843

Charlotte writes to Ellen Nussey from Brussels:

'It is a curious position to be so utterly solitary in the midst of numbers - sometimes this solitude oppresses me to an excess'. She continues to describe how she was driven to give her notice to Mde Heger, but upon hearing this Mon Heger 'sent for me the day after - and pronounced with vehemence his decision that I should not leave ... so I promised to stay a while longer ... I have much to say Ellen ... which I do not like to trust to a letter, but which one day perhaps or rather one evening - if ever we should find ourselves again by the fireside at Haworth or at Brookroyd with our feet on the fender - curling our hair - I may communicate to you'.