The Irish Independent reminds their readers of the upcoming Charlotte Brontë 200th anniversary from an Irish perspective:

The Irish Independent: Charlotte was of course half-Irish herself. Her father Patrick was a native of Co Down, and most famously an indulgent parent, when it came to encouraging the literary output of his children. But he was also a complex man of the cloth, and as a Church of England minister, he seemed ever anxious to distance himself from his poverty stricken childhood. He even changed the family name of Prunty - which can be traced back to the Irish clan O'Pronntaigh - to the more exotic sounding Brontë hoping it would smooth his pathway through English life. And perhaps taking a cue from her father, Charlotte for most of her adult years, tended to ignore or downplay any legacy of Irishness which might influence her thinking or writing. She would remain determined that her English Protestantism, would always stay a step above, what she perceived to be the rabid Catholicism of the Irish peasantry. (...)

Despite her heartbreak, Charlotte would initially turn down a proposal of marriage from Mr Nicholls, the young Irish curate working with her father in the parish. As is made clear in correspondence she considered him dull and tedious. However, she later changed her mind, and decided she would marry him after all. Patrick Brontë's old snobbery resurrected itself once more and he refused to give her away at the wedding. He felt his daughter - who at this stage had achieved literary fame - could do better for herself than striking out with a relatively impoverished Church of England curate.
The couple spent their honeymoon in Ireland, with her new husband showing her around Dublin, including Trinity College, where he had been a student. They then travelled to Banagher, Co Offaly, to meet members of his family, continuing on to Kilkee, Tralee and Killarney. Charlotte admitted she was enthralled when she saw the majesty of the Atlantic Ocean for the first time, but some old prejudices remained.

"I heard a great deal about Irish negligence,'' she wrote in one of her letters back home.
"I own that until I came to Kilkee I saw little of it. Here at our inn - the splendidly designated West End Hotel - there is a good deal to carp at - if we were in a carping humour - but we laugh instead of grumbling - for outdoors there is so much to compensate for any indoor shortcomings.'' (...)

Charlotte Brontë's life and work is a reminder of the ever overlapping world of language both the British and the Irish have come to share. Of course we can't really claim her as one of our own. But there is assuredly a Celtic strain in her novels she could never really acknowledge. And the Irish blood in her veins was surely part of those many mysterious forces which made her a writer of genius. (Gerard O'Regan) bronteblog

Brontë Parsonage film set takes shape on moors above Haworth

It may look a little out of place amidst the bleak Yorkshire moorland, but this bare timber structure will soon set hearts soaring. When finished, television viewers won't be able to tell it apart from the stone-built Bronte Parsonage in nearby Haworth, former home of the Brontes. The exterior replica of the Parsonage is taking shape on Penistone Hill, chosen by film location experts to better resemble the original 1840s setting for a major new BBC drama. To Walk Invisible, created by award-winning Yorkshire writer and playwright Sally Wainwright, will tell the story of the world-famous family. Although the unpainted timber structure is currently a "monstrosity", according to local councillor Glen Miller, the short-term pain will be worth it in the end. thetelegraphandargus

Celebrating Charlotte.

Villette in the US, or the story of the first American visitor to the Pensionnat in 1858.

The garden drawing in
'Vagabondizing in Belgium'


 

William Makepeace Thackeray was in the United States, for a lecturing tour, when Villette was published. He wrote about the novel in several letters, and, according to Winifred Gérin in her Charlotte biography, “the rage the book was enjoying among lady-readers over there.” A look in The Letters and private papers of William Makepeace Thackeray (volume 3, London, 1946) reveals however that there are only two references to the popularity of Villette in America. On 11 March 1853 he writes a letter in Charleston, to Lucy Baxter in New York City (pp. 232-3): “So you are all reading Villette to one another – a pretty amusement to be sure – I wish I was a hearing of you and a smoakin of a cigar the while. “ That remark was followed by his opinion of the novel. On 5 April he wrote from New York City to a Mrs. Mayne in London (p. 253): “Here the reign of novels is for a brief season, indeed, and “My novel” [by Edward Bulwer-Lytton] and “Villette,” have long since had the better of Mr. Esmond and his periwigged companions.”

It is certain that Villette was much more popular in America than it was in England. Smith, Elder & Co seem to have published just two editions of the novel in the 1850s. The second one was published in 1855. Harper & Brothers, from New York, published six editions in the 1850s. Apart from the two previously mentioned books of 1853 they also had an edition in 1855, 1856, 1857 and 1859. There is also an 1857 edition of Derby & Jackson from New York & Cincinnati.

The popularity of Villette in America is also reflected in what we know of the first Brontë visitors to the Pensionnat. The three first known visitors (after Mrs. Gaskell) are Americans.  One of these early visitors, Adeline Trafton, in 1871 (see below), who was there with friends, wrote about their introduction at the Pensionnat, having been let in by a teacher. “’We are a party of American girls,’ we said, ‘who, having learned to know and love Charlotte Brontë through her books, desire to see the garden of which she wrote in Villette.’ ‘Oh, certainly,’ was the gracious response.  ‘Americans often come to visit the school and the garden.’” The anonymous author of the 1890 article in The World wrote that the Pensionnat “has become the Mecca of American travellers. The average Britisher is content with worshipping at the shrine of the Waterloo ballroom, but the literary Yankee finds out Charlotte Brontë’s school, searches in vain for the Allée Défendue, and carries away a leaf from one of the giant pear trees. “

And Marion Harland, in 1898 quoted a Pensionnat teacher who had let her in: “So many English and Americans, many more Americans than English, come here every year, and talk, oh, so much! of Mlle. Lucie and Mme. Beck and Mlle. Charlotte, and the Ghost” (Promised land, pp. 59, 68 and 80).

Read all: brusselsbronte

Charlotte Brontë’s Birthday Tea

Thursday, April 21, 2016 - 15:30 to 17:00

Charlotte Brontë’s Birthday Tea

Did you know that Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell were good friends, and that Charlotte visited 84 Plymouth Grove? We at the House would like to invite you to celebrate Charlotte's 200th birthday and the friendship between these two authors. Join us for a cream tea and hear readings from Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë', the first of Charlotte’s biographies, published in 1857. elizabethgaskellhouse

Happy Easter.