http://bronteblog.blogspot.com
Repairing or restoring all the damaged setts in and around Haworth’s historic Main Street would cost about £1 million.
The figure was announced by Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council chairman John Huxley, who is part of a working group set up to investigate how to carry out the work.
Cllr Huxley said a report on the issue has suggested different methods of preserving the setts, including imposing a 7.5 tonne vehicle weight restriction.
Cllr Peter Hill said there has already been one concrete, positive outcome of the increased attention on the state of Main Street.
He said in future, any contractors digging up the road would be obliged to employ a sett specialist to ensure the stones were properly replaced.
Cllr Huxley said Bradford Council was now considering what effect a figure of £1 million would have on its budget.
He said a complete restoration would take years to finish.
The parish council declined an invitation from British Telecom to “adopt” the traditional red phone booth in Sun Street, Haworth, for £1.
Councillors were informed that BT was planning to remove the phone but leave the booth in place.
Parish clerk Glyn Broomhead said he understood that in the last 12 months only 105 calls had been made from the phone box.
Cllr Barry Thorne warned the cost of maintaining the structure would be “enormous”, adding that even replacing broken window panels would be extremely expensive.
Cllr Huxley said the council should respond “thanks but no thanks” to the invitation.
Haworth is to be twinned with its namesake, in New Jersey, USA.
Cllr Peter Hill, who has recently visited Brontë Country’s American counterpart, said he would be putting together a “twinning statement of goodwill” to formalise the partnership.
He said there was scope for Haworth New Jersey’s school, along with its volunteer fire brigade and ambulance services, to link up with similar organisations here.
He emphasised the initiative would not cost the parish council any money. (Miran Rahman)
zaterdag 31 oktober 2009
donderdag 29 oktober 2009
The Secret of Charlotte Brontë
This is probably the first and only book which is focused solely on Charlotte Brontë and Brussels, and would therefore be of great interest to everyone interested in that period of her life.Frederika MacDonald, in 1859, was herself a pupil at the Pensionnat Heger where 17 years earlier Charlotte had been a student, and later a teacher. She knew from first-hand experience what life was like at the school, and even more interesting, what M. Heger and his wife Madame Heger were like in real life.
Frederika had been writing articles as an ex-pupil of the Pensionnat from 1894 onwards, but when Charlotte’s letters to Heger were made public in 1913 (when Paul Heger handed them over to the British Museum), she was the first to quote from these letters in a Brontë biography. They form a vital part of this publication, in which Frederika tries to unravel the ‘secret’ of Charlotte on the basis of these letters.
The book is separated in 2 parts:
Part I; CHARLOTTE BRONTË’S LETTERS TO M. HEGER
(These Letters supply the Key to the Secret of Charlotte Brontë). She ends this part by quoting Charlotte’s last desperate letter to Constantin Heger. She writes: “ The Letter obtained no answer.
And thus the end was reached. We now know where in Charlotte Bronte's life lay her experiences that formed her genius and made her the great Romantic whose quality was that she saw all events and personages through the medium of one passion: the passion of a predestined tragical and unrequited love.”
Part II; SOME REMINISCENES OF THE REAL MONSIEUR HEGER
Frederika MacDonald gives us a marvellous insight into her life at the Pensionnat and her own personal view of the teacher she and Charlotte both shared. She writes: “ But Monsieur Heger had one really beautiful feature, that I remember often watching with extreme pleasure when he recited fine poetry or read noble prose : - his mouth, when uttering words that moved him, had a delightful smile, not in the least tender towards ordinary mortals, but almost tender in its homage to the excellence of writers of genius.
In brief, what M. Heger 's face revealed when studied as the index of his natural qualities, was intellectual superiority, an imperious temper, a good deal of impatience against stupidity, and very little patience with his fellow-creatures generally; it revealed too a good deal of humour; and a very little kindheartedness, to be weighed against any amount of irritability. It was a sort of face bound to interest one; but not, so it seems to me, to conquer affection.” There are also some interesting illustrations, which you hardly find in any other publication or biography.
I strongly recommend this book as a wonderful addition of any good Brussels/Brontë collection.
If you are able to get your hands on a copy, don’t let it slip you by. There is however the possibilty to read the text, by clicking on this link: http://www.archive.org/details/secretofcharlott00macduoft
To see the digitalized original edition, click on ‘FLIP BOOK’ in the left panel where it says; ‘View the book’.
Some more information on Frederika’s book in the Australian Brontë Association Newsletter:
www.ics.mq.edu.au/~chris/bronte/news17.pdf
woensdag 28 oktober 2009
Guided bronte walks in Brussel
The bandstand in Parc de Bruxelles featured in Villette.
Uit:
http://brusselsbronte.blogspot.com/
I am not going to go into details of the tour since it will spoil the little discoveries that one comes across, as expertly guided by Myriam (for all the people who will go on future walks). I just want to give you a brief overview of what we saw. As I mentioned the tour started out in front of the Chapelle Royale where Charlotte and Emily went every Sunday. From there we moved on to the Place Royale, where Myriam went through the history of the area in the early19th century. The square and surrounding areas were a focal point of Brussels life, since the Belgian nobility lived and worked here.
After walking through some small streets in the area we concluded our walk by visiting the Cathedral of Saint Michel and Saint Gudule, where Charlotte Bronte actually went to confession and which is described in great detail in her letters and Villette.
zaterdag 24 oktober 2009
Agnes Grey
But the sea was my delight;
and I would often gladly pierce the town
to obtain the pleasure of a walk beside it,
whether with the pupils,
or alone with my mother during the vacations.
It was delightful to me at all times and seasons,
but especially in the wild commotion of a rough sea-breeze,
and in the brilliant freshness of a Summer morning.
~ Agnes Grey (ch. XXIV), by Anne Brontë
donderdag 8 oktober 2009
Haworth
http://bronteparsonage.blogspot.com/
Few English villages can have been as well documented and photographed as Hawortha place with more significant connotations than most of the others. A recent publication is the latest in a series which uses the old pictures next to the new ones to show how things have changed, and not always for the better. The title is Haworth Through Time, and it is by Steven Wood and photographer Ian Palmer.
Its brief introduction puts the causes of the many changes into a nutshell. It is explained, for example, that the first development of Main Street was brought about by the making of the Blue Bell turnpike through Haworth in 1755, and that the reason for the large number of non-conformist chapels in the Haworth area is because one of the charismatic leaders of the evangelical revival, William Grimshaw, was the local minister. The major nineteenth century expansions were caused by the opening of the branch railway from Keighley in 1867, which also made it necessary to alter the road system in the lower part of the village.
A point sometimes missed by students of the Brontës and by some scholars as well, is that Haworth was until well into the twentieth century a hectic, industrialised part of Yorkshire, and a generally unhealthy place for those people packed into small rooms where they lived, worked hard and died, apart from the folk up at the Parsonage. It was not at the far end of beyond. Many industries and the quarries have of course collapsed now, and at one time the railway itself was closed – until it was reopened by a preservation society.
Today, so many people have cars, and Haworth is a healthy and desirable place for commuters and families to put down roots.
Main Street is full of little shops and cafés geared to the tourist trade, and a good place to stroll along, even though it is not yet a pedestrian precinct, and cars can often be observed going unnecessarily fast along it.
The cars were a problem for Ian Palmer too – he had to put up with their obscuring of many views of course, and apparently had to dodge one or two while pointing his camera, and no doubt holding in one hand the old photograph so that the new one could be taken from the same vantage point. One surprising thing to note in the new colour images is the number of trees. They appear to have multiplied. For example, in a view entitled Haworth from Brow, the increase in the numbers of houses for mill workers dating from the late nineteenth century can be clearly seen, and they are now accompanied by large numbers of verdant trunks and branches. In the old photo, Ivy Bank Mill with a smoking chimney is visible on the left. The chimney has gone, of course, along with thousands of others across Yorkshire, mainly demolished in the 1960s, and the background landscape looks windswept and bare. Ivy Bank mill is now a burnt out ruin.
A view of Church Street and Changegate from the Church Tower taken at the time of the Great War shows huddled buildings (usually described as ‘slums’) and a lack of modern roads. These can be seen in the up-to-date view. An old photo dating from 1960 of Acton Street shows a row of houses now demolished where once lived Old Jack Kay, who was known as the village wise man. Did every village have one of these? Old Jack could foretell and even control the weather, so it was said, and defeat the evil created by witches. Not many people come into the old or the new photos, but an exception is Smithy in the Fold, c1900, in which four well-built men can be seen posing casually – blacksmiths Abraham Scarborough and his son Herbert, along with two other smiths. Their smithy is now a garage.
And the most photographed building in Haworth has to be there as well, naturally – a well-known sepia image of the Parsonage from about 186o is set above a present-day view with tall trees in the foreground.
There are more than 180 photographs in this book.
Few English villages can have been as well documented and photographed as Hawortha place with more significant connotations than most of the others. A recent publication is the latest in a series which uses the old pictures next to the new ones to show how things have changed, and not always for the better. The title is Haworth Through Time, and it is by Steven Wood and photographer Ian Palmer.
Its brief introduction puts the causes of the many changes into a nutshell. It is explained, for example, that the first development of Main Street was brought about by the making of the Blue Bell turnpike through Haworth in 1755, and that the reason for the large number of non-conformist chapels in the Haworth area is because one of the charismatic leaders of the evangelical revival, William Grimshaw, was the local minister. The major nineteenth century expansions were caused by the opening of the branch railway from Keighley in 1867, which also made it necessary to alter the road system in the lower part of the village.
A point sometimes missed by students of the Brontës and by some scholars as well, is that Haworth was until well into the twentieth century a hectic, industrialised part of Yorkshire, and a generally unhealthy place for those people packed into small rooms where they lived, worked hard and died, apart from the folk up at the Parsonage. It was not at the far end of beyond. Many industries and the quarries have of course collapsed now, and at one time the railway itself was closed – until it was reopened by a preservation society.
Today, so many people have cars, and Haworth is a healthy and desirable place for commuters and families to put down roots.
Main Street is full of little shops and cafés geared to the tourist trade, and a good place to stroll along, even though it is not yet a pedestrian precinct, and cars can often be observed going unnecessarily fast along it.
The cars were a problem for Ian Palmer too – he had to put up with their obscuring of many views of course, and apparently had to dodge one or two while pointing his camera, and no doubt holding in one hand the old photograph so that the new one could be taken from the same vantage point. One surprising thing to note in the new colour images is the number of trees. They appear to have multiplied. For example, in a view entitled Haworth from Brow, the increase in the numbers of houses for mill workers dating from the late nineteenth century can be clearly seen, and they are now accompanied by large numbers of verdant trunks and branches. In the old photo, Ivy Bank Mill with a smoking chimney is visible on the left. The chimney has gone, of course, along with thousands of others across Yorkshire, mainly demolished in the 1960s, and the background landscape looks windswept and bare. Ivy Bank mill is now a burnt out ruin.
A view of Church Street and Changegate from the Church Tower taken at the time of the Great War shows huddled buildings (usually described as ‘slums’) and a lack of modern roads. These can be seen in the up-to-date view. An old photo dating from 1960 of Acton Street shows a row of houses now demolished where once lived Old Jack Kay, who was known as the village wise man. Did every village have one of these? Old Jack could foretell and even control the weather, so it was said, and defeat the evil created by witches. Not many people come into the old or the new photos, but an exception is Smithy in the Fold, c1900, in which four well-built men can be seen posing casually – blacksmiths Abraham Scarborough and his son Herbert, along with two other smiths. Their smithy is now a garage.
And the most photographed building in Haworth has to be there as well, naturally – a well-known sepia image of the Parsonage from about 186o is set above a present-day view with tall trees in the foreground.
There are more than 180 photographs in this book.
woensdag 30 september 2009
The Bible of Charlotte
Bought from a dealer in the 1920s or 30s for 50.00, the bible is crammed packed with tiny notes by Charlotte. The expert authenicated the writing as Charlottes, dating the bible from about 1845. It’s estimated value between £15,000 and £20,000!
maandag 28 september 2009
Een bezoek aan de pastorie
De pastorie ("Parsonage") werd in 1778, in neo klassieke stijl gebouwd van zandsteen uit de omgeving van Haworth. Een eeuw later liet dominee John Wade, Mr. Bröntes opvolger, de noordvleugel aan het huis bijbouwen. Hierin bevinden zich thans de bibliotheek en de expositieruimte, In het gedeelte van het huis dat de Bröntes oorspronkelijk bewoonden zijn meubels en persoonlijke bezittingen van de familie ondergebracht.
Het gebouw werd in 1928 aan de Brönte Society geschonken door de in Haworth geboren Sir James Roberts. Charlotte liet verscheidene veranderingen aan het huis aanbrengen; zo werden de eetkamer en de slaapkamer erboven groter gemaakt ten koste van de hal en de kinderkamer. Vrijwel alle meubels in het huis waren eigendom van de Bröntes en het grootste deel van de inrichting van de kamers stamt uit hun tijd.
2. Mr. Bröntes Studeerkamer
De kamer rechts was Mr. Bröntes studeerkamer.
Hier deed hij veel aan zijn parochiewerk en vaak gebruikte hij er alleen, zijn maaltijd. Eén van de wandtafels is dan ook voor hem gedekt. Op het bureau voor de haard liggen zijn psalmenboek en vergrootglas. De piano was van zijn kinderen en werd voornamelijk door Emily bespeeld.
3. De Eetkamer
In de eetkamer deden de zusters veel van hun werk.
Hier staat de schommelstoel waar Anne gewoonlijk zat met haar voeten op de haardrand en de sofa waarop Emily is overleden. Volgens Mrs. Gaskell, Charlottes biografe, was de overheersende kleur in de kamer karmozijnrood. Charlotte schreef: We hebben gordijnen voor de eetkamer gekregen. Ik heb ze in de fabriek karmozijnrood laten verven, maar ze zijn slecht geverfd en staan me niet aan.
Boven de schoorsteenmantel hangt een reproductie van George Richmonds portret van Charlotte, boven de sofa bevindt zich, in de vorm van een gipsen medaillon, een portret van Patrick Branwell Brönte dat gemaakt is door Joseph Leyland. Aan de andere muur hangen gravures van twee van Charlottes helden: De hertog van Wellington en William Makepeace Thackeray. Charlotte liet de kamer groter maken toen ze succes kreeg als schrijfster.
4. de KeukenDeze veranderde aanzienlijk toen er in 1878 een gang van werd gemaakt,
het raam werd dichtgemetseld, er kwam een nieuwe ingang en het oude, grote fornuis werd verwijderd. De keuken is zoveel mogelijk in oude staat teruggebracht en bevat het oorspronkelijke huisraad. Aan de tafel kneedde Emily iedere week het deeg terwijl ze haar Duits leerde. Het keukengerei en serviesgoed dat hier te zien is, was eigendom van de Bröntes.
5. Mr. Nicholls studeerkamer
De studeerkamer was oorspronkelijk een voorraadkamer die alleen via de achterkant van het huis bereikbaar was.
In mei 1854 liet Charlotte, met de bedoeling een studeerkamer voor haar toekomstige echtgenoot te maken, de hoogte van de vloer veranderen, een haard inbouwen en een nieuw raam plaatsen. Aan de muren bevinden zich kerkbankdeurtjes uit de oude parochiekerk van Haworth die in 1879 werd afgebroken.
Bezoekers die nu de trap op te gaan, waar ze een reproductie kunnen zien van Branwells beroemde portret van Anne, Emily en Charlotte. Hier staat tevens de klok die Mr. Brönte iedere avond opwond als hij naar bed ging.
6. de slaapkamer van de Dienstboden
Deze kamer kon men aanvankelijk alleen binnenkomen via een stenen trap aan de achterzijde van het huis. Tabitha Aykroyd kwam in 1825 voor de Bröntes werken en is 30 jaar lang bij hen in dienst geweest. Ze overleed in 1855 en is begraven nabij de tuinmuur van de pastorie. Martha Brown kwam op tienjarige leeftijd bij de familie werken en deed het huishouden tot de dood van Mr. Brönte dit gedeelte van het huis werd veranderd ten tijde van de Bröntes: het raam met de verticale, stenen stijlen in de westelijke muur werd afgesloten (een gedeelte van het kozijn is nog zichtbaar rechtsboven de haard) en vervangen door het huidige raam aan de zuidzijde.
7.Charlottes kamerRechts, aan de voorzijde van het huis, bevindt zich de kamer waar Mrs. Brönte in 1821 is overleden.
Haar zus Elisabeth Branwell nam na haar dood de zorg voor de nog jonge kinderen op zich en trok bij de familie in. In deze kamer leerde tante Branwell de meisjes nauwkeurig borduurwerk en huishoudelijk werk. U ziet hier de kleine schoentjes en een jurk van Charlotte, evenals vele persoonlijke bezittingen van de zussen en een deel van het familieservies. De kamer bevat tevens een opmerkelijk haardrooster.
Kinderkamer, later Emily's kamer
Voor de verbouwing in 1850 was deze kamer groter. De kinderen brachten hier vele gelukkige uren door terwijl ze speelden, lazen en avonturen verzonnen voor hun speelgoedsoldaatjes. Later werd deze kamer waarschijnlijk Emily's slaapkamer.
9. Mr. Bröntes slaapkamer
Mr. Brönte gebruikte deze kamer na de dood van zijn vrouw. Later deelde hij hem met Branwell. Het bed is een moderne reproductie, gebaseerd op een tekening van Branwell waarop hijzelf, slapend op bed, te zien is. De andere meubels en kledingstukken in de slaapkamer waren eigendom van de Bröntes.
10. Branwells Atelier
Zo genoemd omdat zich hier voorbeelden bevinden van Branwells werk als schilder. Hij kreeg tekenles in Keighley en had eveneens les van William Robinson, een bekend kunstenaar uit Leeds. Het beroemde portret van Emily en dat van de drie zussen is te zien in de National Portrait gallery in Londen. Branwell verdiende wat geld door korte tijd als portretschilder te werken in Bradford.
vrijdag 25 september 2009
Branwell Brontë died 161 years ago
Branwell Brontë died 161 years ago, finding his much-needed peace at last. This year has seen him alive once again in the pages of several books dealing with his sisters in fictional tales. He's usually a secondary figure needing, nevertheless, to be treated very carefully, being after all a key figure too, bearing in mind that he was the driving force behind the 'scribblemania'. And yet, despite his own alter ego's incursions in fiction, we can hardly believe that he ever imagined himself as a character in a novel.
Branwell states in this week's weekly quote that he does not 'sigh after fame', and indeed, despite modern reappraisals, he reached fame by being the the brother of the three most famous sister-writers in the world. How would he have liked that? His sisters expected great things from him, perhaps they even imagined posterity knowing them through him.
That's one thing that can be said - for better or for worse - of all Brontës: things did never quite turn out as they expected them to.
Branwell states in this week's weekly quote that he does not 'sigh after fame', and indeed, despite modern reappraisals, he reached fame by being the the brother of the three most famous sister-writers in the world. How would he have liked that? His sisters expected great things from him, perhaps they even imagined posterity knowing them through him.
That's one thing that can be said - for better or for worse - of all Brontës: things did never quite turn out as they expected them to.
donderdag 17 september 2009
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6838353.ece
Until lately biography of literary people has been looked upon as a sort of poor relation to literary criticism, catering for private inquisitiveness rather than intellectual curiosity. More recently, however, the functions of biographer and critic have become very close, and at times indistinguishable. The extent to which the study of a writer’s life can aid the understanding of his works has perhaps been over-estimated in the general concern about psychoanalysis, but its application was never more justified than it is in the case of the Brontë writings.
The outward events of the Brontës’ lives are reflected particularly in the novels of Charlotte and Anne; a deeper search must be made in Emily’s work for signs of her actual experience. But a pronounced factor which links the lives and works of all the Brontës is the atmosphere of storm and agitation—a motif running through the fabric of their experience and thought. The recurrent storm symbol is one of the main points of similarity between the writings of the three sisters, providing as well a connecting element between them and their heredity; the Brontë father’s letters, poems, tales and even his sermons show a preoccupation with the storm image that is echoed in Jane Eyre, Villette, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. It expresses, in fact, the temperamental climate of the family.
The question of their mental inheritance—the Celtic strain from a Cornish mother and Irish father—is closely examined by Miss [Phyllis] Bentley in her introduction to the new edition of the Brontë works. The Celtic heredity of the Brontës, she suggests, conflicted in their minds with the more solid indigenous nature of Yorkshire, at a time of transition between the agrarian and the industrial systems. The conflict present in the Brontës, which they ultimately resolved in imaginative terms, was perceived earlier by Mr. Herbert Read; but whereas he attributes their “neurosis” to an inferiority complex arising from “the early rupture of the maternal bond of affection and protection” and “the counteraction of a stern, impassive father,” Miss Bentley’s theory offers a more specific clue to the Brontë genius. Miss Bentley is as successful in her understanding of the early nineteenth-century ethos as she is of the West Riding countryside and people:
"The Brontës saw around them, in their own kitchen and Sunday School class, in the village street and on their walks, in the homes of their parishioners, Yorkshire people behaving in a strongly Yorkshire way, speaking strong Yorkshire dialect. The Brontës from early childhood wrote this dialect with admirable accuracy and ease, but their speech retained a faint Irish accent at any rate into their youth, and their writing retained an Irish fluency throughout. This bilinguality is in my opinion a reflection of a process in the Brontë minds which covered the whole range of their experience: a contrast, a conflict, ultimately a fusion, between their Irish heredity and their Yorkshire environment."
Three tales from Charlotte’s prolific juvenile writings have been selected for this edition by Miss Bentley, who indicates in them the anticipation of some of the chief characters in Charlotte’s later novels. The “daydream” compositions of the young Brontës, falling roughly into the categories of the Angrian legend invented by Charlotte and Branwell, and the Gondal myth of Emily and Anne, have become highly absorbing to the Brontë student, giving an insight into the development of their creative talents and revealing the separate processes that distinguish their individual achievements. In making these distinctions Miss Bentley might perhaps have implemented her arguments and defined her terms to advantage . “Gondal,” she writes, "is an imaginary world, but it is not a daydream world in quite the same sense as Angria; it is a fiction, not a Freudian fantasy; . . . Charlotte was ashamed of Angria, teeming as it did with sexual passion which her mentar censor would not admit into her Haworth life . . . But Emily was not ashamed of Gondal, where her usual stern ethic held inexorable sway . . . ".
If Miss Bentley’s intention, as implied by her curious juxtaposition of the words “fiction” and “Freudian,” is to prove the comparative innocence of Gondal as a factor of distinction between the two legendary worlds, she fails to make her point: what she does succeed in showing, unwittingly as it seems, is an essential difference between Charlotte and Emily — the tendency in Charlotte towards convention, and the innocence, the complete absence of humbug, in Emily.
Angria and Gondal are the early products of genius flourishing in isolation, of which not a few examples exist in literature. Just as their childhood, devoid of normal family friendships, moved in a teeming imaginary world, so in later life their novels evolved from a nucleus of loneliness, outside the influence of literary or social relationships. Miss Bentley, in her extremely able assessment of the Brontë novels, illustrates how the combination of isolation with highly developed imaginative powers contributed simultaneously to the fulfilment of the sisters’ early promise, and to the failure of their brother Branwell; her observation, "Certainly the day-dream habit helped to ‘ruin Branwell. The lonely boy with his over-active brain, never sent to school, wasted his energies and retarded his manhood on Angrian creation, and, finding Haworth intolerable after Angria, took to drink and unsuitable companions to assuage the day-dreamer’s ennui,’ leads to the reflection that the fact of their sex played no small determining part in the Bronte’ sisters’ creative functioning. Branwell’s misfortune seems to have been that he was a man; had he been constrained, as were his sisters, by prevailing conventions, had he been compelled to write for want of alternative outlet, his conflicts might have been resolved in terms other than neat brandy.
Branwell’s is the portrait that, surprisingly, emerges with the greatest clarity, from Mr and Mrs Hanson’s study of the four Brontës. His case history, of course, possesses an intrinsic psychological interest since Branwell Brontë is one of the more spectacular failures in literary history. The pursuit of this theme, however, is not the authors’ intention; Branwell’s appearance as the most coherent character in their work is accidental, for their publishers announce: “Here, for the first time, all the Brontës are studied in detail in a single volume.” (The claim is not quite accurate: Miss Laura Hinkley has, in her biography, dealt with all four Brontës very attentively.) Mr and Mrs Hanson have, indeed, studied all the Brontës in detail; the striking circumstance, however, is that their subjects compel conviction, in inverse proportion to the amount of detail introduced.
The thousand-odd notes to which passages in this volume refer, seem to defeat their own purpose; instead of helping to elucidate, a complicated family history, they confuse it. The more so since the authors themselves seem at a loss to decide which authorities are reliable. For example, we are told that Emily “looked with mingled contempt and pity upon the struggles which were beginning to convulse the tender but conventional religious conscience of Anne" - a statement for which the authority given is Mrs Elsie Harrison’s Haworth Parsonage. Later, however, we find Emily and Anne working in collaboration “even closer, together than Charlotte and Branwell,” and learn that” unlike the elder couple this collaboration was never broken.” Next, a passage from Emily’s diary offers its own evidence: “And now I must close, sending from far an exhortation, ‘Courage, courage,' to exiled and harassed Anne, wishing she was here “—an expression of feelings difficult to reconcile with the alleged “pity and’ contempt.”
It is unfortunate, too, that the authors have not avoided such small factual inaccuracies as that where Charlotte is seen leaving Brussels for the last time: “. . . in a short while she was on the seas, heading towards England, which she was never again to leave.” She did, in fact, leave England once more, to spend her honeymoon in Ireland. Again, Anne is said to have endured six years as a governess at Thorp Green, whereas her stay there actually lasted four years. The references to Hartley Coleridge as “Coleridge” are also misleading. These small errors, although not over-important, are none the less inauspicious for larger issues.
Possibly because, as we learn from the preface, this book has been some eighteen years in preparation, or perhaps because of some disinclination or inability of the authors to sum up, there is little possibility of identifying a standard of criticism with the biography as a whole. Some chapters show originality and intuitive judgment; others are banal and pedestrian. Even the prose style is inconsistent, moving swiftly and with vigour when some fresh idea is offered, but sagging heavily over the effort to assemble the theories of other biographers. The passages on Gondal and Angria, for instance, are exhilarating; they present those comparisons and distinctions without which the most “impartial” writing is hardly worth reading’. It is refreshing indeed to find such percipient observations as:
"Both the Gondal and Angrian chronicles are, superficially, biood and thunder concerned with savage struggles for love and power; but while the Angrian tales are amoral, even when they are no longer told by children, the Gondal poems, even at their most bloodthirsty, show a clear sense of right and wrong."
Such critical acuteness does not extend to the chapters devoted to analysis of the novels. Emily, we are informed, was primarily an intellectual writer.
"Unlike Charlotte, she shows no sign in her book that she had ever felt sexual passion. And although she deals in scenes of naked passion, fierceness and brutality, and although the supernatural is implied throughout the book, it is all described so calmly and in so matter-of-fact a manner that the story is given a reality and a credibility that it would never have told by another hand and in another way."
The idea of Emily as an intellectual writer is a provocative one, further consideration of which is soon arrested by the attempted justification, first by a comparison with Charlotte and then by reference to the style of Wuthering Heights. To say simply that Emily "shows nosign in her book that she had ever felt sexual passion,” merely to point out that her most passionate scenes were recounted calmly, is not to prove an intellectual attitude; and the reader suspects that the conception of Emily as an intellectual rather than an emotional author arises out of a loose assumption that, sexual passion is the only, or the most profound, human emotion. A reader may also find the definition of Emily’s prose style — “matter-of-fact” — as strange as the subsequent introduction of Jane Austen as a parallel, to Emily. More than seven pages of full quotation from Wuthering Heights adorn, but fail to elucidate, the authors’ argument; while their study of Villette is neither adorned nor elucidated by such inadequate critical verbiage as “It is true, it is moving and it is beautiful.”
One of the most important aspects of Brontë biography is the correlation of each member of the family to the others. Around Charlotte, the most ambitious and practical, speculations concerning the other members seem, always to congregate. To say that Charlotte was practical; is not to suggest that she was a realist; her approach to, human relationships was profoundly idealistic and consequently foredoomed. Her marriage was probably the only major realistic action of her life, for she entered it without illusion. Charlotte’s reluctance to accept the fallible in human nature had an effect, both on herself and on her relations with her brother and sisters, which many sentimental biographers have chosen to ignore. Mr and Mrs Hanson are not guilty of this fault, recognizing in Charlotte’s lack of sympathy with Branwell’s misfortunes the precipitation of his downfall, and noting her failure to understand the monolithic “otherness” of Emily.
But Charlotte’s attitude to her youngest sister Anne is one which neither Mr and Mrs Hanson nor Miss Bentley have fully investigated, nor do they give an adequate interpretation of Anne’s character. In this they are not alone. Charlotte’s curiously concealed deprecation of Anne’s personality and talent, in letters and prefaces written before and after the latter’s death, has built up a conception of a “pious, gentle” creature with a tendency to morbidity, that has coloured almost all subsequent critical opinion of Anne Brontë, though this conception is hardly commensurate with the facts of her life and work.
Although both Mr and Mrs Hanson’s biography and Miss Bentley’s introduction have done justice to Anne’s audacious novel Wildfell Hall, the same cannot be said of their, approach to her poetry, their respective verdicts being merely an echo of Charlotte’s preface to a selection of her youngest sister’s verse. “I find,” Charlotte wrote, “mournful evidence that religious feeling had been to her but too much like what it was to Cowper.” It is to be regretted that Miss Bentley has chosen to include this preface in her edition, and that her selection of Anne’s poems does not improve, upon Charlotte’s. Among Anne’s poetical works can be found many fine, imaginative and well-constructed lyrics which in no way give “mournful evidence” of the religious morbidity alleged to be the principal defect of her poetry. And though Anne’s ability is overshadowed by the superior talents of her sisters, the character and spirit which moved her to answer her critics with the words,
"I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man."
should not be regarded as inferior to theirs.
Since Charlotte was the most prolific correspondent of her family, it is from her letters and pronouncements that most data on the Brontës must be taken; it is through her eyes, for the most part, that we observe their movements. The greatest task of the Brontë biographer and critic is to find, so far as possible, the facts and feelings behind Charlotte’s complex subjectivity. Happily, neither Mr and Mrs Hanson nor Miss Bentley indulge in the alternative extreme of baseless conjecture, which has too often cluttered Brontë biography in the past.
(
The outward events of the Brontës’ lives are reflected particularly in the novels of Charlotte and Anne; a deeper search must be made in Emily’s work for signs of her actual experience. But a pronounced factor which links the lives and works of all the Brontës is the atmosphere of storm and agitation—a motif running through the fabric of their experience and thought. The recurrent storm symbol is one of the main points of similarity between the writings of the three sisters, providing as well a connecting element between them and their heredity; the Brontë father’s letters, poems, tales and even his sermons show a preoccupation with the storm image that is echoed in Jane Eyre, Villette, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. It expresses, in fact, the temperamental climate of the family.
The question of their mental inheritance—the Celtic strain from a Cornish mother and Irish father—is closely examined by Miss [Phyllis] Bentley in her introduction to the new edition of the Brontë works. The Celtic heredity of the Brontës, she suggests, conflicted in their minds with the more solid indigenous nature of Yorkshire, at a time of transition between the agrarian and the industrial systems. The conflict present in the Brontës, which they ultimately resolved in imaginative terms, was perceived earlier by Mr. Herbert Read; but whereas he attributes their “neurosis” to an inferiority complex arising from “the early rupture of the maternal bond of affection and protection” and “the counteraction of a stern, impassive father,” Miss Bentley’s theory offers a more specific clue to the Brontë genius. Miss Bentley is as successful in her understanding of the early nineteenth-century ethos as she is of the West Riding countryside and people:
"The Brontës saw around them, in their own kitchen and Sunday School class, in the village street and on their walks, in the homes of their parishioners, Yorkshire people behaving in a strongly Yorkshire way, speaking strong Yorkshire dialect. The Brontës from early childhood wrote this dialect with admirable accuracy and ease, but their speech retained a faint Irish accent at any rate into their youth, and their writing retained an Irish fluency throughout. This bilinguality is in my opinion a reflection of a process in the Brontë minds which covered the whole range of their experience: a contrast, a conflict, ultimately a fusion, between their Irish heredity and their Yorkshire environment."
Three tales from Charlotte’s prolific juvenile writings have been selected for this edition by Miss Bentley, who indicates in them the anticipation of some of the chief characters in Charlotte’s later novels. The “daydream” compositions of the young Brontës, falling roughly into the categories of the Angrian legend invented by Charlotte and Branwell, and the Gondal myth of Emily and Anne, have become highly absorbing to the Brontë student, giving an insight into the development of their creative talents and revealing the separate processes that distinguish their individual achievements. In making these distinctions Miss Bentley might perhaps have implemented her arguments and defined her terms to advantage . “Gondal,” she writes, "is an imaginary world, but it is not a daydream world in quite the same sense as Angria; it is a fiction, not a Freudian fantasy; . . . Charlotte was ashamed of Angria, teeming as it did with sexual passion which her mentar censor would not admit into her Haworth life . . . But Emily was not ashamed of Gondal, where her usual stern ethic held inexorable sway . . . ".
If Miss Bentley’s intention, as implied by her curious juxtaposition of the words “fiction” and “Freudian,” is to prove the comparative innocence of Gondal as a factor of distinction between the two legendary worlds, she fails to make her point: what she does succeed in showing, unwittingly as it seems, is an essential difference between Charlotte and Emily — the tendency in Charlotte towards convention, and the innocence, the complete absence of humbug, in Emily.
Angria and Gondal are the early products of genius flourishing in isolation, of which not a few examples exist in literature. Just as their childhood, devoid of normal family friendships, moved in a teeming imaginary world, so in later life their novels evolved from a nucleus of loneliness, outside the influence of literary or social relationships. Miss Bentley, in her extremely able assessment of the Brontë novels, illustrates how the combination of isolation with highly developed imaginative powers contributed simultaneously to the fulfilment of the sisters’ early promise, and to the failure of their brother Branwell; her observation, "Certainly the day-dream habit helped to ‘ruin Branwell. The lonely boy with his over-active brain, never sent to school, wasted his energies and retarded his manhood on Angrian creation, and, finding Haworth intolerable after Angria, took to drink and unsuitable companions to assuage the day-dreamer’s ennui,’ leads to the reflection that the fact of their sex played no small determining part in the Bronte’ sisters’ creative functioning. Branwell’s misfortune seems to have been that he was a man; had he been constrained, as were his sisters, by prevailing conventions, had he been compelled to write for want of alternative outlet, his conflicts might have been resolved in terms other than neat brandy.
Branwell’s is the portrait that, surprisingly, emerges with the greatest clarity, from Mr and Mrs Hanson’s study of the four Brontës. His case history, of course, possesses an intrinsic psychological interest since Branwell Brontë is one of the more spectacular failures in literary history. The pursuit of this theme, however, is not the authors’ intention; Branwell’s appearance as the most coherent character in their work is accidental, for their publishers announce: “Here, for the first time, all the Brontës are studied in detail in a single volume.” (The claim is not quite accurate: Miss Laura Hinkley has, in her biography, dealt with all four Brontës very attentively.) Mr and Mrs Hanson have, indeed, studied all the Brontës in detail; the striking circumstance, however, is that their subjects compel conviction, in inverse proportion to the amount of detail introduced.
The thousand-odd notes to which passages in this volume refer, seem to defeat their own purpose; instead of helping to elucidate, a complicated family history, they confuse it. The more so since the authors themselves seem at a loss to decide which authorities are reliable. For example, we are told that Emily “looked with mingled contempt and pity upon the struggles which were beginning to convulse the tender but conventional religious conscience of Anne" - a statement for which the authority given is Mrs Elsie Harrison’s Haworth Parsonage. Later, however, we find Emily and Anne working in collaboration “even closer, together than Charlotte and Branwell,” and learn that” unlike the elder couple this collaboration was never broken.” Next, a passage from Emily’s diary offers its own evidence: “And now I must close, sending from far an exhortation, ‘Courage, courage,' to exiled and harassed Anne, wishing she was here “—an expression of feelings difficult to reconcile with the alleged “pity and’ contempt.”
It is unfortunate, too, that the authors have not avoided such small factual inaccuracies as that where Charlotte is seen leaving Brussels for the last time: “. . . in a short while she was on the seas, heading towards England, which she was never again to leave.” She did, in fact, leave England once more, to spend her honeymoon in Ireland. Again, Anne is said to have endured six years as a governess at Thorp Green, whereas her stay there actually lasted four years. The references to Hartley Coleridge as “Coleridge” are also misleading. These small errors, although not over-important, are none the less inauspicious for larger issues.
Possibly because, as we learn from the preface, this book has been some eighteen years in preparation, or perhaps because of some disinclination or inability of the authors to sum up, there is little possibility of identifying a standard of criticism with the biography as a whole. Some chapters show originality and intuitive judgment; others are banal and pedestrian. Even the prose style is inconsistent, moving swiftly and with vigour when some fresh idea is offered, but sagging heavily over the effort to assemble the theories of other biographers. The passages on Gondal and Angria, for instance, are exhilarating; they present those comparisons and distinctions without which the most “impartial” writing is hardly worth reading’. It is refreshing indeed to find such percipient observations as:
"Both the Gondal and Angrian chronicles are, superficially, biood and thunder concerned with savage struggles for love and power; but while the Angrian tales are amoral, even when they are no longer told by children, the Gondal poems, even at their most bloodthirsty, show a clear sense of right and wrong."
Such critical acuteness does not extend to the chapters devoted to analysis of the novels. Emily, we are informed, was primarily an intellectual writer.
"Unlike Charlotte, she shows no sign in her book that she had ever felt sexual passion. And although she deals in scenes of naked passion, fierceness and brutality, and although the supernatural is implied throughout the book, it is all described so calmly and in so matter-of-fact a manner that the story is given a reality and a credibility that it would never have told by another hand and in another way."
The idea of Emily as an intellectual writer is a provocative one, further consideration of which is soon arrested by the attempted justification, first by a comparison with Charlotte and then by reference to the style of Wuthering Heights. To say simply that Emily "shows nosign in her book that she had ever felt sexual passion,” merely to point out that her most passionate scenes were recounted calmly, is not to prove an intellectual attitude; and the reader suspects that the conception of Emily as an intellectual rather than an emotional author arises out of a loose assumption that, sexual passion is the only, or the most profound, human emotion. A reader may also find the definition of Emily’s prose style — “matter-of-fact” — as strange as the subsequent introduction of Jane Austen as a parallel, to Emily. More than seven pages of full quotation from Wuthering Heights adorn, but fail to elucidate, the authors’ argument; while their study of Villette is neither adorned nor elucidated by such inadequate critical verbiage as “It is true, it is moving and it is beautiful.”
One of the most important aspects of Brontë biography is the correlation of each member of the family to the others. Around Charlotte, the most ambitious and practical, speculations concerning the other members seem, always to congregate. To say that Charlotte was practical; is not to suggest that she was a realist; her approach to, human relationships was profoundly idealistic and consequently foredoomed. Her marriage was probably the only major realistic action of her life, for she entered it without illusion. Charlotte’s reluctance to accept the fallible in human nature had an effect, both on herself and on her relations with her brother and sisters, which many sentimental biographers have chosen to ignore. Mr and Mrs Hanson are not guilty of this fault, recognizing in Charlotte’s lack of sympathy with Branwell’s misfortunes the precipitation of his downfall, and noting her failure to understand the monolithic “otherness” of Emily.
But Charlotte’s attitude to her youngest sister Anne is one which neither Mr and Mrs Hanson nor Miss Bentley have fully investigated, nor do they give an adequate interpretation of Anne’s character. In this they are not alone. Charlotte’s curiously concealed deprecation of Anne’s personality and talent, in letters and prefaces written before and after the latter’s death, has built up a conception of a “pious, gentle” creature with a tendency to morbidity, that has coloured almost all subsequent critical opinion of Anne Brontë, though this conception is hardly commensurate with the facts of her life and work.
Although both Mr and Mrs Hanson’s biography and Miss Bentley’s introduction have done justice to Anne’s audacious novel Wildfell Hall, the same cannot be said of their, approach to her poetry, their respective verdicts being merely an echo of Charlotte’s preface to a selection of her youngest sister’s verse. “I find,” Charlotte wrote, “mournful evidence that religious feeling had been to her but too much like what it was to Cowper.” It is to be regretted that Miss Bentley has chosen to include this preface in her edition, and that her selection of Anne’s poems does not improve, upon Charlotte’s. Among Anne’s poetical works can be found many fine, imaginative and well-constructed lyrics which in no way give “mournful evidence” of the religious morbidity alleged to be the principal defect of her poetry. And though Anne’s ability is overshadowed by the superior talents of her sisters, the character and spirit which moved her to answer her critics with the words,
"I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man."
should not be regarded as inferior to theirs.
Since Charlotte was the most prolific correspondent of her family, it is from her letters and pronouncements that most data on the Brontës must be taken; it is through her eyes, for the most part, that we observe their movements. The greatest task of the Brontë biographer and critic is to find, so far as possible, the facts and feelings behind Charlotte’s complex subjectivity. Happily, neither Mr and Mrs Hanson nor Miss Bentley indulge in the alternative extreme of baseless conjecture, which has too often cluttered Brontë biography in the past.
(
maandag 14 september 2009
Parsonage
Think Brontemania and you’re likely to think of a windswept parsonage standing against bleak moorland, overlooking the cobbled streets of Haworth. The Brontes’ former home has been a museum for more than 80 years, and attracts thousands of visitors from around the world.
Numbers have been boosted by the ITV adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic Wuthering Heights, shown last week. Costumes from the drama, including dresses worn by actress Charlotte Riley as Cathy and a long black coat worn by Tom Hardy as Heathcliff, are on display at the museum until the end of the year.
But the Bronte trail doesn’t just lead to Haworth. The literary family left a mark across the district, from Thornton, where the sisters’ birthplace stands in Market Street, to Apperley Bridge, where Charlotte taught, to the Spen Valley, which provided much of the inspiration for her novel, Shirley.
In the TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights, also starring Andrew Lincoln and Sarah Lancashire, both East Riddlesden Hall and Oakwell Hall had a starring role as the Earnshaw family’s moorland home.
Exterior shots of East Riddlesden’s imposing facade were featured, and filming at Oakwell Hall took place in the kitchen, with its huge stone fireplace, parlour, wood-panelled dining-room, used as Mr Earnshaw’s study, the painted chamber and a servant’s room upstairs. Artefacts from the TV drama currently on display at Oakwell Hall include a signed script, a portrait of Cathy, a headboard carved with the names Cathy and Heathcliff, and the deeds to Wuthering Heights which Heathcliff made a drunken Hindley sign.
There was already a Bronte connection to Oakwell Hall long before the Wuthering Heights film crew rolled up. Charlotte Bronte visited the house in the 19th century and it was the inspiration for Fieldhead in Shirley.
Built in 1583, the manor house is set out as it would have been in the 1690s, when it was home to the Batt family. A mix of original and reproduction furnishings provide an insight into late 17th century life. Outside, dotted around a pretty courtyard, is a visitor centre, shop, cafe and ‘Discover Oakwell’ gallery.
The house is set in 110 acres of country park, with delightful walks, nature trails, a period garden and a wildlife area.
Over at Gomersal, an 1830s former cloth merchant’s home, Red House, also has a Bronte link. The home of Charlotte’s friend Mary Taylor, it is featured as Briarmains in Shirley.
“There was no splendour, but taste was everywhere,” wrote Charlotte about the pretty red-brick house, which looks much as it did in her day. Each room brings you closer to the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone-flagged kitchen with its old range and jelly moulds, to the stained glass windows, described in the novel. Charlotte’s Spen connections and friendship with Mary are explored in an exhibition in the barn.
Wandering around the Parsonage Museum, with the sound of crows outside, there’s a fascinating flavour of the Brontes’ domestic and creative lives.
Items on display include Charlotte’s writing materials and their father Patrick’s magnifying glass.
Pre-booked guided tours allow visitors to see treasures from the Bronte Society’s world-famous collections not always on display, including miniature books, made from sugar paper stitched together, which the siblings created as children.
Outdoor activities include guided walks around Haworth, starting in the Parsonage garden, which remains pretty much as it was during the Brontes’ time. A Cyprus Pine tree has grown from saplings planted by Charlotte acquired on honeymoon in Ireland.
Peter Bowker, screenwriter of ITV’s Wuthering Heights, will be at West Lane Baptist Church, Haworth, on September 24 to talk about the process of adapting a classic novel for television.
Next Saturday, novellist Barbara Taylor Bradford will be at Haworth’s Old Schoolroom talking about her love of the Brontes.
Factfile The Bronte Parsonage Museum, Haworth, is open from April to September, 10am-5.30pm and October to March, 11am-5pm. For more, ring (01535) 642323 or bronte.org Oakwell Hall, Nutter Lane, Birstall, is open weekdays, 11am-5pm, and Saturdays and Sundays, noon-5pm. Ring (01924) 326240 or visit kirklees.gov.uk East Riddlesden Hall, Bradford Road, Riddlesden, is open Saturday to Wednesday, 11am-5pm. Ring (01535) 607075 or visit eastriddlesdenhall.co.uk Red House Museum, Oxford Road, Gomersal, is open Monday to Friday, 11am-5pm and Saturdays and Sundays, noon-5pm. Ring (01274) 335100. (Emma Clayton)
Numbers have been boosted by the ITV adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic Wuthering Heights, shown last week. Costumes from the drama, including dresses worn by actress Charlotte Riley as Cathy and a long black coat worn by Tom Hardy as Heathcliff, are on display at the museum until the end of the year.
But the Bronte trail doesn’t just lead to Haworth. The literary family left a mark across the district, from Thornton, where the sisters’ birthplace stands in Market Street, to Apperley Bridge, where Charlotte taught, to the Spen Valley, which provided much of the inspiration for her novel, Shirley.
In the TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights, also starring Andrew Lincoln and Sarah Lancashire, both East Riddlesden Hall and Oakwell Hall had a starring role as the Earnshaw family’s moorland home.
Exterior shots of East Riddlesden’s imposing facade were featured, and filming at Oakwell Hall took place in the kitchen, with its huge stone fireplace, parlour, wood-panelled dining-room, used as Mr Earnshaw’s study, the painted chamber and a servant’s room upstairs. Artefacts from the TV drama currently on display at Oakwell Hall include a signed script, a portrait of Cathy, a headboard carved with the names Cathy and Heathcliff, and the deeds to Wuthering Heights which Heathcliff made a drunken Hindley sign.
There was already a Bronte connection to Oakwell Hall long before the Wuthering Heights film crew rolled up. Charlotte Bronte visited the house in the 19th century and it was the inspiration for Fieldhead in Shirley.
Built in 1583, the manor house is set out as it would have been in the 1690s, when it was home to the Batt family. A mix of original and reproduction furnishings provide an insight into late 17th century life. Outside, dotted around a pretty courtyard, is a visitor centre, shop, cafe and ‘Discover Oakwell’ gallery.
The house is set in 110 acres of country park, with delightful walks, nature trails, a period garden and a wildlife area.
Over at Gomersal, an 1830s former cloth merchant’s home, Red House, also has a Bronte link. The home of Charlotte’s friend Mary Taylor, it is featured as Briarmains in Shirley.
“There was no splendour, but taste was everywhere,” wrote Charlotte about the pretty red-brick house, which looks much as it did in her day. Each room brings you closer to the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone-flagged kitchen with its old range and jelly moulds, to the stained glass windows, described in the novel. Charlotte’s Spen connections and friendship with Mary are explored in an exhibition in the barn.
Wandering around the Parsonage Museum, with the sound of crows outside, there’s a fascinating flavour of the Brontes’ domestic and creative lives.
Items on display include Charlotte’s writing materials and their father Patrick’s magnifying glass.
Pre-booked guided tours allow visitors to see treasures from the Bronte Society’s world-famous collections not always on display, including miniature books, made from sugar paper stitched together, which the siblings created as children.
Outdoor activities include guided walks around Haworth, starting in the Parsonage garden, which remains pretty much as it was during the Brontes’ time. A Cyprus Pine tree has grown from saplings planted by Charlotte acquired on honeymoon in Ireland.
Peter Bowker, screenwriter of ITV’s Wuthering Heights, will be at West Lane Baptist Church, Haworth, on September 24 to talk about the process of adapting a classic novel for television.
Next Saturday, novellist Barbara Taylor Bradford will be at Haworth’s Old Schoolroom talking about her love of the Brontes.
Factfile The Bronte Parsonage Museum, Haworth, is open from April to September, 10am-5.30pm and October to March, 11am-5pm. For more, ring (01535) 642323 or bronte.org Oakwell Hall, Nutter Lane, Birstall, is open weekdays, 11am-5pm, and Saturdays and Sundays, noon-5pm. Ring (01924) 326240 or visit kirklees.gov.uk East Riddlesden Hall, Bradford Road, Riddlesden, is open Saturday to Wednesday, 11am-5pm. Ring (01535) 607075 or visit eastriddlesdenhall.co.uk Red House Museum, Oxford Road, Gomersal, is open Monday to Friday, 11am-5pm and Saturdays and Sundays, noon-5pm. Ring (01274) 335100. (Emma Clayton)
zondag 13 september 2009
First editions
Currer Bell ( Charlotte Bronte). Jane Eyre An Autobiography in Three Volumes.
London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1847. First Edition. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. H. Back. First edition - collated with text errors of first edition including title page of Vol III printed with no comma following the publisher Elder as in the first two volumes. Three volume set, bound in full dark green wavy rippled leather. Triple ruled gilt border to boards. Five raised bands to spine, gilt rule to raised bands, titling to the second compartment, volume number and author to the third compartment, tooled floral decoration to other compartments with date embossed towards bottom of spine. Spines of all three volumes are darkened and show slight rubbing/scuffing to top and tail and to raised bands. Upper board of Vol. I is lightly scratched/marked. Corners of all three volumes are a little bumped and scuffed. Binding is uniformly tight. Top edge gilt, gilt inner dentelles and marble endpapers. Contents are clean showing no inscriptions but fore edge and margins show the usual browning with age. A number of small tears to the bottom edge have been expertly repaired in all volumes. pp 304 + 304 + 311. A delightful first edition copy of Charlotte Bronte's first and greatest work. £35,000.00
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Bookseller: B & B Rare Books, Ltd (New York, US)
Jane Eyre
* Edition: 1st Edition
* Binding: Hardcover
* Publisher: London: Smith, Elder and Co.
* Date published: 1847
Book Description
London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1847. Edited by Currer Bell. First edition. Three volumes. Finely bound by Bayntun-Riviere in a very attractive half dark green crushed morocco, gilt lining on front and rear covers. Spines in 6 gilt-tooled compartments, with 5 raised bands. Top edge gilt. Bound without half titles, 32pp. publisher's advertisements, fly-title and advertisement leaf in volume 3. Three leaves supplied in facsimile in vol. 3, B1, F6, and F7. A number of leaves cleaned and repaired. Housed in a fleece-lined slipcase. Parrish pp.87; Sadlier I. 346; Wolff 826; Smith 2.. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine.
Price: $12,000.00
.
The once neglected creator of Cranford is to be commemorated in a window above Poets' Corner
Sunday, 13 September 2009The works of Mrs Gaskell have achieved renewed popularity, thanks to the BBC adaptation of 'Cranford', starring Dame Judi Dench
The gossiping ladies of Cranford were embraced by the nation when they first graced our TV screens. Now the novelist who created Miss Matty and friends is to receive the ultimate recognition, 145 years after her death.
Elizabeth Gaskell is to be commemorated in Westminster Abbey next year after the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, agreed to add her name to a stained-glass window overlooking Poets' Corner.
Her details will appear in the window alongside memorials to such literary worthies as Christopher Marlowe, Oscar Wilde, Alexander Pope, Fanny Burney and A E Housman. A dedication will be held on 25 September next year, four days before the bicentenary of Gaskell's birth.
Sue Birtwistle, producer of the BBC's adaptations of Gaskell's Wives and Daughters and Cranford, said the author, who was buried in Knutsford, Cheshire, in 1865, is "still underrated" and her writing is still relevant.
She added: "It feels terribly modern... she's completely non-judgemental... a very attractive quality. There are very few people – I think Shakespeare does this – where you can actually laugh and cry at the same time. Her characters can make you do this... and I think that's a real skill."
Actress Deborah Findlay, who read Cranford as a child and reprises her role as Miss Tomkinson for a two-part special this Christmas, said: "Barbara Flynn and I were playing the Miss Brownings and I think everybody on the set took us to their hearts really... I was talking to Sue [Birtwistle] about that and I said, 'well there's a whole town of these women in Cranford'."
The Gaskell Society, which promotes her work, first approached the abbey about her inclusion in Poets' Corner and Joan Leach, its founding honorary secretary, said it was "quite an accolade" to get the go-ahead considering the pressure on space.
Cranford screenwriter Heidi Thomas said Mrs Gaskell would be "thrilled to find herself in such a jostling spot. She was as great a social historian as Charles Dickens and as emotionally bold as Charlotte Brontë... she knew and loved them both and it is absolutely fitting that she should take her place beside them."
Mrs Gaskell's books include the industrial novel Mary Barton and Ruth, a story about an unmarried mother deemed so controversial on publication in 1853 that the author banned it from her home and several contemporary readers reportedly burnt copies.
Alan Shelston, who edited Further Letters of Mrs Gaskell and a number of her novels, and is working on a biography of Gaskell, said: "She was always called Mrs Gaskell... an indication that she had a family life – four children and a husband – and, in some ways, that rather prejudiced against her reputation as a practising novelist." He said she had come into her own only in the past 50 years, after feminist interest in her grew. Then came those TV adaptations starring Dame Judi Dench as Cranford's Miss Matty, pictured far left.
Dame Judi is now patron of the Manchester Historic Buildings Trust, which began work this month to restore the author's former home.
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dinsdag 8 september 2009
Jane Eyre
"My first aim will be to clean down (do you comprehend the full force of the expression?) -- to clean down Moor House from chamber to cellar; my next to rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they come."
~ Jane Eyre (ch. XXXIV), by Charlotte Brontë
~ Jane Eyre (ch. XXXIV), by Charlotte Brontë
Overgenomen van: http://bronteblog.blogspot.com/
By the mid-19th century, women such as Charlotte Brontë could also self-diagnose a disease that in its symptoms was perhaps close to what we would today call depression. [...]
Charlotte Bronte: Author
Brontë claimed to have suffered a fit of hypochondria while teaching at Roe Head, Mirfield, West Yorkshire, aged 19. She fell into "a most dreadful doom", which she believed had little to do with the sickly and doomed family milieu in which she lived. Rather, Brontë meant by "hypochondria" a dismal combination of sorrow, worry and resignation that arose, so she thought, from the fact that she now had no time to write or to think. Later, in 'Jane Eyre', she had Rochester accuse Jane of hypochondria when she expressed her fears about their planned wedding. In real life Brontë outlived her five siblings.
Charlotte Bronte: Author
Brontë claimed to have suffered a fit of hypochondria while teaching at Roe Head, Mirfield, West Yorkshire, aged 19. She fell into "a most dreadful doom", which she believed had little to do with the sickly and doomed family milieu in which she lived. Rather, Brontë meant by "hypochondria" a dismal combination of sorrow, worry and resignation that arose, so she thought, from the fact that she now had no time to write or to think. Later, in 'Jane Eyre', she had Rochester accuse Jane of hypochondria when she expressed her fears about their planned wedding. In real life Brontë outlived her five siblings.
Bertha Mason. Overgenomen van: http://bronteblog.blogspot.com/
“Charlotte Brontë’s portrait of Bertha Mason, the ‘mad, bad and embruted’ wife of Rochester in Jane Eyre has taken on iconic value. But by the time Brontë penned it, she was drawing on what were already old images of madness, probably garnered from the notorious Bedlam”. Lisa Appignanesi
Lisa Appignanesi will be talking about her latest book MAD, BAD and SAD: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800. Including writers such as Charlotte Brontë, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, this is the history of the study of the female mind over the past two centuries. The book has been shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, the Warwick, the MIND and has won the Medical Journalist’s Award.
Lisa Appignanesi is a novelist, writer and broadcaster, she is former deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, chair of the Freud Museum and president of English PEN.
Lisa Appignanesi will be talking about her latest book MAD, BAD and SAD: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800. Including writers such as Charlotte Brontë, Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath, this is the history of the study of the female mind over the past two centuries. The book has been shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, the Warwick, the MIND and has won the Medical Journalist’s Award.
Lisa Appignanesi is a novelist, writer and broadcaster, she is former deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, chair of the Freud Museum and president of English PEN.
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