'Villette' rocks Brussels, or was there really a scandal in the city?

 

Newspaper boys in the Rue Isabelle in 1890, with the

newly printed edition of Le Soir

 

Eric Ruijssenaars: It has been suggested, or rumoured, that there was a sort of scandal in Brussels following the publication of Villette. The big question is of course whether this can be true, and what it would have been like. In this article I hope to get somewhat closer to answering this question. In the previous articles I wrote about the editions that would have brought the novel to Brussels. We can assess the likelihood of a scandal with the help of some of this new information. It can allow us to say more on when it might have happened, for example.
Read all of this interesting matter on : brusselsbronte

Being The Brontës.

 

Journalist and broadcaster Martha Kearney, novelist Helen Oyeyemi, and columnist and author Lucy Mangan travel to Haworth Parsonage, the home of the Brontë sisters, to discover the stories behind their classic novels Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. Just two years before these works were published, prospects for the three unmarried sisters were looking bleak. Their brother was battling an alcohol-fuelled breakdown, Charlotte was hopelessly in love with a married man and their father was going blind. But by 1848 they were a literary sensation. How was it that Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë managed such a sudden and miraculous creative achievement, in the face of adversity? With help from a range of experts, each presenter will explore one of the Brontës in fascinating detail. By re-living the sisters’ daily routines, visiting the key places in their world, studying their private letters and exploring their interactions with each other, they’ll discover what it was that served as their sources of inspiration. bbc/mediacentre//being-the-brontes

 

Pictured: Lucy Mangan, Martha Kearney and Helen Oyeyemi outside the Parsonage at Haworth, Yorkshire.

We've just had confirmation that the BBC's documentary 'Being the Brontes' will be broadcast on BBC2 at 9pm on Easter Saturday, 26 March. Do not miss! Bronte Parsonage Museum

New Anne Brontë Biography – In Search Of Anne Brontë

 

Nick Holland: Today marks the launch of a new Anne Brontë biography – ‘In Search Of Anne Brontë’. As a huge fan of Anne Brontë and her sisters, I love not only to read their books but also to read about their lives. The series of biographies by Winifred Gérin have always been a particular delight to me, but her biography of Anne is now over half a century old. That’s why I felt it was time for a fresh look at Anne’s life – and why I wrote the biography which is published in the UK today by The History Press.

Brontë Society Gazette. Issue 68

The latest issue of The Brontë Society Gazette is now out (Issue 68. January 2016. ISSN 1344-5940).

ARTICLES

Letter from the Editor by Belinda Hakes
Letter from the Chairman by Alexandra Leslie, Chairman, The Brontë Society Council
An Invitation to Members. Who was Branwell, andwhy is he important? by Belinda Hakes
The Annual Literary Lunch. Saturday 3 October 2015 by Tina Crow
Charlotte Brontë's Secret Love by Sally MacDonald
Haworth. The Parsonage in January by Mollie McDonald
Finding Henry. Henry Nussey 1812-1860 by Linda Pierson
Robin Walker's Bicentenary composition: Letter to Brussels by Pamela Nash
Brontë 200: Bringing the Brontës to the world and the world to Yorkshire by Rebecca Yorke, Marketing and Communications Officer, Brontë Society and Brontë Parsonage Museum
A Unique Birthday Present by Patsy Stonemn, Vice President of the Brontë Society
Membership News: 
Literary Lunch / Online Renewals / Dates for your Diary by Lind Ling, Membership Officer
A contemporary novelist reads Jane Eyre. Novelist Tessa Hadley gives talk to the Brussels Brontë Group by Dawn Robey, Brussels Brontë Group
Jane Eyre and the Harry Potter generation by Justine Gauthier
The life of Winifred Gérin: Celebrating a great Brontë biographer in the Charlotte Bronté Bicentenary year by Helen MacEwan
bronteblog

American author Tracy Chevalier is helping to mastermind the bicentenary celebrations of Charlotte Brontë in Yorkshire.

American author Tracy Chevalier is helping to mastermind the bicentenary celebrations of Charlotte Brontë in Yorkshire. She talks to Yvette Huddleston.

Novelist Tracy Chevalier was approached 18 months ago by the Brontë Parsonage Museum with a special request. “I think I said ‘yes’ by return email – I didn’t even have to think about it, I knew I wanted to do it,” she says. This year marks 200 years since Charlotte Brontë’s birth and it is the start of an exciting phase for Brontë fans, with a whole series of events planned around the siblings’ bicentenaries – Branwell in 2017, Emily in 2018, Anne in 2020 – and Chevalier has been invited, to her obvious delight, to be what the museum is calling its “creative partner” throughout 2016.

“The Parsonage wanted to bring in someone from outside to help them come up with new and different ways to celebrate Charlotte’s bicentenary,” says Chevalier. “I had spoken here before on a couple of occasions and they asked me if I would be interested in taking part in this. The remit was to come up with an exhibition, a publication and a series of events.”

Chevalier was keen to get involved in the project having been writer in residence at York Art Gallery in 2008 and curator of a quilt exhibition (she is a keen quilter herself, more of which later) in 2014.

She says she immediately came up with lots of suggestions, admitting that she had to be reined in a little. “I had about a million ideas,” she laughs. “And some of them have happened.”

Read all about this on: yorkshirepost./tracy-chevalier-on-why-she-s-been-recruited-to-help-celebrate-charlotte-bronte-s-bicentary-in-yorkshire

More beautiful pictures of the Parsonage and Haworth in the snow at night.

facebook/Haworthvillage

 

 

 

Nastavnitsa, ili pansion v Brussele and other early Villette translations.

Soon after Villette was published in January 1853, it was translated into other languages. German and Russian translations were the first, in the same year. A Danish version followed, in the winter of 1853-1854. A Dutch translation was published in 1856. But that was it, as far as is known, for a long time. I could find no early Villettes in other countries. This article gives a description of the early (non-French) translations.  Read all the article on brusselsbronte

Advertisement of 21 November 1856
in Opregte Haarlemsche Courant.

The Netherlands

In view of the popularity of Jane Eyre in The Netherlands it is a bit surprising that it took three years before a Dutch translation of Villette was published. Then again, it had become a sleepy country, unlike Belgium. The translator of the work is not given. It was published by J.F.V. Behrns from Harlingen, in the northern province of Friesland. Jan Frederik Valentin Behrns (1830-1883) started publishing, it appears in 1854. Villette was the only literary work he ever did, in 1856, the year he married. It makes one wonder if he did that for his new bride, Aleida Tjeenk Willink. It seems likely that he wrote the introduction, which shows some personal enthusiasm. He concludes with: ‘And herewith the book goes into the world, and we hope also into the heart of many a reader.’ Surely at least one of the newly-wedded couple was a ‘fan’ of the Brontës, and he may well have commissioned the translation.

Villette was still being advertised two years later, on 15 Nov 1859, as a book for “leesgezelschappen”, the Dutch reading societies with which we began this series of articles.
 

Again snow

 

facebook/photos

 

From David Thompson on facebook/photo/David Thompson

 

 

 

Anne Brontë biography published during sister Charlotte's 200th birthday year

ANNE Brontë is muscling in on her elder sister Charlotte's 200th anniversary year.
A biography of the least-known Brontë sister will be published during the worldwide bicentennial celebrations of Charlotte’s birth.

In Search Of Anne Brontë is hailed as the first biography of the youngest Brontë siblings in over half a century. Nick Holland’s book, in advance of Anne’s on bicentennial in 2020, claims to reveal a life filled with light and loss. Nick Holland, who lives in Yorkshire, is a bestselling author, professional copywriter and active member of the Brontë Society, and he runs the website and blog annebronte.org.

The History Press, the book’s publisher, said Anne Brontë was often overshadowed by her older and more famous sisters Emily and Charlotte. Yet she remains a bestselling author nearly two centuries after her death at the age of 29. A spokesman said: “Anne Brontë lived and died in total obscurity - nobody knew the private and honest woman was in fact bestselling author Action Bell - and yet her works and her life still fascinate readers nearly two hundred years on. “The brilliance of Anne’s poetry and of her two boundary-pushing novels, the revolutionary Agnes Grey and the feminist Tenant of Wildfell Hall, belies the quiet, truthful woman who often lived in the shadows as the youngest Brontë.”

The “revealing” new biography opens Anne’s most private life to a new audience, and imparting her talents to a new generation. It explores Anne’s life from birth and early childhood to her writing career and the great difficulties she faced in becoming a published author.” In Search Of Anne Brontë is said to cover the true nature of her relationship with her sister Charlotte - one sometimes fraught with jealous rivalry. Nick Holland pieces together a fuller picture of Anne’s life together using letters, firsthand accounts of close relatives and friends, and her own works. He reveals that Agnes Grey contains 60 examples drawn from Anne’s experiences. In Search of Anne Bronte will be published on March and will cost £20 in hardback.

The Brontë Society, which runs the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, has this year launched the Brontë200 festival, which over five years will celebrate the 200th anniversaries of the births of siblings Charlotte, Emily, Branwell and Anne. The festivities this year focus on Charlotte, writer of classic novels including Jane Eyre, with regular events centred on Haworth and Brontë Country. keighleynews

More then 700.000 pageviews.

Wuthering Heights

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Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate tale of the intense and  demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, allegedly a Gypsy foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is degraded and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man to find he is too late and that Cathy has married Edgar Linton. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his miseries.Unable to bear being parted from his love he curses her on her deathbed to never rest and always be with him and so begins 20 years of her haunting his every waking and sleeping hour. A tale of love, hate, horror, haunting, but most of all a story about human nature. 

Emily Bronte wrote the greatest , most terrifying love story of all time.

This is our film of that story...wuthering-heights

Small world, great ambition – new Haworth exhibition exposes the truth about Charlotte Brontë

What a terrible headline above an article in Keighley News.  At last we will know the truth about Charlotte Bronte, hallelujah, what a noncense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I read about this exposition I feel really sorry for Charlotte Bronte. Her undergarment and a letter she didnt want other people to see?????? Why do we need to see it? Isn't Charlotte Bronte not interesting enough by herself and by her books?

 What do they mean with undergarment?

This?

D116
Title	whalebone corset which may have been worn by Charlotte Bronte
Description	15 eyelet holes down back, 2 at front, buttoned shoulder straps, discoloured, metal plate and some whale bones are exposed; incomplete, no strings.
Material	cotton, metal, whale bone
Dimensions	whole 440  mm whole 295  mm

 

I found it in the  Museum catalogue

 

Here the article of Keighley News:

THE LIVES of the Brontë sisters closeted in their Haworth parsonage have been picked and unpicked and their relics raked over since the 1850s by biographers, writes Catherine Turnbull.

This exhibition to mark Charlotte’s 200th birthday on April 21 gathers up the pieces and literally stitches them back together. One of the highlights is a passionate letter on loan from the British Library, which Charlotte wrote to the love of her life, the married Professor Constantin Heger in Brussels; said to be the inspiration for Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre. It was ripped up by Monsieur Heger and bizarrely sewn up by his wife. One of the contemporary artists commissioned to add to the show is Ligia Bouton, whose response to this is to tear up her own version and stitch the pieces back together. The show’s curator, the author Tracy Chevalier, told an audience in Haworth at the opening that she felt a bit guilty about putting Charlotte’s intimate items, including her undergarment and a letter she didn’t intend anyone else to see, on display, “sewn back in a Frankenstein kind of way”.

Tracy said: “I’m not sure how Charlotte would have felt about that, it’s voyeuristic, she would probably have been horrified. But we have been respectful and are honouring a tiny woman, who lived in a small world, who had great ambition.” We see just how small Charlotte was through her child-size bodice, gloves and shoes, marvel at the tiny books and paintings she made and a scrap from a dress she wore to a London dinner party hosted by William Makepeace Thackeray. The sisters used hair to make jewellery and literally wore their family in rings and necklaces. We are moved by the wisps of Bronte hair.

Artist Serena Partridge used Tracy’s and parsonage staff’s hair as thread to make miniature boots. There’s a tiny bed you can make with quilts embroidered with Bronte quotes and a knitted tableau.
I love the humour of weaving the past and present, like the glow in the dark cap. keighleynews

On the photo: Novelist Tracy Chevalier, who has curated the new exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum

From Haworth to New York. How the 200th birthday of Charlotte Brontë will be celebrated

 

 

To mark the bicentenary of the birth of Charlotte, a huge programme of events is taking place which will reach audiences around the country and beyond.

It begins this week at the sisters’ former Haworth home, the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where an exhibition opened yesterday, entitled Charlotte Great and Small, exploring the contrast between her constricted life and her huge ambition. Highlights include her child-size clothes, tiny books and paintings she made and a scrap from a dress she wore to an important London dinner party.

Some of the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s collection goes on display as part of a National Portrait Gallery exhibition which opens this month. Celebrating Charlotte Brontë will run until April before transferring to the Morgan Library in New York. Northern Ballet are presenting the world premiere of a new version of Jane Eyre in May and Sally Wainwright’s Brontë drama To Walk Invisible will air on BBC1 in the autumn.

And two award-winning authors will also help with the celebrations. Novelist Grace McCleen will respond to the Brontë Parsonage’s collection as a writer in residence while much-loved children’s author Jacqueline Wilson will be an ‘Ambassador for Charlotte’ during 2016. Wilson said: “I’m delighted to be a special ambassador for the bicentenary celebrations in 2016. Jane Eyre is my all-time favourite novel. Jane continues to be an inspiration to us all, especially women - I admire Paula Rego’s powerful artistic interpretation and Sally Cookson’s imaginative stage version at the National Theatre. I first read the book when I was ten and have reread it many times since with increasing enjoyment. I’ve devoured more Brontë novels and many biographies, visited the Parsonage Museum half a dozen times, and I’ve walked across the moors breathing in the bracing air. Perhaps there’s a hint of Jane in several of the child characters in my own books.” Both authors will visit the museum during the year.

The Charlotte Great and Small exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage has been curated by writer and Brontë enthusiast Tracy Chevalier, who is working with the Brontë Parsonage Museum as a Creative Partner throughout 2016.  She said: “I have long loved Charlotte Brontë and am thrilled to be involved in the celebration of her bicentenary. The Parsonage is a unique house; it’s incredible to see the place where so much creativity arose. I’m hoping to sprinkle some surprises in amongst the dresses and writing desks – including a Twitter tour of the house and exhibition, and even a knitted Jane Eyre.” Tracy will talk about the exhibition and the inspiration behind it at an event in Haworth in early February. She has also edited a new collection of short stories influenced by the writing of Charlotte Brontë. ‘Reader, I Married Him’ is published by Borough Press and comprises stories by international women writers including Helen Dunmore, Susan Hill, Emma Donoghue, Audrey Niffenegger and Jane Gardam. The collection will be launched in Haworth in April.

Charlotte’s 200th birthday falls on Thursday April 21 and will be celebrated throughout the day in Haworth and nearby Thornton, where she was born. Visitors to the Brontë Parsonage Museum will be invited to hear talks on Charlotte’s life and offered the opportunity to view some of Charlotte’s letters, manuscripts and personal possessions in the library. At the Old School Room, where Charlotte once taught, the Society is hosting a birthday party . A wreath-laying ceremony for invited guests will follow on Friday April 22 at Westminster Abbey. Brontë biographers Juliet Barker and Claire Harman will give lectures in Haworth in May and June respectively.
The arrival of 2016 also marks the launch of Brontë200, the society’s programme of events celebrating the bicentenaries of the Brontë siblings: Charlotte in 2016, Branwell in 2017, Emily in 2018 and Anne in 2020. The Society also plans to commemorate Patrick Brontë in 2019, 200 years after he was invited to take up the parson’s role in Haworth.

John Thirlwell of the Brontë Society Council said: “The bicentenaries of the Brontë siblings provide a tremendous opportunity for the Brontë Society to celebrate the legacy of the Brontës across the globe. We recognise that arts organisations, museums and individuals will want to help us mark these special anniversaries and are excited about building new partnerships and reaching new audiences during the five-year programme.” yorkshirepost

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Spring in Elizabeth Gaskell's garden

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Future of Haworth Visitor Information Centre on the agenda at public consultation session

Councillor John Huxley, chairman of Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council

 

THE first consultation session to decide the future of the district's threatened visitor information centres has taken place in Haworth. This event was held at the Old White Lion, in West Lane yesterday evening. (Feb 2) Bradford Council's budget plans for the centres – at Haworth, Ilkley, Saltaire and Bradford – include a £19,000 cut this year and a massive £172,000 reduction in 2017-18, which the authority warns could result in closures. The Haworth Visitor Information Centre is in West Lane. Councillor John Huxley, chairman of Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council, said: "Bradford Council has to make savings, and they believe new technology has a role to play – as do I. "But the Haworth Visitor Information Centre is one of the places in the village which you never see empty. "It is a very important facility and if we're going to be taken seriously as a tourist destination we must have a tourist office of some kind. "As a parish council it's the kind of place we're anxious not to lose, and as a council it's the kind of facility we'd be interested in trying to save. "But that's something we'd first have to discuss in depth at a full council meeting."

Cllr Huxley added that two members of the parish council were due to report back from the consultation in Haworth on Tuesday. Matt Stroh, chairman of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, said it was important Bradford Council retained a physical presence in Haworth to help visitors, even if it was not as extensive as the current information centre. He suggested staff explored new ways of meeting the needs of many tourists who preferred to seek information before they set out from home. He said: “I’d like there to be investment in tourism in Haworth. I appreciate the centres may have to change their focus to meet the needs of people nowadays, but I don’t think closure is the answer. “I think Haworth would suffer greatly if there wasn’t some kind of physical hub for information and activity.” Haworth Main Street trader Mike Hutchinson, who owns a bed and breakfast, said it was "ridiculous" to even consider axing the village's only tourist information centre.

He said that if such a closure were to happen, it would be the latest in a series of cuts to public services to hit the village. "What on earth is Bradford Council up to with regards to Haworth?" he asked. "Are they creeping up on everything in Haworth with a giant axe to kill everything off?                  

                                                                                             

"Don't they know Haworth is a tourist area bringing revenue to the whole area?
"As with a lot of other things, Bradford will go in years to come, 'Oops we shouldn't have done that.' A lot of these facilities are used by locals and visitors alike." keighleynews