On this day in 1817 Mary Taylor close friend of Charlotte Bronte was born.

Charlotte Brontë’s most intelligent school friend.

Quiet but very self-possessed, she was an admirable

businesswoman, with a way of going straight to the point

that was at times disconcerting … Miss Taylor was indeed

a remarkable woman – probably in her mental endowments

the strongest woman who came within the Brontë circle.

Cleckheaton Guardian, 24 December 1903

 

http://www.kirklees.gov.uk/events/documents/RedHouse-MaryTaylor.pdf

Mary Taylor’s Wellington store

‘I have set up shop!’ Mary Taylor wrote to her friend, the novelist Charlotte Brontë, from Wellington in April 1850. The shop, on the corner of Dixon and Cuba Streets, was typical of the draperies, often started by women, that expanded into department stores. By 1853 it was listed in the Wellington and southern province almanac as one of the city’s ‘principal stores’. It later became James Smith’s, a major Wellington department store until the early 1990s. Taylor reported to Brontë that she was delighted with her business. ‘The best of it is that your labour has some return.’ (Quoted in Joan Stevens, ed., Mary Taylor: friend of Charlotte Brontë. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1972, pp. 92–93.)

Early New Zealand stores

New Zealand’s department stores mostly grew from small drapery shops in the second half of the 19th century. They met the need for clothing, footwear and household goods in the new settler communities.

Many of these stores were begun by women. In 1849 Mrs Bain, a widow, opened a Dunedin drapery which was later known as Brown, Ewing. In 1850 Mary and Ellen Taylor founded a Wellington drapery, which after changes of address and ownership became the department store James Smith’s.

www.teara.govt.nz/en/department-stores-and-shopping-

Mary’s Novel – Miss Miles

Mary began writing her only novel, Miss Miles, or a Tale of

Yorkshire Life 60 Years Ago, in New Zealand but had difficulty

finishing it:

‘I began to read some pages of ‘my book’ intending to

write some more but went on reading for pleasure. I

often do this and find it very interesting indeed. It does

not get on fast … It’s full of music, poverty, disputing,

politics, and original views of life.’ (MT to CB, 1852)

Finally, and probably at her own expense, Miss Miles was published in 1890. Set

in industrial area like the Spen Valley, it tells the stories of four women and

contains many of Mary’s ideas about women’s position in society.

 

Joan Bellamy’s richly detailed and fascinating

biography of Mary Taylor

More Precious than Rubies

was published in 2002, after more than a decade of

research into Mary’s life and analysis of her writings.

 

More Precious than Rubies is available from Red House, price £11.50 plus

UK p&p:£1.50; Europe p&p:£4.00; USA/Canada p&p:£7.80; New Zealand/

Australia/Japan p&p: £9.20; (Surface mail outside Europe £2.10).

(ISBN 1 902645 28 6) 

“Charlotte Bronte,” from Evert Augustus Duyckinck, Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women of Europe and America (New York: Johnson, Wilson, 1873) 2: 44. George Richmond’s drawing of Charlotte Brontë (1850) has been engraved and tinted for this gallery, which boasts that it is “illustrated with highly finished steel engravings from original portraits by the most celebrated artists.”

“Haworth Parsonage and Graveyard.” From Ellen Nussey, “Reminiscences of Charlotte Brontë,” Scribner’s Monthly 2:1 (May 1871): 18–31. [p. 25] Courtesy of Cornell University Library, Making of America Digital Collection. [Making of America,2005, http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/ (accessed August 10, 2007).]

http://www.erudit.org/

Charlotte Bronte to Henry Nussey0August 7, 2010

This 1839 letters is Charlotte’s response to Nussey’s proposal of marriage, Henry Nussey was brother of her close friend Ellen Nussey.

HAWORTH, March 5th, 1839

My Dear Sir

Before answering your letter, I might have spent a long time in consideration of its subject; but as from the first moment of its reception and perusal I determined on which course to pursue, it seemed to me that delay was wholly unnecessary. You are aware that I have many reasons to feel gratified to your family, that I have peculiar reasons for affection towards one at least of your sisters, and also that I highly esteem yourself. Do not therefore accuse me of wrong motives when I say that my answer to your proposal must be a decided negative. In forming this answer — I trust I have listened to the dictates of conscience more than to those of inclination; I have no personal repugnance to the idea of a union with you — but I feel convinced that mine is not the sort of disposition calculated to form the happiness of a man like you. It has always been my habit to study the character of those amongst whom I chance to be thrown, and I think I know yours and can imagine what description of woman would suit you for a wife. Her character should not be too marked, ardent and original — her temper should be mild, her piety undoubted, her spirits even and cheerful, and her ‘personal attractions’ sufficient to please your eye and gratify your just pride. As for me, you do not know me, I am not this serious, grave, cool-headed individual you suppose — You would think me romantic and eccentric — you would say I was satirical and severe. However, I scorn deceit and I will never for the sake of attaining the distinction of matrimony and escaping the stigma of an old maid take a worthy man whom I am conscious I cannot render happy.”
Read on:
http://www.latestngreatest.net/loveletters/famous-love-letters/charlotte-bronte-to-henry-nussey.html


http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5280630

Ellen Nussey "Dearest Nell""

Ellen Nussey (20 April 1817–26 November 1897), was a lifelong friend and correspondent of British author Charlotte Brontë and, through hundreds of letters received from her, was a major source for Elizabeth Gaskell's 1857 biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë.

Nussey was the twelfth child of John Nussey (1760-1826), a cloth merchant of Birstall Smithies in Yorkshire, and his wife Ellen, née Wade (c.1771-1857). Nussey first attended a small local school before progressing to the Gomersal Moravian Ladies Academy. Nussey and Brontë first met in January 1831, when they were both pupils at Roe Head School, near Dewsbury in Yorkshire. They corresponded with each other regularly over the next 24 years, each writing hundreds of letters to the other. In 1839, Ellen Nussey's brother, Henry, proposed marriage to Brontë, but she found him dull and refused him.

Through her frequent visits to the Parsonage at Haworth Nussey also became a friend of Anne and Emily Brontë, and was accepted as a suitable friend for his daughters by the Reverend Patrick Brontë. Indeed, when in May 1849, Anne decided to make a visit to Scarborough in the hope that the change of location and fresh sea air might be good for her failing health, and give her a chance to live, she went with Charlotte and Nussey. En route, the three spent a day and a night in York, where, escorting Anne around in a wheelchair, they did some shopping, and at Anne's request, visited the colossal York Minster. However, it was clear that Anne had little strength left.

Read more
http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Ellen_Nussey

Her other friend, Miss Ellen Nussey, whose sweet and gentle character Charlotte afterward attempted to depict in Caroline Helstone, was drawn toward her by compassion on the first day of her arrival, upon seeing her standing alone by the school-room window watching the other girls at play yin the snow without, and crying from loneliness.

Letter from Charlotte to Ellen.

1843: Charlotte called herself "stunted and plain,

" in this sketch waving goodbye

to her friend Ellen

Bronte Juvenilia

Childhood fantasy is often stifled by the imposition of adult demands. The Brontë children escaped such censure, however. Writing without the requirement to put neat handwriting before creative expression, they developed storytelling skills that are reflected in their adult writings. Michael J. A. Howe describes the imaginary world chronicled by the Brontë children, revealing their sources of inspiration in the experiences of real people and the places they read about.

The imaginary worlds had their beginnings around 1826, when Charlotte and Emily, who shared a bed, invented simple unwritten plays, not unlike those created in many children's imaginary play. The very first of the Brontks' plays took most of the characters from toys, especially their brother Branwell's toy soldiers. The earliest surviving play that was written down, by Branwell, is set in Lorraine and concerns the imaginary intrigues and battles between would-be rulers, in the course of which the imagined events include a rebellion and a siege. As the Brontës' biographer Juliet Barker notes, most of the essential elements of their juvenile writings were already in place at that time, including political rivalries, battles, and rebellions that are played out within fantasy kingdoms (Juliet Barker, The Brontës, 1994, p. 152). Numerous sources were drawn upon. A particularly important inspiration was Blackwood's Magazine, a monthly journal containing a wide mixture of articles ranging from fiction to political satire and humour. Branwell's toy soldiers were given names and pressed into service as fictional characters.

Read more:  http://www.fathom.com/feature/122071/index.html

Our plays were established; Young Men, June, 1826; Our Fellows, July, 1827; Islanders, December, 1827. These are our three great plays, that are not kept secret. …The Young Men's play took its rise from some wooden soldiers Branwell had; Our Fellows from Æsop's Fables; and the Islanders from several events which happened. I will sketch out the origin of our plays more explicitly if I can. First, Young Men. Papa bought Branwell some wooden soldiers at Leeds; when Papa came home it was night, and we were in bed, so next morning Branwell came to our door with a box of soldiers. Emily and I jumped out of bed, and I snatched up one and exclaimed, 'This is the Duke of Wellington! This shall be the Duke!' When I had said this Emily likewise took one up and said it should be hers; when Anne came down, she said one should be hers. Mine was the prettiest of the whole, and the tallest, and the most perfect in every part. Emily's was a grave-looking fellow, and we called him 'Gravey.' Anne's was a queer little thing, much like herself, and we called him 'Waiting-boy.' Branwell chose his, and called him 'Bonaparte.' [1]

During this time Branwell acquired several sets of toy figures such as soldiers, Turkish musicians, and Indians. These toys were the impetus for the founding of the imaginary lands of Angria and Gondal. The children began to write plays about the figures, with Emily and Charlotte composing "bed plays" that they kept secret from the adults as well as from Branwell and Anne. In "Tales of the Islanders" (1829) Charlotte gave a history of the early plays, underscoring Emily's early affiliation with the works of Sir Walter Scott, for she chose the Isle of Arran for her island and Scott for her "cheif [sic] man." This affinity grew with Aunt Branwell's 1828 New Year's gift to "her dear little nephew and nieces," a copy of Scott's The Tales of a Grandfather (1827-1829). In addition to Scott's works the Brontë children drew material for their plays from the family library of Aesop's Fables, The Arabian Nights' Entertainment, and wood-engraver Thomas Bewick's History of British Birds. Their most important influence during these early years was most likely Blackwood's Magazine, whose satires, political commentaries, and extensive book reviews provided them with a wealth of detail that seeded their imaginations throughout their early years of creativity.

In 1831, after Charlotte left for Roe Head School, Emily and Anne began to concentrate their energies exclusively on the Gondal saga, distinct from the Angrian fantasies of their brother and sister, a special form of imaginative play in which the two younger sisters alone engaged for the remainder of their lives. Emily's first mention of Gondal occurs in her diary paper for 24 November 1834, a series of notes written by Emily and Anne about every four years and the earliest piece of Brontë's writing to have survived.

Read more:  www.poetryfoundation.org/

 November the 24

1834 Monday

Emily Jane Brontë

Anne Brontë

I fed Rainbow, Diamond, Snowflake Jasper phesant (alias this morning Branwell went down to Mr. Drivers's and brought news that Sir Robert peel was going to be invited to stand for Leeds Anne and I have been peeling apples for Charlotte to make an apple pudding and for Aunt's [? - unreadable] and apple Charlotte said she made puddings perfectly and she was of a quick but lim[i]ted intellect Taby said just now come Anne pillopuate (ie pill [peel] a potato Aunt has come into the kitchen just now and said where are you feet Anne Anne answered onthe on the floor Aunt papa opened the parlour Door and said B gave Branwell a Letter saying here Branwell read this and show it to your Aunt and Charlotte - The Gondals are disc discovering the interior of Gaaldine.
Sally mosley is washing in the back kitchin. It is past Twelve o'clock Anne and I have not tid[i]ed ourselvs, done our bed work or done our lessons and we want to go out to play We are going to have for dinner Dinner Boiled Beef Turnips potato's and applepudding the Kitchin is in avery untidy state Anne and I have not Done our music exercise which consists of b majer Taby said on my putting a pen in her face Ya pitter pottering there instead of pilling a potate I answered O Dear, O Dear, O Dear I will derectly with that I get up, take a Knife and begin pilling (finished pilling the potatos papa going to walk Mr Sunderland expected. Anne and I say I wonder what we shall be like if all be well and what we shall be and where we shall be this year if all goes on well in the year 1874 -- in which year I shall be in my 57th year Anne will be going in her 55th year Branwell will be going in his 58th year And Charlotte in her 59th year hoping we shall all be well at that time We close our paper.
Emily and Anne November the 24 1834

Old pictures of Haworth

The pictures are taken around 1890

so, in a later period than the Brontes were living

but still, it gives an impression of their time.

Juliet Barker

It was here she settled down to research and write her best-known book – the definitive and wonderfully-readable biography The Brontës, which was highly acclaimed and won The Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award.
It is a myth-busting blockbuster and the first updated edition is just out, with new nuggets on the world’s most famous literary sisters, their brother, Branwell, and father Patrick. The book, first published in 1994, stems from her own childhood in Bradford, where her father was a wool merchant. She became obsessed with the Brontës and read Mrs Gaskell’s biography on Charlotte Brontë when she was 13.
When she landed a job as curator and director of the parsonage museum, in Haworth, it allowed her to delve deeper into the reality of a story that had been heavily romanticised and fictionalised by everyone from Charlotte’s friend, Mrs Gaskell, to film makers and fans.
“What surprised me most was that they didn’t live in some backward village cut off from society. I spent two years reading local newspapers of the time and they showed clearly that the place described by Mrs Gaskell was quite different to the real Haworth. It was a busy, industrial township with its own subscription library and lots going on,” says Juliet, who is most proud of rescuing Branwell’s reputation. [...]
“He was the leader, the innovator. Where he led, his sisters followed. What I also found was that what was supposed to be the most shameful event in his life never actually happened. He was supposed to have won a place at the Royal Academy, where he spent money on drink and drugs and was sent home to Haworth in disgrace. In fact, he never went there at all. Manuscripts show that his tutor felt he wasn’t quite ready for the academy.”
Her latest version of the book includes new material on Charlotte. “She really struggled to be a writer and an independent woman, but I upset people by taking away her pedestal. She is painted as someone who sacrificed everything to look after her sick father and that’s not strictly true. She was a dutiful daughter, but she was much more complex than that. She used him as a convenient excuse not to go to London or to avoid events she didn’t want to attend.”
“It will soon be just the two of us and this is a big house. It’s time to go and although I will miss it, I’m still going to have a moor to look at, which I’m pleased about. That’s very important to me.” (Sharon Dale)

http://bronteblog.blogspot.com/

Dress

I found another weblog about the Brontes.

Nice article about making Charlotte's dress:

http://abigailsateliers.wordpress.com/

De new Jane Eyre film will be released in march.

Alfred Burke. In Memoriam

Alfred Burke. In Memoriam

The Independent, The Times or The Guardian publish obituaries of the actor Alfred Burke (1918-2011) who died last February 16:
Fhe Brontëites he will always be the Rev. Patrick Brontë in the 1973 series The Brontës of Haworth. He also toured the UK with his one-man-only performance of the father of the Brontës.
The Brontës of Haworth - DVDThey were the most talented family in English literatureStyle ID: 0758625A fascinating period drama documenting the lives of the Brontë sisters from the successes of their literary achievements to the tragedies that beset both their own and their brother’s lives.Written by the poet and the playwright Christopher Fry, the accent is on accuracy and authenticity.Starring: Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Alfred Burke, Freda Dowie, Vickery Turner, Michael Kitchen, Rosemary McHale, and Ann Penfold2 DVD • Running Time: 260 mins • Rated PG

What would the Brontë sisters sew?

They stitched samplers long before Charlotte grew up to write “Jane Eyre,” before Emily wrote “Wuthering Heights” and before Anne wrote “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” [...]

Charlotte completed her sampler at age 13 in April 1829. Emily was done with hers at age 11 on March 1, 1829. Anne finished hers at age 10 on Jan. 23, 1830. They stitched their samplers at their home, Haworth Parsonage in Yorkshire, after the girls had returned from school where their older sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, had died from privation and illness suffered at the boarding school.

It is easy to imagine the sisters sitting together, hoops and needles in hand, making row after row of cross-stitches to fashion each word. Perhaps the sewing was an occasion to sit together and talk about life in the village or to remember their sisters. Or perhaps the sewing was drudgery, an onerous task to be got through until they could go out to the moors where they let their imaginations run wild.

As might be expected of the daughters of Patrick Brontë, a clergyman, the Brontë sisters’ samplers consist of lengthy passages from the Bible, from Proverbs and Psalms.

Photographs of the Brontës’ samplers are included in “Samplers and Tapestry Embroideries” by Marcus Huish, first published in 1900 in London. Huish describes the samplers: “They show a strange lack of ornament, and a monotony of colour (they are worked in black silk on rough canvas) which deprive them of all attractiveness in themselves.” Judging from the photographs, it’s easy to see how Huish might arrive at that conclusion, but the samplers, to my eye, have an almost architectural beauty of composition.

Huish says in his book that the owner of the samplers at that time was Clement Shorter, a journalist who collected manuscripts, books and materials related to his favorite authors, including the Brontë sisters.

Each sampler differs somewhat from the others. The top verse in Charlotte’s sampler reads: “A house divided against itself can’t stand.” But horizontal bars of stitching separate the seven verses in the sampler. Did she intend that as a bit of drollery? It can be argued that “Jane Eyre” has the “house divided” idea as one of its themes. Rochester was certainly a “house divided against itself,” given the fact that he had a madwoman, his wife, living in the attic, while falling in love and persuading Jane, the governess, who didn’t know about the wife, to marry him.

A line in Emily’s sampler says: “Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man.” Was this line from a verse from Proverbs a foreshadowing of her character Heathcliff, whose callous behavior transgressed social and moral codes, in “Wuthering Heights”?

Anne’s sampler, also with verses from Proverbs, bears this line: “She is more precious than rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.” It was Anne who created the character Helen, the wife of Arthur, the unfaithful, drunken husband who did not value his wife. Helen fled from him in “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”

The three samplers are stitched with the same zigzag border, similar to a Greek key pattern.

I searched a long time on the Internet for images of the samplers so I could direct readers to them, but I was not successful. The only images I found are in Huish’s book.

I came across references stating that the samplers are housed at Haworth Parsonage, now a museum, but at websites pertaining to Haworth I did not find information to confirm that the samplers are, indeed, housed at the museum. I e-mailed a query but have not yet received a reply. (Ardeana Hamlin)

Well, we are not the Brontë Parsonage Museum but we can confirm that the samplers do indeed belong to their collection.
 
http://bronteblog.blogspot.com/

The children learned how to sew from Aunt Branwell.

Miss Branwell was a very small, antiquated little lady. She wore caps large enough for half-a-dozen of the present fashion, and a front of light auburn curls over her forehead. She always dressed in silk. She had a horror of the climate so far north, and of the stone floors in the Parsonage. She talked a great deal of her younger days — the gaiety's of her dear native town Penzance, the soft, warm climate, &c. She gave one the idea that she had been a belle among her own home acquaintance. She took snuff out of a very pretty gold snuff-box, which she sometimes presented to you with a little laugh, as if she enjoyed the slight shock of astonishment visible in your countenance. She would be very lively and intelligent, and tilt arguments against Mr. Bronte without fear."

So Miss Ellen Nussey recalls the elderly, prim Miss Branwell about ten years later than her first arrival in Yorkshire. But it is always said of her that she changed very little. Miss Nussey's striking picture will pretty accurately represent the maiden lady of forty, who, from a stringent and noble sense of duty, left her southern, pleasant home to take care of the little orphans running wild at Haworth Parsonage. Henceforth their time was no longer free for their own disposal. They said lessons to their father, they did sewing with their aunt, and learned from her all housewifely duties. Patrick Branwell was the favourite with his aunt, the naughty, clever, brilliant, rebellious, affectionate Patrick. Next to him she always preferred the pretty, gentle baby Anne, with her sweet, clinging ways, her ready submission, her large blue eyes and clear pink-and-white complexion. Charlotte, impulsive, obstinate and plain, the rugged, dogged Emily, were not framed to be favourites with her. Many a fierce tussle of wills, many a grim listening to over-frivolous reminiscence, must have shown the aunt and her nieces the difference of their natures. Maria, too, the whilom head of the nursery, must have found submission hard ; but hers was a singularly sweet and modest nature. Of Elizabeth but little is remembered. Meanwhile the regular outer life went oh — the early rising, the dusting and pudding-making, the lessons said to their father, the daily portion of sewing accomplished in Miss Branwell's bedroom, because that lady grew more and more to dislike the flagged flooring of the sitting-room.

Every day, some hour snatched for a ramble on the moors ; peaceful times in summer when the little girls took their sewing under, the stunted thorns and currants in the garden, the clicking sound of Miss Branwell's pattens indistinctly heard within. Happy times when six children, all in all to each other, told wonderful stories in low voices for their own entrancement.
Miss Branwell took care that the girls should not lack more homely knowledge.

Each took her share in the day's work, and learned all details of it as accurately as any German maiden at her cookery school. Emily took very kindly to even the hardest housework ; there she felt able and necessary ; and, doubtless, upstairs, grimly listening to prim Miss Branwell's stories of bygone gaiety's, this awkward growing girl was glad to remember that she too was of importance to the household, despite her tongue-tied brooding.
Read more about Aunt Branwell:
http://brontefamilyblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/aunt-elizabeth-branwell.html

Good news for the St Michael and All Angels Haworth church:

One of the most visited churches in the UK – where the crypt contains the bodies of famous literary sisters Charlotte and Emily Brontë – has been gifted a £115,000 cash windfall.
The money from the Heritage Lottery pot will go towards financing the biggest refurbishment of St Michael and All Angels since it was re-built in 1879.
Also among the latest round of grants is St Peter’s Church in Birstall, where £199,000 will go to help finance roof and masonry repairs.
They come under the the lottery fund’s Repair Grants for Worship scheme.
The Haworth handout will help boost funding on a major repair project, which is expected to cost in the region of £1.4million when completed.
The Rector, the Reverend Peter Mayo-Smith, said it was good news for the parish, which saw about a million visitors a year coming to see the Brontë Parsonage Museum and the church where the sisters’ father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë, was the vicar in the mid-1800s.
The money, which would be match- funded by the church through fund-raising, was to pay for repairs to the roof and internal fabric of the church, he said.
--------------------------------------
“The first phase is to explore the problem in the south roof, which is badly leaking. We occasionally have to have buckets out to catch the water. The north roof, which isn’t as bad, will be tackled later,” said Rev Mayo-Smith. (The Telegraph & Argus)
The roof is the most important thing to get right, then we can tackle work inside the church including restoring a wall painting.
“The aim is to make the church an asset to the community, so it can be used by people such as the Brontë Society and for concerts.
“It is also visited by many people because of the Brontës, so we want to improve the experience for people who come into the church.” (Keighley News)
----------------------------
THE rain is coming in and the masonry is crumbling at some of the region’s most treasured places of worship as they battle the elements.
But hard-pressed congregations were offered a lifeline yesterday with the announcement that £2.3m has been set aside by heritage organisations to finance urgent repairs at 16 listed church buildings across Yorkshire and the Humber region. They include St Michael and All Angels, Haworth, known for its connections to the Brontë family. (...)
St Michael and All Angels Church, at Haworth, where the Rev Patrick Bronte was incumbent from 1820 to 1861 and where members of the family including Emily and Charlotte, are buried in a family vault adjacent to the present south east chapel, has been awarded £115,000.It will be used to help pay for reroofing the south nave, side aisle and tower.
The honorary treasurer at St Michael’s, Averil Kenyon, welcomed the news saying: “The church roof is leaking badly and that in turn is causing serious damage to the 19th century wall paintings inside.” (...)
The head of the Heritage Lottery Fund for Yorkshire and the Humber, Fiona Spiers, said last night: “Historic places of worship are one of our most treasured cultural assets. They occupy a unique position at the heart of communities up and down the country, and are a focus for so many civil and social activities in addition to their central purpose as a place for prayer and contemplation.” (Yorkshire Post)

New Weblog

Today I receives this reaction:

Great post about Emily ! I also publish a post about Tabby on my blog this week : http://soeursbronte.wordpress.com/
Best regards,

Louise

I am  very happy with this reaction.
 Because I found a new weblog about the Bronte sisters. Really great!!!!!!
and I love it when people give a reaction.

Thank you Louise

Rare Brontë novel sells for record £163,250

By Keighley News reporter »

A rare first edition copy of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights has sold at auction for a record price.
The three-volume book, published in 1847, fetched £163,250 when it went under the hammer last Thursday, at Sotheby’s, in London. The figure — more than double the pre-sale estimate — is the most ever paid at auction for a copy of the classic novel.

The buyer was an unnamed American dealer.

Andrew McCarthy, director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum, at Haworth, said: “In the context of the worldwide recession it seems a lot of money and is quite surprising, but anything associated with Emily fetches that bit more.

The book was among 123 rare publications, mostly first editions, which together sold for more than £3.1 million.

The seller was a 75-year-old collector.

Also included in the lots was a first edition copy of Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which sold for £85,250 — slightly above its estimate.

Keighley news

On this day in 1855 Tabitha Ackroyd "Tabby" faithful servant of the Bronte family died aged 85.

Tabitha Ackroyd "Tabby" faithful servant of the Bronte family died aged 85.

Tabitha' s grave

'Tabby' was the Cook/Housekeeper and for the first 15 of her 31 years at the Parsonage, she was the only servant living in, although the Brontë sisters themselves also cooked, cleaned and washed clothes. In December 1836 Tabby slipped on ice in Haworth's main street, badly breaking her leg. Aunt Branwell suggested that she leave the Parsonage to be nursed by her sister Susannah, but the Brontë children objected, even going on hunger strike, and Tabby stayed in the Parsonage nursed by the children. The leg never fully healed however, and over the next 3 years many of Tabby's duties were taken up by Emily.

Tabby was fond of her "childers" and they were fond of her. As Charlotte later wrote, "she was like one of our own family". Tabby took the girls for their walks on the moors, and, with her old-fashioned ways and broad Haworth accent, she was sometimes the butt of their boisterous games. Tabby was a great storyteller. She knew all the local families, all their complex inter-relationships and disputes, and, despite her belief in the Christian teachings of divine reward and retribution, she held also to the ancient anthropomorphic traditions of the countryside, claiming (according to Mrs. Gaskell) to have known people who had seen the fairies. Emily, who spent more time working in the kitchen than either of her sisters, was particularly close to Tabby, and Tabby's influence permeates the landscape of Wuthering Heights. Tabby has also been identified as the model for Nelly Dean in Wuthering Heights, and for the housekeeper Martha in Charlotte's novel Shirley.

www.bronte.info

The  kitchen which Emily used to bake breads while reading German books

EMILY BRONTE HOUSEKEEPER AND MORE:

Yet shift it we should, if we are to get a more truthful, insightful and less romanticised version of this great writer. Read the biographies - Winifred Gérin, Juliet Barker and, in particular, Lucasta Miller - and you can begin to discern a more formidable woman who could cope with the world rather better than the image of the doomed Emily might suggest.

For instance, try to get your head around the fact that the real Emily Bronte was good at investing in the stock market. Not only that, but she invested her own and her sisters' money in railway shares - the dotcom stocks equivalent of the 1840s - and managed the investment attentively. A surviving letter from supposedly more worldly Charlotte is full of praise for Emily's careful reading of the newspapers for items of railway industry news.

Or consider the implications of the fact that the real Emily Bronte was a crackshot with a pistol. The Brontes lived in stirring times and in a turbulent region. Howarth in 1842 was not some remote moorland idyll, but a place of unemployment, riot and some real danger. Knowing how to handle a firearm was not an eccentric skill, and Emily was the best markswoman in the house. If the author of Wuthering Heights had met a real Heathcliff, the chances are she would have shot him dead.

Remember too that the real Emily Bronte could read and write French and German, that she attended art exhibitions in Leeds, and that music occupied a major place in her imaginative world. An accomplished pianist, she played Beethoven and Handel all her life, and she may even have heard no less a musician than Franz Liszt give a recital in Halifax in February 1841.

This picture of a woman who read newspapers, who was interested in the transport revolution and the markets, who could use a gun and make bread and who may even have been able to play the Appassionata Sonata, needs to be given its proper place. Too much of the time all we get is the fantasist of the Gondal stories, the chainless soul of the poems and the mystic visionary of that solitary novel.

Emily Bronte and her achievement need no help from me to endure. Wuthering Heights is one of the greatest imaginative achievements of English culture. It is a work of fibrous and poetic power worthy to rank with Milton, Blake and Conrad. But the book should not be banalised and its author should not be infantilised. In a world where Barcelona FC can claim to be "mas que un club", it is right to insist that Wuthering Heights is more, far more, than a love story.

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