As far as we know, Patrick Brontë didn't have a copy of Audubon's magnificent (and very expensive) Birds of America. Nevertheless Audobon's five volumes of his Ornithological Biography (published in the 1830s) were owned by the Brontës.

This article is from bronteblog/all-these-have-i-procured

The Economist has a fascinating article about the copy of John James Audubon's Birds of America who is at the Museum of Natural History in Cleveland, Ohio. Regrettably some of the facts in the article are slightly misleading:

In Margot Livesey's novel "The Flight of Gemma Hardy", an update of Charlotte Brönte's (SIC) Jane Eyre, the heroine spends hours reading her uncle's copy of John James Audubon's "Birds of America", the famous double-elephant folio of bird prints.  (...)
But while the suggestion that Jane could carry the book is unrealistic, Ms Livesey's reference to her access of the book makes sense. Brönte's (SIC)  father, the Reverend Patrick Brönte (SIC) owned the "Birds of America" books at one time. In her Life of Charlotte Brönte (SIC), Elizabeth Gaskell reproduces a letter from her to Emily, which includes a list of book recommendations. "For Natural History, read Bewick, and Audubon, and Goldsmith," she wrote. Brönte's (SIC) set, enjoyed by Anne and Emily as well as Charlotte, does still exist, intact, and bound in brown leather. Where? In Cleveland, Ohio.
The complete set is on permanent display at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, far from Bröntes' (SIC) Haworth. The books are on the museum's second-floor library, inside a specially built cabinet from 1947. There is no disputing the book's provenance: the Reverand Brönte (SIC) signed four volumes of the Biography. (The first volume contains some of his notes as well, but the museum has resisted efforts at deciphering them.)
How did this set of books, so key to both literary and bibliophilic history, get to Cleveland? Via another literary great, Amy Lowell. An American poet, Lowell bought the set from a London book dealer in 1901, and paid $1,575. After her death in 1925 the books were sold, and in 1926 were listed by a Boston book dealer for $4,750. In 1947 John Sherwin, a Cleveland banking giant, bought the set and donated it to the Cleveland museum. (A.T.)

As far as we know, Patrick Brontë didn't have a copy of Audubon's magnificent (and very expensive) Birds of America. Nevertheless Audobon's five volumes of his Ornithological Biography (published in the 1830s) were owned by the Brontës. In the first volume, Patrick Brontë inscribed the following (despite what the article says about resisting deciphering):

"There are 5 volumes of this work - prince &1.4.0each - amounting together to &6.0.0. All these have I procured - P.B. 1852".

A reader asked me: Is er ook iets bekend over breiwerk in die tijd ( Victoriaanse lace ? In the Victorian age, what kind of knitting did women do?)

Blueberry winter

If the end of the 18th Century heralded the decline of the handknitting industry

The 19th century heralded the beginning of the craft of home-knitting for pleasure rather than profit. 

This was the time of white cotton work, doilies, chair backs, curtains, shelf edgings etc.
If an article could be knitted, then the Victorian lady knitted it.

• By 1835 knitting had become a very fashionable hobby for middle class drawing rooms of England and Scotland
• Between 1835-40, English knitting books appeared in large numbers, these were very popular
• New imported yarns, fine wools and improved quality needles now became available
• 1836 is the date of first known pattern publication, this was by Jane Gaugain.
• In 1837, Jane produced a small slim book on family knitting
• In 1840, she published a bookThe Ladies Assistant which included crochet as well as knitting
• between 1852-3, she produced lots of books, they contained patterns for
  caps, counterpanes, purses, baby clothes, shawls, bags, pin cushions, doyleys, cuffs, spencers, blankets,
  muffs, scarfs, mittens, and stockings
• It was in about 1837, in Gaitloch, Scotland that the first Argyle or Tartan stockings were produced Mini knitting stuff

Lacy and lush, with delightful flower patterns and lovely colors – that is what the Victorian look is all about; it is what Victorian knitting and crochet were all about, too. From delightfully flattering clothes to wonderfully luxurious bed coverings, Victorian women loved to stitch gorgeous items in dainty patterns. Nowadays, it’s easy to make the same kinds of wonderful pieces yourself. Sources abound for yarns and patterns with that unmistakable Victorian appeal.

Coverlets were one of the most exquisite knitted items in any Victorian home. They were a lavish mix of many floral lace patterns, creating a look of opulence. According to legendary knitting expert Mary Thomas’s Book of Knitting Patterns, “lace knitting” is “the height of the knitter’s art,” and to achieve the best results “knitters used the finest of knitting needles and the finest of knitting yarns.” Delicate designs such as bluebell, laburnum, and beech-leaf captured the beauty of the garden with leaf and flower motifs. 

Another essential for any Victorian knitter was the doily. Ladies of the era pulled out all the stops when they crafted these delightful accents, using often a dozen lace designs in a single piece. Crochet was also a popular method for crafting doilies, as well as similar items such as vase mats – thicker and smaller doilies meant to keep furniture free of water spots. Three-dimensional flowers graced the edges of many crocheted doilies, with the same styles of leaf motifs found in knitting – adding to it flowered charm.
 

Knit and Crochet Fashions: Stepping Out in Lace and Luxury
 

Clothes were another way for a Victorian lady to enjoy hand-knit lace.  Shawls were a favorite accessory. Some were simple one-stitch designs, while others were lavish, with ornate patterns, scalloped edges, and long fringe. For more warmth, shawls were often crafted from non-lacy patterns, such as garter stitch or double crochet, and then enhanced with a lacy edge. Whether they were lacy or cozy, shawls were often trimmed with ribbon and made in fashionable hues of red, mauve, and blue. Victoriana/VictorianCrafts/knitting

Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre:

Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.  

The Professor: Next day was appropriated to the first class; on my arrival, I found the directress seated, as usual, in a chair between the two estrades, and before her was standing Mdlle. Henri, in an attitude (as it seemed to me) of somewhat reluctant attention. The directress was knitting and talking at the same time.

Celebrating Emily Brontë Emily Brontë, author of classic novel Wuthering Heights was born on this day in 1818.

Born on this day in 1818.

Weblogs and Emily Bronte

 

Life had not been fair to Heathcliff and now theories abound on why he acted the way he did.

Samairak

The six-year-old Emily was considered a delight at Cowen bridge and seems to have been a favourite among the teachers. She was more fully described  by a unamed source ( possibly be Ellen Nussey) as  having ” a never-failing quiet unselfishness a genial spirit always willing to help, with timid but faithful affection.  Or in the  word of other servants, ""Pleasant  and sometimes quite jovial, friendly, or from villagers, clever, timid, a clever lass with a spirit of her own, ( quoted in New York times 1883  from the famous women series Emily Bronte by A Mary F Robinson. 

We can be sure that Emily had dark brown hair as it can be seen in the mourning jewelry at the parsonage, she is described by eye witnesses as having beautiful dark brown hair, she seems to have held it up in her adult years with a tall comb similar to those still used in Spain, though smaller. In her teenage years she wore it in a tight frizz that was very unbecoming.  Abigails Ateliers/will-the-real-emily-bronte-please-stand-up

The moors she loved so much

 

Reading teenage fiction

Heathcliffe and Cathy in a dramatic scene from Wuthering Heights. Illustration by James E. McConnell

                       Look and learn/birth-of-emily-bronte/

fsuspecialcollections/happy-birthday-emily-bronte/

What connection has Burton Agnes with such famous names as Lewis Carroll (the pen-name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) Charlotte Brontë and William Wilberforce? The link, rather indirect but still valid, comes through St Martin's Church and the Old Rectory behind the Hall, not as grand as the hall but still a substantial building.

St Martin's Church in Burton Agnes

The Rev Charles Henry Lutwidge became Rector of Burton Agnes in 1833. Three years earlier he had married Anne Louisa Raikes, daughter of the wealthy and influential Robert Raikes, of Welton, who was patron of the living of Burton Agnes and conveniently appointed his clergyman son-in-law Lutwidge to the well remunerated position of rector. The Lutwidge's were well established in our area. Grandfather Charles Lutwidge lived in a fine house in Hull's smartest address, Charlotte Street (now incorporated into George Street), and held the prestigious post of collector of customs for Hull. His daughter, Francis Jane, married the Rev Charles Dodgson at Christ Church, which stood near the New Theatre but was bombed in the war and later demolished.  They were the parents of the author of Alice In Wonderland and the Rector of Burton Agnes was his uncle. Whether  (born 1832) ever visited Burton Agnes we shall never know but their dates overlap and he could, quite reasonably, have been taken there as a child on a family visit.

Lewis Carroll is always associated with St Mary's Church, Beverley. The White Rabbit drawn by John Tenniel for the original edition of Alice is identical to the one in Beverley. Again, there is no proof but it would have made sense for Carroll, a clergyman and enthusiastic photographer, to have visited St Mary's and pointed his camera at the carving. Uncle Charles at Burton Agnes took on a curate to assist him in his not too onerous duties: Henry Nussey, whose sister Ellen was Charlotte Brontë's best friend. 

Looking in a somewhat calculating way for a wife who could act as his housekeeper, Nussey proposed marriage to Charlotte Brontë. She promptly turned him down, fortunately as events proved by his later disastrous marriage and Charlotte's finding a more suitable husband, the Rev Arthur Bell Nicholls. William Wilberforce is forever associated with Hull, but the Burton Agnes link comes through his second son, Robert Isaac, born at Clapham in 1802. 

heritage-explorer

The house in High Street was William's birthplace but he did not live there as an adult. Through his father, Robert was brought up in the Evangelical tradition. It was at Oxford that he came into contact with High Church Anglicans, Keble, Pusey and particularly John Henry Newman, who influenced him in following their ideas and beliefs. Robert married Agnes, daughter of Archdeacon Wrangham, though it is recorded that he spent the first day of his honeymoon unromantically writing a book. After her early death he married her cousin. In his church life he prospered, becoming Lutwidge's successor at Burton Agnes in 1840 with the additional position of Archdeacon of the East Riding. This gave him important social standing in the area and he duly enlarged and Victorianised the Georgian rectory. He also embarked on a programme of alterations to the church, concentrating on the chancel in accordance with his religious inclinations, installing a stained-glass window at the east end and, as a tribute to his father, had his head and shoulders carved in stone. In 1853 his second wife died and he made the momentous decision to resign his living at Burton Agnes and become a Roman Catholic. Intending to be ordained, he went to Rome but died there of gastric fever in 1857. His famous father had died in 1833, but this visual reminder of the family link with Burton Agnes remains.

Hull and East Riding

                                   Eastfield farm site of Ellen Nussey's house Easton
Eastfield Farm built in 1961 on the site of an earlier house was where Charlotte Brontë and Ellen Nussey came to stay in 1839. Ellen’s brother was curate at Burton Agnes and had proposed marriage to Charlotte, which she declined. The rector was Charles Henry Lutwidge, uncle of Lewis Carroll. travel/guide/yorkshirewolds

Whilst Charlotte Bronte and her friend Ellen Nussey were staying in Boynton in 1839, they came to visit friends and probably visited the church, where Ellen’s brother had been curate. He had proposed marriage to Charlotte which she declined. The rector was Charles Henry Lutwidge, uncle of Lewis Carroll. travel/guide/yorkshirewolds

—Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights 

Juliet Barker's monumental The Brontës will be republished this autumn in a new edition. Publishers Weekly talks about it and asks the author to list all the Brontë novels:

Juliet Barker's landmark biography, The Brontës: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of a Literary Family, has just received an update--making the feat of chronicling literature's most famous family even more heroic, and making the 1,200 page volume even more comprehensive. Barker, the former curator of the Brontë Parsonage Museum at Howarth (sic), ranked the books of the sisters for Tip Sheet.
Ranking Jane Austen’s novels may cause controversy – but it’s a storm in a tea-cup compared to the elemental forces unleashed when asked to choose between the Brontë novels. The three weird sisters of Haworth arouse passions like no other writers: Austen has fans but the Brontës have devotees and, believe me, there’s a very big difference – criticising Pride and Prejudice doesn’t provoke a baying lynch-mob in quite the same way as hinting that all is not perfection inWuthering Heights.
Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights have consistently spent decades in the top five best-selling and most popular novels of all time, so doesn’t that make them the obvious candidates for joint first? But I’d like to make the case for...
1. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne is the also-ran of the Brontë family yet The Tenant shares all the virtues of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights – powerful writing, gripping storyline, dramatic tension and passionate authorial involvement – whilst remaining firmly rooted in reality (no Rochester fooling his guests by disguising himself as a gypsy-woman or Heathcliff digging up his lover’s corpse). (...)
2. Jane Eyre3. Wuthering Heights4. Villette5. Agnes Grey6. The Professor7. Shirley (Read more)

Bronte blog 

Emily’s study.

Pencil drawing by Emily Brontë, 1842

Emily’s study of music on the continent changed her taste. She became fonder of piano arrangements of symphonies. On the contents page in one of her music books, with listings such as Bach, Boccherini, Clementi, Corelli, Haydn and Mozart, she concentrates on pieces from Beethoven, Glück and Handel. She also transcribed three of Beethoven’s symphonies, all marked. They show Emily’s daring and dramatic taste for composers who shared her passionate and powerful spirit. Her fondness for Beethoven, like Byron a hero of the Romantic era, might well explain her eagerness to learn German, which brought her into contact with the great German literature of the same period. Under the guidance of one of the best music professors in Brussels she made great strides with her piano-playing and was given the post of music teacher in the Pensionnat.

The initial plan was to stay in Brussels for only six months, but the Hegers suggested they stay on longer and offered them teaching posts in exchange for free board and education. Charlotte wrote in a letter: "…I consider it doubtful whether I shall come home in September or not. Madame Heger has made a proposal for both me and Emily to stay another half-year, offering to dismiss her English master, and take me as English teacher; also to employ Emily some part of each day in teaching music to a certain number of the pupils. For these services we are to be allowed to continue our studies in French and German, and to have board, &c., without paying for it; no salaries, however, are offered. The proposal is kind, and in a great selfish city like Brussels, and a great selfish school, containing nearly ninety pupils (boarders and day pupils included), implies a degree of interest which demands gratitude in return. I am inclined to accept it. What think you? I don't deny I sometimes wish to be in England, or that I have brief attacks of home sickness; but, on the whole, I have borne a very valiant heart so far; and I have been happy in Brussels, because I have always been fully occupied with the employments that I like. Emily is making rapid progress in French, German, music, and drawing. Monsieur and Madame Heger begin to recognise the valuable parts of her character, under her singularities.” the Brussels Bronte group

Weblogs and the Brontes

Charlotte Brontë’s fleshy female characters are often portrayed as requiring discipline and self-control. Corpulence is equated with mental inferiority inVillette as the Belgian pupils are depicted as lacking the requisite discipline for intellectual pursuits. Lucy Snowe describes the dining habits of one of her students whose:

quantity of household bread, butter, and stewed fruit, she would habitually consume at “second dejeuner” was a real world’s wonder – to be exceeded only by the fact of her actually pocketing slices she could not eat.[1]  

Bronte Horoine
-----------------------

G.H. Lewes, above, known best today mostly for being the lover of George Elliot, was an influential  journalist, author and literary critic of the mid 19th century. He  incurred Charlotte Bronte’s wrath by intimating, after the publication of Jane Eyre, that she might profit by writing less melodramatically, and gave her Jane Austen as an exemplar and inspiration. 

Charlotte wrote: 
"If I ever do write another book, I think I will have nothing of what you call “melodrama”; I think so, but I am not sure. I think too I will endeavour to follow the counsel which shines out of Miss Austen’s “mild eyes”; “to finish more and be more subdued”; but neither am I sure of that. When authors write best, or at least, when they wrote most fluently, an influence seems to waken in them which becomes their master, which will have its own way, putting  out of view all behests but its own, dictating words, and insisting on their being used, whether vehement or measured in their nature; new moulding characters, giving unthought- of turns to incidents, rejecting carefully elaborated old ideas, and suddenly creating and adopting new ones. Is this not so? And should we try to counteract this influence? Can we indeed counteract it?…

Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. What induced you to say you would rather  have written “Pride and Prejudice” or “Tom Jones’” than any of the Waverly Novels? I had not seen “Pride and Prejudice” till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book and studied it. And what did I find? An accurate daguerrotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully-fenced, highly cultivated garden with near borders and delicate flowers- but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy- no open country- no fresh air- no blue hill- no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in they elegant but confined houses.These observations will probably irritate you, but I shall run the risk.

Now I can understand admiration fo George Sand- for though I never saw any of her works which I admired throughout(…yet she has a grasp of mind which if I cannot fully comprehend I very deeply respect; she is sagacious and profound; MIss Austen is only shrewd and observant. Am I wrong – or were you hasty in what you said?

 Austen Only
----------

Chapter 1 

Of late years an abundant shower of curates has fallen upon the north of England: they lie very thick on the hills; every parish has one or more of them; they are young enough to be very active, and ought to be doing a great deal of good. But not of late years are we about to speak; we are going back to the beginning of this century: late years—present years are dusty, sunburnt, hot, arid; we will evade the noon, forget it in siesta, pass the midday in slumber, and dream of dawn. 

Moore placed his hand on his cousin's shoulder, stooped, and left a kiss on her forehead..
Gutenberg

Delaisse writes: I'm so excited - reading Shirley by Charlotte Bronte, and there's a passage that describes the moors where I live, right where I live! The moors I've mentioned many many times on this blog! I have to share the passage with you right now (even though I was in bed and about to go asleep!). It's from the twelfth chapter, titled "Shirley and Caroline" 

- Shirley said she liked the green sweep of the common turf, and, better still, the heath on its ridges, for the heath reminded her of moors: she had seen the moors when she was travelling on the borders near Scotland. She remembered particularly a district traversed one long afternoon, on a sultry but sunless day in summer: they journeyed from noon till sunset, over what seemed a boundless waste of deep heath, and nothing had they seen but wild sheep: nothing heard but the cries of wild birds.

'I know how the heath would look on such a day,' said Caroline; 'purple black: a deep shade of the sky-tint, and that would be livid.'

'Yes, quite livid, with brassy edges to the clouds, and here and there a white gleam, more ghastly than the lurid tinge, which, as you looked at it, you momentarily expected would kindle into blinding lightening.'

'Did it thunder?'

'It muttered distant peals, but the storm did not break till evening, after we had reached our inn: that inn being an isolated house at the foot of a range of mountains.'

'Did you watch the clouds come down over the mountains?'

'I did: I stood at the window an hour watching them. The hills seemed rolled in a sullen mist, and when the rain fell in whitening sheets, suddenly they were blotted from the prospect: they were washed from the world.'

Family fun day at Bronte School Rooms

This Saturday sees a family fun day from 10am at Bronte School Rooms, Church Street, and the following Saturday offers a Mad Hatter’s tea party in Central Park, Haworth, with picnics, storytelling, fancy dress and music.

For more information visit the festival website at Haworth festival-blog   Keighley news

Variations sur les portraits d’Emily Brontë

 Dorothy Black en Emily Brontë © Alfred Sangster

Il n’existe que deux portraits officiels d’Emily Brontë, tous les deux peints par son frère Branwell. Certains artistes s’inspirent de l’un ou l’autre de ces tableaux d’époque afin de créer de nouvelles représentations de la célèbre auteure du roman Les Hauts de Hurlevent (Wuthering Heights). Je publie ici celles qui me semblent les plus intéressantes. Dans un premier temps, voici celles  inspirées du portrait de profil d’Emily :

See more portraits on Soeurs Bronte

Flea, bassist from the Red Hot Chili Pepper

We knew that Flea, bassist from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, was a true Brontëite  (check previous posts) but now we has done a step further releasing a solo EP named after Helen Burns character in Jane Eyre:
Flea
Helen Burns
Hi people who like The Red Hot Chili Peppers! I love you a lot! Mucho! Just wanted to give you a heads up about this little record "Helen Burns" I am putting out on the Silverlake Conservatory website.
Warning! It is not a Chili Peppers record. It does not have songs that are like the Chili Peppers at all. It is a mostly instrumental, weird and arty record, the music is mostly just me creating soundscapes that are very emotional for me, but certainly not for everyone! Just me tripping out at home. I am putting it out to raise money for The Silverlake Conservatory of Musica community based non profit music school that i am an integral part of. There you have it. See you all soon i hope!
Flea adds in the liner notes of the EP:

I have for a long time, been in love with the book Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. The beauty of the character Helen Burns is a quality I yearn for in all human beings, including, of course, myself. Helen Burns is someone who is always present with me, and whose highest ideals resonate in the deepest experiences of my life. I share this love with my friend, Patti Smith, and she agreed to sing a song for Helen. I am so grateful to Patti, my sister, who is one of my favorite people on earth and ever. Bronte blog

Funki blog-flea-helen-burns-recensie 

Third Brontë Festival of Women's Writing

Jane Austen will go ‘head to head’ with the Brontës in a battle between these great women writers, as part of the third Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing, to take place in Haworth from Friday 31 August to Sunday 2 September 2012. The full programme of events has been announced and will feature readings, talks, workshops and family events dedicated to celebrating and showcasing women’s writing.

The weekend will feature writers Helen Simpson, Tiffany Murray and Claire Harman discussing whether Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters have had the greatest influence on contemporary fiction. Novelist Sadie Jones will also be in conversation about her work and latest novel The Uninvited Guests. An exhibition of new poetry by Zoe Brigley and Hebden Bridge-based poet Amanda Dalton, inspired by their previous residencies at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, will go on display in the period rooms of the Parsonage for the weekend, and Amanda Dalton will be reading from her Brontë poems as part of the festival. There will also be a variety of creative writing workshops taking place to enable emerging writers to develop their own creative skills, and a series of events for museum visitors and families. The full programme details are included below.

The first Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing was held in September 2010 and was supported by the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. The festival takes place as part of the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s contemporary arts programme and is funded by Arts Council England and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. Third Brontë Festival of Women's Writing