Planet Century 19

No rest. ― Yet I rose somewhat earlier, & brisker.

Wrote many letters. ― Dickenson came to hang up pictures. I, worked at Mrs. Potter’s Corfû. ―

Sir J. Simeon came, & paid me for the Ιωάννινα, £50. ― Worked on till 3. ― Then called on Sayers, Andrè, Woodhouse, Milnes, ― & across the Park to Mrs. Evans ― (nice people.) ― & so to Brompton ― & Mrs. Coombe’s. The singular weight of dullness there is terrible. Yet I did my best. ―
Walked home. ―

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Classic Comic Store Ltd is reprinting several Classics Illustrated comics. On this month Wuthering Heights is scheduled to appear. These are the details of the original comic:

Wuthering Heights

• Paperback: 48 pages
• Publisher: Classic Comic Store Ltd; 1 UK edition (1 Jul 2009)
• ISBN-10: 1906814236
• ISBN-13: 978-1906814236

Classic Illustrated No 59
Originally Published in 1949.

Art work: Henry C. Kiefer
All artwork re-coloured and covers digitally enhanced.

The cover of the present reprinting seems to be the Painted Cover of the original second printing. The artist was Geoffrey Biggs. Next September Jane Eyre is scheduled to be released.

Categories: Comics, Wuthering Heights

Princely Suitor by Richard Doyle

Painting of the Day Archive

Sharon Tanenbaum recommends the recently published The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë by Syrie James in RealSimple:

In the foreword to this historical novel, author Syrie James (The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen) asks you to imagine that the private diaries of Jane Eyre scribe Charlotte Brontë are at your fingertips. Using Brontë’s biographies and 24 years of her actual correspondence with close friend Ellen Nussey as a basis, James has created a faux-diary about the rags-to-riches tale and romance of the celebrated writer.

The Telegraph has an article about writers who succeeded after dying. One of them, Emily Brontë:

After all, one book is sometimes enough to earn literary immortality: consider To Kill a Mocking Bird, Wuthering Heights, Black Beauty. Furthermore, plenty of writers have enjoyed fame beyond the grave that they only dreamt of (or occasionally disdained) in their lifetimes. (Nicolette Jones)

More Sargasso references in the Salinger affaire. Now in the Times:

Even so, is Salinger being po-faced? Or does he have a fair claim for copyright infringement? 60 Years certainly isn’t the first novel to exploit another author’s characters. Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea owed a debt to Jane Eyre. Flashman was spun out of Tom Brown’s Schooldays. There have been James Bond sequels, though they have been written under the stewardship of Fleming’s estate.

The Daily Post (New York counties) includes an article by a local student now in Oxford, England:

Europe has a unique siren's call for me.
I love everything about it. I fell head-over-heels for France with the help of my high school French teacher. And England? Well, this is a country that has produced some of my favorite things, such as Pink Floyd, Jane Eyre, and cute guys with British accents -- not to mention Hugh Grant and Hugh Laurie, the two English loves of my life.(Kristy Kibler)

Lots of reviews on the blogosphere: Cover to Cover briefly reviews Wide Sargasso Sea; Books, Time, Silence reviews Wuthering Heights; CineBooks does the same with The Professor in Romanian; The first draft of anything is shit... reviews Agnes Grey, Female Mysoginist has a post about Wuthering Heights (and Jane Eyre) with some bizarre arguments.

Finally, an alert for tomorrow June 4 from the Calderdale Council:

Saturday 4th July
Bronte Moors Charity Challenge Walk
7 mile short walk or 20 mile circular walk from Haworth via Top Withins,Walshaw and Gorple reservoirs and Hardcastle Crags in aid of the Stroke Association.

Entry form and information from Haworth & Worth Valley Rotary Club - Tel. 01535 604339 / 646232.

Categories: Alert, Books, Jane Eyre, References, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights

Extremely hot day. Breakfast with the F.s ― & long talk with D. ― Came away from them at 2. ―

Rail ― 2.25 ― 4.30 ― to town ― & Cab ― 5 to Seymour St. ―

At 7 walked across the park ― to Lady Grey’s. Poor Lady Grey’s memory seems quite gone, at 84, no wonder.

The dinner was not pleasant. Mr. Mrs. & Miss Robertson ― all vulgar toady people. Mr. Ellis, Lady Dover’s son. Afterwards, Mrs. Lane Fox ― & other Grey’s. & Sir James Latakia.

X2

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Two new books with Brontë-related content:

Death in the Classroom
Writing About Love and Loss
by Jeffrey Berman
State University of New York Press, 2009

Shows how death education can be brought from the healing professions to the literature classroom.
In Death in the Classroom, Jeffrey Berman writes about Love and Loss, the course that he designed and taught two years after his wife’s death, in which he explored with his students the literature of bereavement. Berman, building on his previous courses that emphasized self-disclosing writing, shows how his students wrote about their own experiences with love and loss, how their writing affected classmates and teacher alike, and how writing about death can lead to educational and psychological breakthroughs. In an age in which eighty percent of Americans die not in their homes but in institutions, and in which, consequently, the living are separated from the dying, Death in the Classroom reveals how reading, writing, and speaking about death can play a vital role in a student’s education.
“Death in the Classroom deals with an extremely important topic—our attitudes toward death and grieving and the possibility of helping students, through reading, writing, and classroom discussion, to reflect on death and grieving in their own and others’ lives. I like the book’s clarity and the vigor of its argument for death education in the university classroom. This is a book for teachers, especially teachers of literature and life writing who are committed to teaching literature from an ethical and experiential perspective, and it will also appeal to those interested in death education and attitudes toward death and dying, particularly in North America.” — Hilary Clark, editor of Depression and Narrative: Telling the Dark.

Contains the chapter

6. Cathy’s Letter to Her Deceased Mother in Wuthering Heights

A review can be read on metapsychology.

Read on-- women's fiction : reading lists for every taste
Rebecca Vnuk
Santa Barbara, Calif. : Libraries Unlimited/ABC-CLIO, ©2009.

ISBN13: 9781591586425
ISBN10: 1591586429
Libraries Unlimited
Publication Date: 06/30/2009
Series: Author Research Series
Paperback | 200 pages

Created to offer a different perspective on women's fiction, and reach a broader reading audience (including fans), this book offers new reading paths for women's fiction lovers. It categorizes and lists hundreds of popular women's fiction titles, but the scope is more current and more selective, the tone is lighter and more informal, annotations are shorter and livelier. Most importantly, the organization and approach are based on various appeal factors of the genre, rather than the formal genres and subgenres that other guides adhere to. Use these lists to advise readers, to create thematic reading lists for library web sites, flyers, and newsletters; and as checklists or reading plans by those who enjoy women's fiction. Buy two copies-one for the reference and readers' advisory desk, and one to circulate!

Includes references to Jane Eyre as this review in ricklibrarian certifies.

Categories: Books, Scholar

Communion by Baron Arild Rosenkrantz

Painting of the Day Archive

The School Library Journal reviews - as a matter of fact summarises rather than reviews - Brian James's The Heights:

Gr 9 Up–This bleak tale of star-crossed love will have little appeal for teens. Angry, orphaned Henry has been raised as a brother to sweet daydreamer Catherine, though their feelings for each other run much deeper than that of siblings. After her father dies at the beginning of the novel, her domineering brother, Hindley, drives the two apart. Catherine finds solace with Edgar, the preppy son of a wealthy neighbor, while Henry becomes caught up in violence at his new public high school. After another tragedy further widens the gap between Henry and Catherine, she resolves to make a clean break with him, but then yet another tragedy occurs. James is known for his unflinching novels about teens battling issues such as child abuse and depression. In The Heights, he cleverly alternates between Henry’s and Catherine’s points of view of the same incidents to show how their feelings for each other change over the course of the book. However, the angst is over-the-top even for a YA novel, and the attempts at profundity fall flat. Send readers to Wuthering Heights instead.–(Leah J. Sparks, formerly at Bowie Public Library, MD)

The Toronto Star makes a list of the top 5 Sophomore Book Flops and Shirley appears on it:

Jane Eyre has entered the canon as one of the foremost examples of Romantic fiction in the English language; Shirley has not. This 1849 attempt at novelistic political commentary was not reprinted in her lifetime. (Bert Archer)

Well, not exactly, although Shirley was not the big success that Jane Eyre was, a second edition was published in 1852 (dated 1853), in Charlotte Brontë's lifetime. Not the first time that Shirley has this doubtful honour.

Antonia Quark on The New Statesman reviews a BBC Radio 4 programme:

The Grandfather of Self Help, 2 July, 11.30am, Radio 4) told the story of the journalist Samuel Smiles, whose book Self Help was published on the same day as The Origin of Species in 1859, and went on to sell more copies than the Bible that century.

And applies the self-help techniques of the book He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys (Hardcover) by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo to Jane Eyre with hilarious results:

All self-help books are useless, of course. I mean, take, for instance, He’s Just Not That Into You, the American mega-seller that promotes hardline tactics for women in dead-end relationships, and apply its advice to some of the great romances of literature: “Dear HJNTIY, I am in love with my boss. He dressed as a gypsy to fool me into revealing my feelings but still fails to make a move. Please help.”
“Dear Jane, if a guy is happy to hang out with you wearing earrings and a petticoat then he’s definitely not that into you. Wake the fuck up.”

USA Today interviews Jack Murnighan, author of Beowulf on the Beach: What to Love and What to Skip in Literature's 50 Greatest Hits who makes the following (gender-oriented) recommendation:

Q:What would you recommend for people who think classics are too stuffy?
A: If you're a guy, read Beowulf. I call my book Beowulf on the Beach because I did catch myself reading Beowulf in a foldable chair in the Hamptons and really enjoying it. It's really short. It's only 70 pages and has a ton of action. So in some ways, it's a perfect beach read. It has a lot of violence and battle scenes, so typically men are going to like it more, although not exclusively.
Q: What else?
A: Wuthering Heights is a great book for women to go back to and read again. It's compelling, romantic, creepy, gripping and well-written. And if you know it was written by a woman who more or less was never allowed out of her house, you wonder, how did she came up with these crazy characters? How did she come up with all this drama and all this intensity? And you realize, wow, she must have been smoldering inside. (Carol Memmott)

Of course we like it when someone recommends Wuthering Heights but the great-book-for-women thing does get tiring.

Stephanie Harper on the Denver Entertainment Examiner publishes a list of summer reads for the lover of literature, including Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea:

4. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys- This incredible novel, based on the infamous Bertha in Bronte’s Jane Eyre (Rochester’s supposedly crazy first wife), is not only set in the beautiful and tropic 1840’s Jamaica, but the sensuality of Antoinette Cosway, and the world she is a part of, makes this a perfect summer read. The plot brings to light several feminist issues with the inclusion of the signature Rhys woman in Antoinette, but also serves as a lovely and powerful critique of British colonialism, and capitalism in general. It is tragic, but engaging, and sure to be a fast read.

Gamasutra interviews Dan Pinchbeck, writer and producer of the single-player mod for Valve Corporation's Half-Life 2: Dear Esther. The interviewer finds echoes of Wuthering Heights in this adaptation:

Comparisons between such works as Wuthering Heights and The Turn of the Screw are obvious, and not at all unjustified. How do you think Dear Esther can only work as a game, rather than a short story or novella?
Wow. Thanks again. I didn’t really imagine it would ever get much attention at all, to be honest, so the way it’s been picked up and talked about is still a massive surprise to me. (Phill Cameron)

Keighley News reports the recent charity walk at Haworth in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust lead by the actress Jenny Agutter (The Railway Children). The Bennington Banner advises GOP's politicians tactics to reconcile with their voters:

The GOP understands that many of its pillars have worked tirelessly in the grueling arena of state and national politics to attain the high plateaus of accomplishment that they now enjoy. The bestowment of political celebrity upon some men oftentimes can lead to a delusional state wherein they recast themselves as great characters from romantic literature; Heathcliff, if you will, as dressed by Calvin Klein. (Alden Graves)

5-Squared posts about Agnes Grey, Medb's Montage has a brief (and not very positive) review of Jane Eyre. The Graphic Novel and Study Abroad: English Adventure!! posts about an epic trip to Top Withens.

Finally, the Brussels Brontë Blog talks about a recent meeting and the Brontë Sisters has added several additional posts.

Categories: Agnes Grey, Books, Brussels, Comics, Haworth, Jane Eyre, References, Shirley, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights

A coded message sent to President Thomas Jefferson in 1801 as a challenge between friends has finally been cracked by a scientist using educated guesses and a bit of computing power.

The message was sent to Jefferson by Robert Patterson, a mathematics professor in Philadelphia. The two men shared a keen interest in codes and ciphers, and Patterson's message, in a code he had devised, was never deciphered by Jefferson.

Patterson deemed his new code nearly flawless, but a mathematician at Princeton eventually found a way to read what Patterson wrote to his friend. And the message, it turns out, was a passage that Jefferson, along with most history lovers, would have recognized.

Image: Thomas Jefferson/courtesy Library of Congress

Thanks to the Blake Archive blog for hipping us to this new independent film out of the UK. According to the film’s press release, it “uses the context of lap-dancing to show that sin is more than simply an issue of right wrong—good and evil—and is a necessary part of human existence.”

The trailer is available on YouTube:

And here’s some more from the press release:

(Some indication of the filmmakers’ reading of _The Marriage_ can be found in paragraph three).

FLASHGUN FILMS, announce the release of Blake’s Striptease, which represents an artistic interpretation of William Blake’s poem: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793). Arguably Blake’s most influential work, the poem has fascinated academics and theologians alike. Set within contemporary society the film uses the context of lap-dancing to show that sin is more than simply an issue of right wrong—good and evil—and is a necessary part of human existence. The film has been submitted to film festivals internationally for screening in the fall.

Set to music by the pianist Erik Satie, the film features a voice-over by Sue Hansen-Styles (used in the Hitman Trilogy) reading a selection of lines from the poem. In line with the poem, the film depicts mans birth into the world as John Symes, lead actor, lies underwater in his bath preparing for his stag night. As the story unfolds John is met by an angel who warns him about his propinquity to sin. John soon meets with his two friends (the peacock and the goat) in a public house where they become intoxicated. During his journey John is revisited by the angel and warned again – but he ignores this advice and the men end up in a lap dancing club guarded by doormen (who play the lions). Here the men observe a striptease where upon the lustful goat attempts to accost the lap-dancer and is ejected by the doormen. Meanwhile John slips away to the VIP room where two tyger lap-dancers lie in wait and he commits the mortal sin of lust – an act that proves to be his undoing. The film concludes with John undergoing a terrifying physical transformation and a quote summarising Blake’s work.

The film is newsworthy as local authorities across the UK try to veto lap-dancing clubs using new legislation passed by Parliament. Moreover, in Italy Anna Nobili, the former Italian lap-dancer from Milan, recently quit after twenty years in the industry to become a nun. According to The Times newspaper, she now performs a “Holy Dance” and now refers to herself as the “ballerina for God” (see e.g., www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6031754.ece). This contradicts the work of Blake who argues that both “The nakedness of woman is the work of God” and “The lust of the goat is the bounty of God”.

Flashgun Films are an innovative association of indie film-makers and actors that specialise in music videos, commercials and short films. Thier previous entry to Portobello Film Festival—King Lear of the Taxi—was short-listed for “Best Director” and featured a voice-over from poet, actor and NYC Cab Driver Davidson Garrett. Portobello now stands as the biggest film festival in Europe.

More depressed & weary of horror than ever.

Calls on Brandling ― out ―: Gush, ― whose 2 floor I half incline to take ― in my restless misery.

Went to Roberson’s, Foord’s &c. Met Chetwode, ― Ponsonby, & others. Calls on Mrs. Clive ― always out. ― Saw W. Beadon. Returned to Gush’s ― Called on Brandling, who came with me to Seymour St.: ― I gave him some drawings to [try] on wood. ―

Sir John Simeon came ― & bought the Jánnina! ―

― Cab to L. Bridge ― & rail to Maidstone: ― passed close below Park House ―― O! days of 54! ――

Dined at the Mitre & spent the evening with Daniel Fowler & his daughter, at Mrs. Fowler’s ― [Reginald] there. ― D.F. is very little changed in 16 years. ―

Mary Ann F. is pretty & very nice.

Pleasant evening. Gt. thunderstorm & rain, & very little sleep.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Two Brontë (and very different) alerts for today, July 2 and tomorrow July 3:

1. Brontë Society member Isobel Stirk will talk about the Brontës at the meeting of the Goldsborough WI:

Don’t forget our next meeting on July 2 will be at the Cricket Pavilion, when we welcome Isobel Stirk talking on The Bronte Society. Bring along a book for the summer BookSwap.(Knaresborought Post)

2. And fragments of Carlisle Floyd's Wuthering Heights opera will be played next Friday, July 3 (8 pm) at the University of Manitoba, Canada:

Love, war and loss define many operas of yore, but the University of Manitoba, which offers North America’s only contemporary opera program, is premiering an opera written by a grad, sung in Ukrainian, and focusing on Chernobyl’s nuclear fallout. (...)
Young singers and pianists from across Canada will present scenes from Carlisle Floyd’s Wuthering Heights and KurtWeill’s Rise and Fall of Mahagonny, as well as from the two debuting commissioned works by Winnipeg composers. Tickets are available at the door for $10 (adults) and $5 (students).
“Graduates from this program go on to do great things at various opera companies so this concert allows Winnipeggers to get the first glimpse of tomorrow’s headliners. And these shows have so much excitement and use the modern sound palate to really stretch our ears with rich layers and extreme emotions,” says Mel Braun, coordinator of the Contemporary Opera Lab.
For more information contact Mel Braun, associate professor, Marcel A. Desautels Faculty of Music, 204-474-8774 or 204-774-4590.

Categories: Music, Opera, Talks, Wuthering Heights

Day Awakens the Night by Gaetano Previati

Painting of the Day Archive

Two new online Romanticism resources have been published recently, both from the University of Toronto. One, the Jackson Bibliography of Romantic Poetry, is edited by Robin Jackson, University Professor Emeritus in the English Department at the University of Toronto. It aims  to provide descriptions of all the volumes of verse in English that were published from 1770 to 1835. Currently available online is Phase I of the project, which covers the years 1798-1835. Stage II will cover the remaining years, 1770-1797.  In stage I alone, 17,160 entries are accessible through a searchable database that allows queries for keyword, author, title, date, and publisher, among others.

The other resource, edited by Lindsey Eckert, a Ph.D. student in English and the Book History and Print Culture Program, is entitled, Nineteenth-Century British Literary Annuals: An Online Exhibition of Materials from the University of Toronto. The exhibition brings together volumes from the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, the McLean Collection in the Robertson Davies Library at Massey College, and the Special Collections in the E.J. Pratt Library at Victoria University. Thematically organized virtual cases display books from diverse and dispersed collections and libraries. Viewed in sequential order, the cases tell a loose narrative of the development of the genre from 1823-1839.

The Telegraph and Argus talks to Brontë Parsonage Museum director about the recent grant awarded to the museum:

The shrine to the Bronte sisters at Haworth is to be transformed over the next two years.
The interior refurbishment of the Bronte Parsonage Museum, which will aim to show how the family fitted into the broader Haworth community, comes thanks to a £50,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery fund.
To celebrate the windfall, Haworth residents will get free admission to the museum, on Saturday, August 15.
And in line with the aim of keeping local people involved, there will be a programme of community activity.
A major feature of the refurbished historic interior will be a greater focus on Haworth’s history and the social-historical context in which the Brontes lived in the early to mid 19th century.
The family arrived in Haworth from Thornton, Bradford, in 1820.
Museum director Andrew McCarthy said: “We will be renewing the interpretation aspects and giving visitors of all ages information about the house and the family.
“The project will also seek to create a greater focus in the museum on Haworth’s history and the social- historical context in which the Brontes lived.
“As part of this initiative there will be a programme of community activity to involve local people in the project.”
The lottery grant will fund stage one of the project involving the introduction of the new interpretation, object cases and displays.
The museum recently completed a refurbishment to its permanent exhibition space, the first major development at the museum in more than 20 years.
Mr McCarthy said the new exhibition space had proved a big hit with visitors.
Fiona Spiers, head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in Yorkshire and the Humber, said: “This fantastic project will really bring the museum’s collections to life for everyone to explore.
“The Brontes are the heart of Haworth but they were part of a broader community when they lived and wrote here and the museum has an important role in reflecting that and in forging links with the 21st century Haworth community.
“This project will hopefully allow us to work in partnership with that community to reinterpret the Brontes and the Parsonage for the next generation.” (Clive White)

The Yorkshire Post echoes the news as well.

The Brontë Parsonage Blog publishes a a plea for help:

Jon Lindseth writes:
I am compiling a census of two Bruxelles 1849 adaptation editions of Jane Eyre in French language. If any one knows of any copy other than those listed below, please let me know.
1. The first is: Jane Eyre. Bruxelles: Alp. Lebegue, imprimeur-editor. 1849. Translated by “O.N.” (Old-Nick; i.e. P. E. Durand-Forgues.) 2 v in 1. This is an adaptation of pp143;104. It is discussed by Emile Langlois in Brontë Society Transactions Part 81, No.1 of Volume 16, 1971. It is shown in one copy on COPAC, that at Cambridge and in three copies on OCLC, at Cambridge, Princeton and Leiden University.
2. The second is: Jane Eyre. Bruxelles: Meline, Cans et Compagnie. 1849. No translator listed but now known to be the same Durand-Forgues as in book (1) above. 2 v. Pp [iv] + 269; [iv] + 284. In 27 chapters. Not discussed by Langlois or listed in any Brontë bibliography. No copy in COPAC or OCLC. I have a copy which so far is the only one located.
Neither book shows in American Book Prices Current (ABPC online) for recorded auctions since 1978, or on Artfact or Jahrbuch der Auktionspreise.
The Bodleian has not posted their pre-1920 books on COPAC but a check of their catalogue shows they have no Jane Eyre editions, Bruxelles, 1849. The British Library has neither edition. Bibliotheque royale de Belgique and the Belgian Union Catalogue have neither. Bibliotheque nationale de France and the French Union Catalogue locate neither edition. Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the national library of the Netherlands, confirms they have neither edition; their search of the Dutch Union Catalog confirms that only Leiden University holds the Alp. Lebegue adaptation edition and the Meline edition is not found.
My speculation is that other copies will turn up in personal Brontë or Victorian woman writer collections or library shelves of people who have inherited books and don’t know the significance of what they have.
If you know of other copies of either edition, please contact me at jalindseth@aol.com

If anyone can help, please do write to him.

On a very different note, The Boston Globe defines Red Sox owner John Henry's wooing emails to his now-wife as

Shakespearean - in some cases, right out of a Bronte novel, or maybe "Twilight." (Meredith Goldstein)

And highly varied too, we would add, as Shakespeare has nothing to do with the Brontës or Twilight.

A couple of Blogs discuss Jane Eyre: The Book Lady's Blog is not completely convinced by Jane Eyre after reading it, while The Library Files is halfway through the novel and enjoying it. YouTube user matcoop shares a video of Haworth at Christmas.

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum, Brontë Society, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Translations

Our thanks to Avon A for sending us a review copy of this book:

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë
By Syrie James

ISBN: 9780061648373
ISBN10: 006164837X
Imprint: Avon A
On Sale: 6/30/2009
Format: Trade PB

ISBN: 9780061891786 (ebook)
ISBN: 9780061720192 (large print)

If deals and publication dates are to be believed, it looks like The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë is - after the slow recent trickle of Emily's Journal, The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë and, a few weeks ago, The Taste of Sorrow - among the first of the many fictional takes that we are to read on the Brontës and their writing. Fiction on Jane Austen seems to have led onto fiction on the Brontës, and Syrie James has first-hand experience of that, her début novel having been The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen.

What first draws attention to her second novel is its beautiful, original sort of cover, which includes a little drawing by Charlotte Brontë herself. Besides, it also includes resources for what we believe to be the target audience of the book: readers with a remote and superficial interest in nineteenth-century literature in general and members of book clubs with said interests in particular. Thus, the book includes a Q & A with the author, fragments from Charlotte's letters, selected poetry by the Brontë family (including Patrick Brontë's hilarious poem for Arthur Bell Nicholls against the washerwomen of Haworth's practices), the Brontë family bibliography and a guide for book clubs. Add to that Syrie James's extensive research, which shows all throughout the book - sometimes, perhaps, a little too much if we may say so - and you have a very complete book indeed.

Syrie James, in her foreword, asks the reader to:

Dear Reader,

Imagine, if you will, that a great discovery has been made, which has sparked enormous excitement in the literary world: a series of journals, which have lain buried and forgotten for more than a century in the cellar of a remote farmhouse in the British Isles, have been officially authenticated as the private diaries of Charlotte Brontë. [...]
The story you are about to read is true.

(Incidentally, though, we are never told how the diaries got to that 'remote farmhouse' in the first place). Also, Syrie James states in the Q& A that,

The novel is based almost entirely on fact. All the details of Charlotte's family life, her experiences at school, her friendship with Ellen, her feelings for Monsieur Heger, the evolution of her writing career, and her relationship with her publisher, George Smith, are all true and based on information from her letters and biographies. [...]
I was obliged to conjecture some of the events during the earlier years of Charlotte and Mr. Nicholls's acquaintance, to flesh out their love story--but based on what we do know, I feel that this telling is very close to the truth.

As Syrie James must have known too, Karen Joy Fowler began her novel The Jane Austen Book Club stating that, 'each of us has a private Austen', to which we add that each of us has private Brontës as well. This results in reading facts and personalities differently. To us, for instance, Emily Brontë was a highly private person, both in her personal and public life. To Syrie James, Emily - at least at the beginning of the book - is quite the gossipy, open girl who chats with a made-up acquaintance from Haworth and laughs quite a lot⁽¹⁾.

Fictional accounts get the two sides of the coin. On the positive side, we get the 'fleshed out' version, which paradoxically helps - through at least partially made-up events - to draw out a more real, three-dimensional person. Syrie James excels at her depiction of life at Roe Head School, for instance. She visited the place while researching this novel and she not only got - we suppose - the locations right but she also seems to have taken with her the whole atmosphere of the place. The boarding school life, the misfit that Charlotte must have been when she first got there and the actual train of events are all clearly, magically evoked. On the negative said, and connected to what we were saying before, the differing image the author and the reader might have if the reader is well-acquainted with the characters might clash sometimes. This reader found too much sugar in Branwell's death scene or in Charlotte and Arthur Bell Nicholls's married bliss.

Fiction also allows the author to be selective when it comes to the facts that his/her novel is being based on, which might be seen by the knowledgeable reader as quite a tricky, deceitful resource but might work to advantage on a more casual reader. Unreliable narrator though she must be, Charlotte states that she has never felt anything but friendship for her young editor George Smith when actually her infatuation with him is quite firmly supported by letters and accounts and is certainly more proved than Anne's love for her father's charming curate William Weightman and which Syrie James takes at face value. Charlotte's statement makes it easier for Syrie James to create Charlotte and Arthur's love story without having to deal with that. Later on, the couple's married bliss is - with one made-up exception - depicted as whole and uninterrupted. Ellen Nussey's jealousy and troubled relationship with her friend's husband is only touched upon prior to the wedding. Afterwards all three seem to live 'happily ever after'. Neither is it mentioned Arthur's position as censor of Charlotte's letters to Ellen Nussey and - fiction or not - we find the following conversation to be wholly out of character with him:

'Haven't you been writing something anyway, in the months since we've been married? A diary, I think it is?'
[...] 'Yes, I have. I did not think you knew. Do you object?'
'Why would I object? Charlotte: you are a writer. I knew that long before I asked you to marry me. It's what you love, and a part of who you are. I'll love you whether you write or not. If you've had your fill of it, then stop. If you enjoy keeping a diary, then keep it. . .'

The man who said that Charlotte's letters to Ellen Nussey were 'dangerous as lucifer matches' would have indeed objected to Charlotte keeping a diary. And we actually have a soft spot for Arthur, but - while we are at it - we find his fictional counterpart to be quite the Hollywood gentleman as opposed to the strict - loving yes, but strict - man of his time that he was⁽²⁾.

Charlotte begins keeping this, then, not-so-secret diary shortly after receiving Arthur's proposal of marriage. She then tells the story of her life, which is inseparable from her family's, through flashbacks inserted in-between the chain of events that led to said proposal - and beyond - ever since Arthur Bell Nicholls arrived in Haworth in 1845. This non-linear structure works surprisingly well, as Syrie James aptly places each flashback at the precise relevant moment. It's not at all confusing or chaotic and it does keep the knowledgeable reader alert and glued to the story which he/she obviously knows all too well. That, too, would be one of the great things of fictional accounts: much as we may love the story, much as accounts may overlap in certain points, each one is radically different from the rest. We wonder, though, whether Syrie James kept Jane Austen present - and the sisters discuss her works too - on purpose, as Charlotte and Arthur's love story is highly reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice.

The style in which the novel is written imitates Charlotte Brontë's style of writing, which works irregularly. Syrie James has included direct and extensive quotes and occurrences from all sorts of sources (novels, letters, prefaces, etc.). This effort to keep Charlotte Brontë and her family and friends speaking for themselves is truly praiseworthy, even though sometimes the insertion is quite obvious as it clashes somewhat with the rest (sometimes it is also subtle enough). Charlotte's addresses to the 'diary' as substitute of her famous 'reader' sound a bit forced, though. But our main problem with the style actually comes with the editing, which is contradictory. A British spelling has been adopted ('favour', 'endeavour') and typically British words such as 'daft' are used throughout. However, Americanisms also filter in which give the whole book an uncertain, undefined status in that sense: Patrick Brontë 'hires' a curate - the word 'hire' in this context is extensively used in a way a British person would not use -, people walk 'out the door' (a Britton would say 'out of the door') and, despite the British spelling, Mr and Mrs are abbreviated as 'Mr.' and 'Mrs.', which is the American way. Also, 'loan it to you' and 'loan me a copy' are considered ungrammatical in the UK and would not have been used by Charlotte Brontë or Arthur Bell Nicholls. The surname Heger is consistently spelled 'Héger' which , although used in some sources, is not correct⁽³⁾. And the few sentences in French are precarious at best⁽⁴⁾.

As a whole, The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë by Syrie James is completely readable and extremely respectful to its subjects. It reads as a modern-day Devotion, where everything is sweeter and more charming than it supposedly was, but it serves to tell the Brontë story to readers who might not otherwise have thought it initially interesting or intriguing. They will be glued to its pages from start to finish and, no doubt, will want to read more by and about the Brontës. And for that, especially, we thank Syrie James.

Notes:

(1) Charlotte Brontë to William Smith Williams, 22 November 1848:

Ellis "the man of uncommon talents but dogged, brutal and morose", sat leaning back in his easy chair drawing his impeded breath as he best could, and looking, alas! piteously pale and wasted--it is not his wont to laugh--but he smiled half-amused and half in corn as he listened. (Our bold)

(2) Another anachronistic reappraisal seems to be that of Tabby when she is said to feed 'our eager attention with tales of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and ballads--or, as I later discovered, from the pages of her favourite novels, such as Pamela'. We are grateful for the effort to have Tabby be more than just a servant, but in all probability and fairness Tabby couldn't read, didn't have a 'favourite novel' and had never even heard of Pamela.

(3) Speaking of Heger, he is unwittingly helping The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë to be marketed.

For years, Charlotte harbored a secret love for her Belgian professor, Monsieur Hegér [sic]—a married man. Monsieur Hegér is the basis for all the heroes in Charlotte’s books, including Mr. Rochester in her most famous novel, Jane Eyre.

This marketing is a bit misleading as inside the book itself, Charlotte admits that Rochester owes a lot to the Duke of Zamorna as well (we would hazard that he owes more to Zamorna than to Heger, but that is just us). We might as well say here, that one conversation taken from Jane Eyre and made to take place between Heger and Charlotte didn't work for us.

(4) M. Heger saying 'ainsi je vois' for 'so I see' is simply wrong, to quote just one example.

Categories: Books, Charlotte Brontë, Fiction, Review

White's Books have generously offered to give away a copy of its new and luxurious edition of Wuthering Heights.

To enter the competition, you only have to answer the following question:

With what other novel was first published Wuthering Heights?

The answer must be sent to our e-mail address: bronteblog (AT) gmail (DOT) com (read that aloud if that doesn't look like an e-mail address to you). Answers will be accepted until July 12 (12 am CET). Winners will be notified by e-mail on the ensuing days. We will accept ONE ANSWER ONLY per participant.

Good luck!

Edit: NOTE: answers in comments will be automatically deleted and won't be entered into the competition. Answers should be sent by email as explained above.


Categories: Contest

Certainly a fearful day. The noise maddens me. One blessing ― a letter from Γεώργις ― best of fellows. ―― Slept, very unwell, & depressed dreadfully. Dickenson came ― but I do not know what orders to give him.
And the Rev. A. Isaacs ― who looked at drawings till 4½. ― Then I went to H. Hunt’s ― where was one Monck ― very mad. ―

Dined there. Gave up the Hogarth Club.

Walked home; most wretched.

XX1

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

The Estonian production of Wuthering Heights (adapted by John Davison in 1972 and translated to Estonian by Kersti Unt) which was premiered last year in Tartu:

Vihurimäe (Wuthering Heights)
Vanemuine Theatre
Park of the Alatskivi Castle

July 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17 and 18
20.00 hrs

One of the unique masterpieces among the 19th century English literary classics – Wuthering Heights – will be staged in Estonia for the first time. This is a passionate and fateful love story between the demonic Heathcliff and beautiful Catherine Earnshaw which influences the destiny of two squire families over many generations.

Director: Roman Baskin
Stage Designer: Ann Lumiste
Light Designer: Martin Meelandi
In roles: Helena Merzin-Tamm, Marko Matvere, Riho Kütsar, Ott Sepp, Külliki Saldre, Helen Rekkor, Margus Jaanovits, Raivo Adlas

Categories: Theatre, Wuthering Heights

Household Duties by Henry Ryland

Painting of the Day Archive

Skyscanner talks about books where exotic, and sometimes not so exotic locations, are key to the mood of the novel:

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë, Northern England

The Yorkshire Moors are the setting for this classic novel. If you like pathetic fallacy, and quite frankly, who doesn’t, then this is the book for you. The anti-hero, Heathcliff, rants and raves whilst storms abound, as he lives a life tormented by his thwarted love for Catherine Linton.
The novel explores the destructive forces which their unresolved passion unleashes on them and others caught up in the drama. Part romance, mostly gothic fiction, the setting matches perfectly the isolation of many characters and the harshness of the landscape is an ideal backdrop for Heathcliff’s elemental nature to show its true colours.

Brief news: a graduate student remembering that her "class had great discussions about Wuthering Heights" in Livingston Daily, the Guardian (Nigeria) uses a bizarre Wuthering Heights metaphor:

If Yenagoa looked secure and tempting like a young girl in the summer of pubescence, the wuthering heights of life in the Delta is in the uncertainty of hope. So much potential hobbled by the failure of Nigerian politics. (Reuben Abati)

Cate Masters interviews author and Brontëite, Sandy Lender:

Who are some of your favorite authors and books? What are you reading now?
Sandy Lender: I love Charlotte Bronte (and her sisters). My favorite book of all time is JANE EYRE, and if you look closely, you’ll see influences in CHOICES MEANT FOR GODS. Right now I’m reading a book called CHARLOTTE IN LOVE by Brian Wilks. It’s driving me mad because, bless his heart, Mr. Wilks keeps saying the same things over and over and over…and they’re mostly things that Bronte scholars already know. So I keep putting the book down to read other books. That sounds very harsh of me. I should also say that he has done his research well. The things that he repeats are accurate and well-placed to make his arguments in the text.

Only Sometimes Clever, Community of Readers Book Reviews, The Read Queen and June Women have read (or reread) Jane Eyre, The weird world of Dani posts about Jane Eyre 2006 (in Dutch), 5 Minutes for Books reviews Jillian Dare, Savidge Reads posts a review of Justine Picardie's Daphne and Dalal Al Shareif posts an article by Sundus E. Al. Nabhani: Essential Differences Among Brontë Sisters’ Works.

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights

Good news from the Parsonage:

BRONTË PARSONAGE MUSEUM RECEIVES £50,000 FROM HERITAGE LOTTERY FUND TO SUPPORT NEW DEVELOPMENT

The Brontë Parsonage Museum has been awarded a grant of £50,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund to support a programme of exciting new developments.

The museum has ambitious plans to completely refurbish the historic interiors of the Parsonage over the next two years. This will involve researching and introducing a new decorative scheme to the Parsonage rooms, the renewal of interpretation giving visitors of all ages information about the house and the family, and installing new object cases and displays. The project will also seek to create a greater focus in the museum on Haworth’s history and the social-historical context in which the Brontës lived. As part of this initiative there will be a programme of community activity to involve local people in the project. The Heritage Lottery Fund grant will fund stage 1 of the project which will involve the introduction of new interpretation, object cases and displays and the community programme of events which will begin with a local residents’ free admission day on 15 August.

The museum, which was home to the famous Brontë family for over forty years, and is where Charlotte, Emily and Anne’s great novels were written, recently completed a major refurbishment to its permanent exhibition space located in an extension to the original Brontë house. The refurbishment was the first major development at the museum in over twenty years and the new exhibition space, Genius: The Brontë Story, which includes the treasures of the museum’s collection as well as fun interactive displays for children, has proved a big hit with visitors. This latest project will see further improvements to the museum.

Fiona Spiers, Head of HLF, Yorkshire and the Humber Region, said:

This fantastic project will really bring the museum’s collections to life for everyone to explore. HLF is dedicated to supporting projects that open up our heritage for locals and visitors to learn about and enjoy.

We are delighted that the Heritage Lottery Fund is supporting us with this work. The Brontës are the heart of Haworth but they were part of a broader community when they lived and wrote here and the museum has an important role in reflecting that and in forging links with the twenty-first century Haworth community. This project will hopefully allow us to work in partnership with that community to reinterpret the Brontës and the Parsonage for the next generation.

Andrew McCarthy, Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum

Also on the Brontë Parsonage Blog and Yorkshire Post.

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum

On June 30, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed a piece of legislation that may have seemed trifling, especially against the backdrop of the Civil War. But by signing the Yosemite Valley Grant Act, Lincoln protected the magnificent wilderness that is Yosemite National Park.

The 1864 law is considered the first legislation designed to protect a wilderness area in the United States and it eventually led to the creation of the National Parks. The example was also followed by other countries, and resulted in wilderness preserves around the world.

Having spent most of last week in Yosemite, I'm deeply appreciative of Lincoln taking the time, 145 years ago today, to sign the legislation that helped begin the conservation movement.

Photograph: Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner, November 1863/courtesy Library of Congress

Slept better: yet would not rise before 8. No letters. ―

Noise of front room distracting. ― Despair.

Wrote several letters. ―  Thurston Thompson the photographer came: ― afterwards C. Wynne. ―

Could not apply to work: London kills all my energy, & confuses me wholly. ―

At 3 went to Zoological Gardens. ― (Thompson, whom I heard was dead, is yet living.) ― At 6 called at the older Gibbs’s, & waited ― but only saw him as I was going away at 6½. ―

At 7½ I walked across the Park ― & at 8 was at T. Baring’s.

There were Mrs. B. ― looking unwell ― alas! how silly! ― & Maltby ― (afterwards I found him to be a friend of Tom Lushington, & he had been lately at P.H. ―) ― Sir G. Grey ― one of the most agreeable of men ever. ― Lord John Hay. ― & Layard.

A very pleasant dinner in all ways. ―

After all went ― Baring & I smoked & sate till late: ― he is thoroughly kind & good: & always ― it seems to me, improving & improved.

Walked home: ― nearly 1. ―

X18

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

The Miracle of the Sacred Fire, Church of the Holy Sepulchre by William Holman Hunt

Painting of the Day Archive

Before we move on to our daily newsround, we would like to publish a brief reminder that Charlotte Brontë - looking like a 'snowdrop' - married Arthur Bell Nicholls on a day like today in 1854, that is 155 years ago.

The Times reviews Flirting With Finance: The Modern Woman’s Guide To Financial Freedom, 'written by Anneli Knight, a freelance journalist, and Virginia Graham, a qualified financial planner and former model'. The reviewer spots one big mistake:

But these analogies gradually become stretched and overly literal, with biotech shares being compared to the guy who “wears a lab coat and protective eyewear during business hours”, telecoms shares to men who are “always on the phone, the internet” and the enterprise collapses entirely when the authors compare art and other collectable investments to “ahh, the dreamy, mysterious artist. The dark horse. Jane Eyre’s Heathcliff.” There’s a book called Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Brontë. There’s also a book called Wuthering Heights written by Emily Brontë. The latter, when I last read it, featured a character called Heathcliff. But, if memory serves, Jane Eyre and Heathcliff have never featured in the same major literary work. [...]
But the Heathcliff/Jane Eyre clanger is a symptom of a bigger intellectual problem with Flirting with Finance: ultimately, romance and investment are completely dissimilar. And to compare them (to make another comparison) is like drawing an analogy between Michael Jackson’s discography and the output of a Midlands sponge factory. (Sathnam Sanghera)

Fortunately, other people are capable of remembering who's in which book. The Mormon Times carries an article on Sister Ann M. Dibb:

One of her favorite examples of virtue is the character Jane Eyre, when she refuses to marry Mr. Rochester after she finds out his first wife is still alive. "It is because she is a virtuous woman" that she stays true to the laws of God, Sister Dibb said. (Christine Rappleye)

And it is one of our favourite examples of Jane Eyre's versatility and how it will be considered religious, not religious, Christian, unChristian, etc.

The Herald-Mail talks to Katie Wennick, a teenager who has 'won a $30,000 scholarship from romance writer Nora Roberts’ foundation'.

As a reader, Wennick said she likes many types of books, including classics such as “Jane Eyre” and “Oliver Twist.” (Andrew Schotz)

We wonder if due to that Nora Roberts will treat her to a night at her inn's Jane Eyre room.

On the blogosphere Tales of a Liberty Belle and Linda Loves Books! both write about Jane Eyre. Dovegreyreader interviews Lilian Pizzichini, Jean Rhys's biographer.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Weirdo, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights

The American abolitionist Frederick Douglass rose to national prominence after publishing his autobiography in 1845, but perhaps his greatest single short piece of writing was a speech he delivered on July 5, 1852.

Douglass, who was living in Rochester, New York at the time, participated in a local program commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He delivered an address titled "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?," a sharp commentary on the promise of freedom in America and how it was being withheld from African Americans.

Historian David Blight, an expert on slave narratives and Douglass, has called the July 5, 1852 speech "abolition's rhetorical masterpiece."

Incidentally, the date of the speech was purposeful. Douglass insisted on not speaking on July 4.

Image: Frederick Douglass, courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Collections

Alas! Alas! ―

Yet I rose at 8. Wretched days indeed! ― Letter from good Mrs. Howard. ― Absolutely arranged to work ―.

At 11 dear Ann came ― poor dear: she is never well in hot weather. She staid to lunch: & I read, Sarah’s, Mary’s, & F. last letters.

T. Baring came: always good & friendly. I completed the 2 Husey Hunt pictures: ― & at 3 went out. Calls on Mrs. Godley, Miss Dennett ― Mrs. Wynne, M. Milnes, Mr. Woodhouse, ― Mrs. Percy ― Lord Clermont, Col. Clowes. S.W.C. & Gambier Parry: & saw Hibberts & (Trotman.) Mrs. H. ――
Omnibus to Mr. Bell’s ― by 5. ― We dined, he, J. Salton & I ― at 6½. Pleasant evening. Home in buss by 11.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Lots of Charlotte Brontë-related thingies on the etsy shops:

Hand Stenciled Shirts:
KMStitchery:

This is not silk screened. I hand cut this stencil with an xacto knife.
This is apart of a feminism series of stencils I'm doing on influential women. I want to make this clothing to empower women. So, Represent! With these powerful ladies!
This is a RECYCLED shirt. Brand New Condition. Overstock purchased from thrift store. 55% Cotton 45% Modal. Short sleeves with folded style. Deep scoop neck on the front and small scoop in the back, thin material.

Miniature book for dollhouse:
marottesud:

Cute book « Jane Eyre » by Charlotte Brontë – Illustrations by Edmond Dulac
1,20cm x 1,70cm
The book contains 26 printed pages with 12 coloured illustrations.
This book is handmade.
It is a tiny book for dollhouse, roomboxe or collector. Not suitable for children.
I don't sell the lectern. You only buy the book.

Cards and drawings with Charlotte Brontë quotes:
yardia:

“Look twice before you leap.” –Charlotte Brontë
This is an original drawing of a Victorian handkerchief, accompanied by a hand-lettered quotation from Charlotte Brontë's novel, "Shirley". This illustration is hand drawn by me in violet-brown ink on watercolor paper.

"Try to keep looking upward."
--Charlotte Bronte, from an 1849 letter
This is a Gocco printed card taken from one of my original drawings of nineteenth-century dresses. The drawing is inspired by a silk taffeta ballgown from 1870. (or in a moleskine-like journal)

and... erm... Charlotte Brontë as an amulet:
SimpletoEnchant:

Charlotte Bronte evil eye charm ring
In addition to protecting you from all the routine evil eye problems, this Charlotte Bronte charm will protect you from evil against your book, short story, poem, article or English test. Charms is half an inch on diameter, on an adjustable ring.

Categories: Weirdo

Dr Johnson at the Mitre by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Painting of the Day Archive

The State Library of New South Wales, Australia, has just paid $200,000 (about $160,00 US) at a London auction for the journal of Pringle Stokes, a captain of the Royal Navy who committed suicide in 1828.

The unfortunate Capt. Stokes died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds off the coast of Patagonia while commanding HMS Beagle, which was exploring the South American coast. The loss of the captain, which was attributed to melancholy of the long voyage, enabled Lt. Robert FitzRoy to take command of the ship.

FitzRoy would later invite a young naturalist, Charles Darwin, to sail aboard the Beagle on its next voyage.

The ostensible reason Darwin was invited along was so that he could hold intelligent conversations with the captain, thereby lessening the sense of isolation. Darwin did wind up becoming friends with FitzRoy, and of course his research during the voyage formed a foundation for his later work.

The journal of Capt. Stokes will be displayed at the library's Darwin Down Under exhibition.

The Boston Globe talks about modern-day high-school summer readings. It seems that the Brontës are not fashionable anymore:

Not so long ago, high schoolers had to lug heavy beach bags brimming with tomes by Bronte, Steinbeck, and Tolstoy. These days, they’re more likely to carry sprightly fare by contemporary authors like Dan Brown, Mitch Albom, and Bill Bryson.
With apologies to Kafka, the summer reading list is undergoing a metamorphosis.
While area schools constantly tweak their lists and debate what deserves a spot, a consensus is growing that students should be enticed to read, even if that leads them to books that haven’t yet stood the test of time.
So instead of reading about Heathcliff’s romantic misfortune at Wuthering Heights circa 1800, students can laugh over Bryson’s present-day attempt to conquer the Appalachian Trail, while riffing on his hiking buddy’s more annoying habits. (Lisa Kocian)

A Brontë reference in the Washington Times review of Richard Flanagan's Wanting:

Given her faith in continuous improvement, it is perhaps not surprising that she hit on the idea of adopting an aboriginal child and educating it like an English child to prove that aborigines can be brought into the modern world. She chooses Mathinna, who charms almost everyone with her spritely spontaneity. But while spriteliness appeals, it is not what is required, so Lady Jane subjects Mathinna to the kind of Victorian education shown in Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre." (Claire Hopley)

Bloomberg interviews writer (and Brontëite) Alice Hoffman:

Zinta Lundborg: What’s your reaction to being described as a “magical” writer?
Hoffman: I like to write about real people in mythic ways because I see them that way. The tradition of literature is magic, whether it’s fairy tales or Kafka, Shakespeare or the Brontes, and the whole idea of realism is a new and not-so- interesting idea.

Los Angeles Times reviews Jean Rhys's biography The Blue Hour by Lilian Pizzichini:

Rhys was thought to be dead, but she was living, precariously, the town drunk in constant squabbles with her neighbors and with her third husband, Max. The news that she was alive reached the ears of a sympathetic publisher who in 1958 signed her to finish the novel she was working on. When her masterpiece, "Wide Sargasso Sea," was published in 1966, and her four previous novels returned to print, she was hailed as the great lost writer of prewar England -- indeed, one of the finest and most original writers of the century. (...)
Pizzichini seems bored by Rhys' post-"Wide Sargasso Sea" life as an irascible demi-celebrity (nightclub impresario George Melly compared her to a septuagenarian Johnny Rotten in a pink wig). But her book -- more a "portrait" of Rhys than a full-blown biography -- largely achieves its aim: to "present the fact of Rhys's life in such a way that the reader is left with an impression of what it was like to have lived such a life." (Eric Banks)

The Sunday Observer (Sri Lanka) talks with the actress Anarkali Akarsha who mentions her role as Jane Eyre in the local TV production Kula Kumariya (2007):

The actress with a charming personality chose ‘Iti Pahan’ by Somaratna Dissanayaka, ‘Arunoda Kalapaya’ by Senesh Bandara Dissanayake and Bermin Fernando’s ‘Kulakumari’ (playing her favourite Jane Eyre) as tele-dramas which made an impact among her fans. (Jatila Karawita)

Stacy's Bookblog posts about Jane Eyre 2006, The World According to Sam and Searching My Soul (in Greek) talk about Charlotte Brontë's novel.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wide Sargasso Sea

Last night I discovered a "Waterhouse" painting on ebay. The description elaborates that it was probably painted by someone contemporary to Waterhouse, from his circle, but apparently the painting has been written on the back "study by Waterhouse." I don't think this piece is by him...the style just isn't right, even for a sketch...but it IS a lovely rendition of the Lady of Shalott from an artist of the same period. The look on her face as she turns and sees the mirror crack is beautiful.

Auction ends in just a couple of hours! :)

Were there ever more truly dreadful days than these? Except that there is perhaps a pale light, an experience of the past, which deters & postpones despair. Yet at times, how well pleased could I be to have the “judgement” now ―― fearing I may meet it less well if later. ―

Dull, thick, gray day. ― Letters from T.G. Baring, & Ann. ― Called at Crakes ― & went to 2 or 3 houses ― for lodgings. Then to [C. de H.s], for some time. To other houses ― all useless. Gambier  Parry’s: ― cum multis aliis.¹ ― A. Seymour, B. Redclyffe. ( At 8½ H. Farquhar called ― asking me to dine.) ― Next to the “Hogarth’s”: ― & then in a cart, to 3 Red Lion Square. R. Martineau out. Rain. Bus to Mr. Bell’s. ― He, & James Dalton: lunch: pleasant. ― Bus to B. Martineau ―― not as pleasant. Walked thence, enquiring at many houses, ― but finding none to visit, ― more & more rain, & so & so to [U.I.M.] whence I went to Luards’, & Hallidays: & other places ― all in pouring rain.

An hour of disgust at home, when I concluded it would be better to give up all idea of other houses ― & simply to work a very little here, & then go into the country: ― where? ― At 7¾ to Henry Farquhar’s ―:― Large, & very good & wealthy dinner. Hon. Mrs. Woodhouse (who told me of her son’s being here:) ― Mrs. Hanbury ― formerly Webb ―― &c. &c.

[Always rather a bore, not much.]

Lady Farquhar then.

But what [mean] stuff is this to be called life!!!

XX17

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

1. ”With many others.”

1. In Germany:

Annelies Štrba's exhibition My Life Dreams (more information on previous posts) can now be visited at the Burg Wissem Museum in Troisdorf, Germany:

26.06.2009 – 06.09.2009
Museum Burg Wissem
My Life Dreams:
Annelies Štrba

Die englischen Schwestern Anne, Emily und Charlotte Brontë gehören zu den bedeutendsten Schriftstellerinnen des 19. Jahrhunderts.
Sie wuchsen in einem Pfarrhaus im Heidemoor von Yorkshire auf und schufen schon als Kinder fantasievolle Geschichten, Gedichte und Zeichnungen. Eine Auswahl ihrer kleinformatigen Bücher und Zeichnungen aus der Sammlung des Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth gewähren einen intimen Einblick in die von ihnen erfundenen fiktiven Welten.
Die Schweizer Künstlerin Annelies Štrba hat sich von Leben und Werk der Schwestern und insbesondere von Emily Brontës berühmten Roman »Wuthering Heighs« inspirieren lassen. Mit ihren romantisch anmutenden Arbeiten beschwörtsie eine magische, märchenhafte Welt, die von ätherischen Frauen- und Mädchenfiguren in traumartigen Landschaften bevölkert wird. Ihre Arbeiten faszinieren durch einen sehr eigenwilligen und assoziativen Blick auf das Werk der Brontës. (Cut and paste to Google translation)

2. In Italy:
The second installment of the collection I Romanzi di Sempre with Il Giornale is Wuthering Heights:

Cime Tempestose di Emily Brontë

Introduzione di Mario Lunetta.
Traduzione di Mariagrazia Oddera Bianchi.

È questa un'opera del tutto isolata nella tradizione narrativa inglese. In essa l'aspro realismo del quotidiano vive di misteriose e inquietanti tensioni onirico-simboliche e di cupe fiammate emotive, all'interno di una struttura narrativa di grande saldezza ed efficacia. Vi domina la figura di Heathcliff il quale, animato da una passione distruttiva, svolge nel libro la funzione "fatale" del vendicatore spietato, vero "replicante" di tante devastanti figure del gothic novel britannico; ma il suo tirannico porsi come l'inflessibile dark hero nasce da una disperata infelicità di fondo e lo porta infine a vivificare la propria morte con quella della donna amata, in una sorta di aspirazione erotico-panteistica che conferisce alla sua figura dimensioni assolutamente inedite.

In edicola il 25/06/2009
Al costo di 6,80 € (Cut and paste to Google translation)

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Books, Translations, Wuthering Heights

Finally, after months and months of no information, I gleaned a link tonight on Desperate Romantics with 3 images from the miniseries!

The info on the page:

A preview screening of the first episode of this major new BBC drama series. Set in and among the alleys, galleries and flesh-houses of 19th-century industrial London, Desperate Romantics follows the life and love affairs of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of revolutionary artists as well-known for their intertwining love lives as for their ground-breaking paintings. The scandalous love triangles with their models became the subject of much gossip among their contemporaries, particularly as these relationships often crossed the class barriers of polite Victorian society.

We hope to welcome for an onstage discussion and Q&A the writer Peter Bowker, producer Ben Evans, co-executive producer Franny Moyle, whose book of the same name inspired the series, and (work commitments permitting) some members of the cast.

I have to admit, the images are...hmm...rather...generic-looking to me? I've maintained the attitude that any publicity is good publicity, even for over 100-year-dead artists, but...I just don't know what I think. It's still early to tell.

Nerissa by John William Godward

Painting of the Day Archive

The Independent gives more details about the anonymous buyer of the photograph of Patrick Brontë recently auctioned and who will donate it to the Parsonage:

A portrait of Patrick Brontë, whose daughters Emily, Charlotte and Anne wrote some of the most celebrated novels in the English literary canon, is to be returned to its rightful place in the family's former home after going missing for more than a century.
Four weeks ago, The Independent reported that the rare picture, which had not been seen since being sold by the Museum of Brontë Relics in 1898, was discovered in a cardboard box at a Midlands antique fair, in its original gilt frame.
On Wednesday, it was sold by an auction house in Surrey for £1,476 – more than double its estimated value. The buyer, who called in her bids by phone and saw off competition from a London antique dealer, is from the south of England, and she had read about the portrait in The Independent.
She has decided to donate it to the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, west Yorkshire, after reading that its directors could not afford to bid themselves. The woman, an office worker in her early 60s, wished to remain anonymous, but in an email to this newspaper she explained her motivations for buying the portrait.
"My husband saw the article in The Independent initially and, knowing my interest in the Brontës, drew it to my attention," she wrote. "Having read the article, which I found very interesting, the photograph seemed to say 'buy me', and I just thought it would be nice to own a piece of Brontë memorabilia – if I could afford it.
"I am a Brontë fan, particularly of Charlotte, but I'm not manic about it. I then checked [the auction house] website and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed wrong for the photograph to be in private hands, it should be back at the Parsonage where it belonged, so I decided that if I were successful, I would donate it to the museum.
"I must say that I was pushed to my financial limit to get the photograph, but the surprise and delight of the lady to whom I spoke at the museum was well worth it."
The woman added that she hoped to return the portrait to the museum in a few weeks. Andrew McCarthy, the museum's director, said he was "absolutely delighted" to hear it would soon be hanging in its rightful place in the Parsonage.
"We do get a lot of support from people in a lot of different ways, but usually it's from members of the Brontë Society who we know care about the family's heritage," he said. "When this kind of thing happens it's particularly gratifying, because it's an act of kindness from someone who just read about this picture and realised they could do something to help us, and she's really made a big difference."
Elizabeth Gaskell, in her 1857 biography of Charlotte Brontë, described the Rev Brontë as a "strange" and"half-mad" man who was "not naturally fond of children". In the portrait he is gazing into the distance with haughty austerity. (Chris Green)

The author Sarah Zettel is a bit confused mentioning Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall on BSCReview:

In Shaman Drum I found an Anne Bronte novel, a genuine early feminist work that her more famous sister Charlotte had tried to stop from being published.

It is true that Charlotte Brontë stated that she didn't much like Anne's second work, but it's untrue that she tried to stop it from being published. What she actually did is not give it to her own editors, Smith, Elder & Co. for republication after Emily and Anne were dead, in 1850, partly because Thomas Newby still owned the copyright to it. Instead she gave them Agnes Grey to publish in a single volume with Wuthering Heights, neither of whose copyrights - it was decided - belonged to Newby.

We are not very sure that the following advice for getting an A in exams will work, but The Daily Star seems think otherwise:

Give them entertainment. Interpret the assignments they give you in the strangest ways possible. Brighten their lives with analyses of Jane Eyre's prediction of the nuclear arms race; expand their realms of thinking by debating with them the literary manifestations of Shakespeare's desire to exterminate the human race and repopulate the Earth with small rabbits.
Ladies and gentlemen, these kind teachers put up with mindless, poorly worded droning of identical themes for years _ the least you can do is provide them the enjoyment of having a genuine lunatic in one of their classes. (Jessie Matus)

Lijia Zhang's Socialism is Great! is recommend by the New York Times Paperback Row:

This coming-of-age memoir, written in fluent English (Zhang taught herself by reading “Jane Eyre” during political study sessions), traces a life of resistance and personal struggle. (Elsa Dixler)

ReadJunk interviews Bruce Campbell. The actor talks about his character in Burn Notice, Sam Axe:

What is something people don’t know about Sam Axe?
[Sam] reads a lot. He reads fiction, because it takes away from the reality; and that his favorite book is Wuthering Heights. That Sam is a secret romantic. That’s all I can reveal. I’ll have to kill you if I tell you more. (Adam Coozer)

We have a new category: a virtual Brontëite.

Some time ago we reported the appearance of a book (The Little Book of Twitter by Tim Collins) including Twitter summaries of classical novels. Not the only project around about basically the same, the Telegraph reports another upcoming book: Twitterature by Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman. Wuthering Heights comes to this:

Wild-eyed, bushy-haired fellow on moors causes havoc with local females. If you haven't time to read it, listen to song of same name.

Il Sussidiario (Italy) talks about Stephenie Meyer's New Moon and guess who is referenced:

Un unione tra i due che ha quasi del soprannaturale (non a caso in Eclipse sarà citato Cime tempestose di Emily Brönte, in cui i protagonisti Heathcliff e Catherine sembrano indissolubili, nella vita come dopo la morte). Un “oltre” le loro stesse volontà cui debbono piegarsi. E che non li tradisce mai. Troppo metafisico per quello che in fondo è il racconto del primo vero amore di due ragazzi? (Eva Anelli) (Google translation)

Televizier.nl and TV-Visie publish information about the airing of Jane Eyre 2006 on Nederland 2.

Ionarts reviews Kate Royal's Midsummer Night CD. Onirik reviews the Sparkhouse DVD (in French). A Secret Garden posts about Wuthering Heights, Unmana on Indian Blog World has mixed feelings with Jane Eyre and BlackSheepBooks reviews enthusiastically Agnes Grey.

Categories: Agnes Grey, Brontëana, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Patrick Brontë,References, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wuthering Heights

Several reviews of the Jane Eyre performances at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, China, are slowly appearing in the Chinese media. Regrettably we just can quote rough "translations" (via Google translation) of some paragraphs to get the idea:

北京青年报 (Beijing Youth Daily):

Jane Eyre" performed at the Grand Theater. Sure enough, the film "near flawless." Music, sets, costumes, lighting, scheduling, etc. can be "absolutely fine" to describe. Rochester is said to even the hands of the paintings are produced in accordance with the original props, this movie's intentions can be seen, for the better-known Eagle teachers appreciate the creative approach. (...)
In any case, "Jane Eyre" is the best drama this year's entries. Play and give full play to the charm of the original works of literature, on stage with a beautiful picture and nice music. There is no lack of power performance, "made his mark", the lack of additional directors to expand the meaning and significance of embodiment, and to rely on a lot of movies. Although the completion of the reproduction of the original task, but there are many aesthetic elements for the exploitation and processing. (解玺璋)

北京娱乐信报 (Beijing Daily):

Wong's play "Jane Eyre" this week, the National Grand Theater in his heat, the performing arts sector has attracted many a star-studded. Zhang Guoli, Xu Fan, Chen Yi and others have come to watch the play, it is said that Zhang Guoli, read "Jane Eyre" He also would like to have fun on stage.
Xu Fan in told reporters after the show said: "" Jane Eyre "novels and movies I have seen. For now impetuous society drama" Jane Eyre "can give you a spiritual pillar. My mind 'Jane Eyre' is the Yuan Quan's like this. "Chen Yi in the drama after reading" Jane Eyre "said:" Although there have been prior to the film's "Jane Eyre", but it has the charm of the stage drama completely broken through the film. "

Star.Fotoever:

Yuan Quan and Wang Luoyong performing two different styles in "Jane Eyre" take on the story after the collision occurred, but also the feelings of a new audience. Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester's love is far from plain sailing, Wang Luoyong highly infectious power of the performances, Yuan Quan as Jane Eyre's love is deep, depression. Moran stand up under the light of the Yuan Quan, most audiences love for them I do feel sorry for heartbreak. (彻寒)

EDIT (26/06/09):
The English section of CCTV.com publishes some pictures, a video (where we realize that the production uses profusely John William's music for Jane Eyre 1970) and a brief comment on the production.

A governess goes to work for a moody employer, captures his heart, a dark secret emerges. Charlotte Bronte's 1847 love story "Jane Eyre" comes to life in a new adaptation at Beijing's National Center for the Performing Arts. The production boasts A-list stars including Wang Luoyong, the first Chinese star to sparkle on Broadway. In today's "Spotlight", we hear Wang Luoyong's experience with the refreshing Chinese take on the drama.
The Chinese version of Charlotte Bronte's 1847 novel "Jane Eyre" has swept across China since the complete Chinese version was released in the 1950's. Capable, intelligent, forthright and sometimes tactless, Jane Eyre has been received by Chinese girls as a cultural pioneer of modern womanhood.
It's evident that the story remains pertinent today, in an ingenious theatrical adaptation at the National Center for the Performing Arts.
Actress Yuan Quan is well suited to the lead role as the spirited but plain young woman. And Wang Luoyong, who has broken the westerners' dominance on Broadway, is cast into the enigmatic master of Thornfield Hall, Edward Rochester.(...)
The story of Jane Eyre and Rochester has inspired a variety of films and dramas. Generations of directors and actors have taken relentless attempts in translating the chemistry between Jane and Rochester. The two won't be held back, as they help each other find their true selves.
Wang Luoyong acknowledged that the previous versions have left positive marks on this production.
Wang Luoyong hopes that this Chinese adaptation will serve as a memorable tribute to great literature that stands the test of time. (Zhao Yanchen)

And even more pictures on Le Quotidien du Peuple (in French):

L'actrice Yuan Quan est idéale dans le rôle principal de femme à la fois simple et spirituelle. Et Wang Luoyong, qui s'est imposé sur les planches de Broadway réservés jusqu'à présent aux Occidentaux, incarne le mystérieux maître du manoir de Thornfield, Edward Rochester.
Wang pense que le regain de la littérature classique comble le vide émotionnel éprouvé par la plupart des Chinois d'aujourd'hui.
Wang Luoyong, Acteur:
"Je pense que le public chinois est vraiment avide de ce genre d'histoire. Un amour absolu, dépourvu de tout intérêt lié à l'argent, aux bijoux, au côté clinquant des marques...car aujourd'hui, beaucoup de personnes ne pensent qu'à ça. Mais je pense qu'au fond d'eux-mêmes, il existe une infime partie qui réclame ce genre d'amour."
"Inédite, étrange, et captivant, un vrai défi... Au théâtre, on doit comprendre la langue originale. La langage est très important pour un acteur. Car il ne suffit pas de reproduire des sons. Il faut encore lier la pensée à la voix, et les combiner avec des sentiments authentiques. C'est difficile. Il m'arrive souvent de ne pas savoir établir ce genre de connexions..."
L'histoire d'amour entre Jane Eyre et Rochester a inspiré de nombreux cinéastes et dramaturges. Des générations d'acteurs ont tenté inlassablement d'exprimer cette relation subtile entre les deux personnages où chacun aide l'autre à se découvrir.
Wang Luoyong reconnaît tout le mérite des anciennes adaptations et leurs influences sur la pièce de théâtre.
"La musique est tirée de différentes adaptations. Les acteurs chinois ont essayé de se familiariser avec la musique et le rythme. Il a fallut aussi adopter des gestes particuliers. Ce n'est pas exactement un ballet, mais l'acteur doit se tenir droit, vous savez, être en extension, avec de la grâce. Il faut que le public considère notre corps comme un instrument qui se produit devant lui. Les spectateurs prennent conscience des sensations, et trouvent des réponses à leurs sentiments." (Google translation)

Categories: Jane Eyre, Theatre

Fine. ― Letters from Mrs. G. Clive & B.H.H. ― Went at 10 to W.H. Hunt. His picture is more wonderful than ever. ― But then sane, [as] whole character of his work,  & the place, & himself ― made me sad, ― tho’, thank God, not envious, ― & I came away more dead than alive. Walked to the Bethells’ ― out ― Crake’s, out also. Then home ― & took C. pencil to Tessins, ― & then to Mulock ― out also. To Foord’s. ― But the system of chance work or deadly worry seems to me terrible for myself. ― On to Bickers, ― Bp. Winchester, & Lady Waldegrave’s ― where I lunched. ― Mr. H. much more agreeable than []― she the same as ever ―. Calls on S. Westley ― & across park to Victoria Str. & Mr. F. North ― where was Collingwood Smith. ― Then to Lady Young’s ― out ― Lady Grey, ― Baring, ― Farquhar ― (Clive,) Lord Wenlock ― all ditto. ― Thence, across Park ― Home. Wrote note, & out to Gush, Beadon, Wynnes, ― & to Newman St. to see some Studios. No. 23 I think of taking. In 74 was Stevens ― of Rome. Thence to Wyatt’s ― & after that home to dress. At 7½ went to Brunwich Hotel ― where were Col. Clowes, Miss C., Mr. Mrs. & Miss Arkwright, & latterly S.W.C. ― It is difficult to me to keep up convers[e] with such ― yet am I not wrong in finding it difficult?

Coming out ―― pouring rain! ― So I got a cab home. ― A fatiguing day & wholly unsatisfactory. ―

X16

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

We present today Syrie James's new novel. BrontëBlog will publish a review next week.

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë
By Syrie James

ISBN: 9780061648373
ISBN10: 006164837X
Imprint: Avon A
On Sale: 6/30/2009
Format: Trade PB

ISBN: 9780061891786 (ebook)
ISBN: 9780061720192 (large print)

Book Description

"I have written about the joys of love. I have, in my secret heart, long dreamt of an intimate connection with a man; every Jane, I believe, deserves her Rochester."

Though poor, plain, and unconnected, Charlotte Bronte possesses a deeply passionate side which she reveals only in her writings—creating Jane Eyre and other novels that stand among literature's most beloved works. Living a secluded life in the wilds of Yorkshire with her sisters Emily and Anne, their drug-addicted brother, and an eccentric father who is going blind, Charlotte Bronte dreams of a real love story as fiery as the ones she creates.

But it is in the pages of her diary where Charlotte exposes her deepest feelings and desires—and the truth about her life, its triumphs and shattering disappointments, her family, the inspiration behind her work, her scandalous secret passion for the man she can never have . . . and her intense, dramatic relationship with the man she comes to love, the enigmatic Arthur Bell Nicholls.

"Who is this man who has dared to ask for my hand? Why is my father so dead set against him? Why are half the residents of Haworth determined to lynch him—or shoot him?"

From Syrie James, the acclaimed, bestselling author of The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, comes a powerfully compelling, intensely researched literary feat that blends historical fact and fiction to explore the passionate heart and unquiet soul of Charlotte Bronte. It is Charlotte's story, just as she might have written it herself.

On Syrie James's web much more information can be found: a Q&A with the author, an excerpt and even a Reading Group Study Guide.

Harriet Klausner on the B&N website has published a review:

This is a super historical biography that uses a diary to tell the tale of Charlotte Bronte, author of Jane Eyre. Using a first person perspective brings depth to the great author even that much more, but also detracts from how others see her and events like her sisters and Arthur as they come across through a Charlotte filter. Still this is an excellent biographical fiction that looks profoundly at a great nineteenth century writer as Syrie James does her research to tell the story of Charlotte Bronte as she did with THE LOST MEMOIRS OF JANE AUSTEN.

And Katherine Pierson on Fresh Fiction:

Syrie James writes in a similar style to Charlotte and Emily, and any who have read JANE EYRE or WUTHERING HEIGHTS will recognize the long, flowing sentences of a more old-fashioned construction. The style works well for this story as it mirrors both the time period and Charlotte's writing, and James uses footnotes to explain archaic terminology and to translate French conversation.
The book gets off to a slow start, but the pace picks up once the women publish a book of poetry and focus on their novels. I admit to hoping the author would get to the marriage proposal and romance sooner than she did, but I kept reading knowing it would come. I appreciate fiction for fiction's sake, but knowing that a story portrays an individual -- and not just a made-up character -- gives an extra sense of passion and curiosity to my reading. Fans of historical fiction -- and the Bronte sisters in particular -- will find this an enjoyable read.

Categories: Books, Fiction

Beatrice by Marie Spartali Stillman

Painting of the Day Archive

The Telegraph & Argus gives further details of the auction of a rare Patrick Brontë photograph (more information on previous posts):

The miniature has been sold by auctioneers Ewbank Clarke Gammon Wellers to a woman in the south of England for £1,476.
Now she wants it to return to the Bronte Parsonage Museum where it will go on permanent loan.
Andrew McCarthy, director of the Bronte Parsonage Museum, confirmed the Bronte Society had made a bid for the item.
He said: “This is great news and a very generous and wonderful offer. She telephoned us straight away and said she wanted it back in Haworth.
“We had people ringing up and making significant donations, which was hugely appreciated.
“They said in the event of us not getting the photograph, the money should go into our collections fund.
“We believe there are some significant Bronte items coming up for sale this year and we are hoping those donations will help us.”

Also in The Telegraph & Argus an article about Bollywood which mentions Deepak Verma and Tamasha recent Wuthering Heights adaptation and another one about the locations of Wuthering Heights 1992:

There have been various movie adaptations of Emily Bronte’s only published novel.
Sam Goldwyn at MGM had a go at it in 1939, and then in 1991, American International Pictures spent a reported $9 million on a remake, written by Irish playwright Anne Devlin, with Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff and Anna Calder-Marshall as Cathy. The film was released through Paramount Pictures.
Director Peter Kominsky rejected Haworth as a location because of the prevalence of TV aerials, pylons and power cables. But scenes were shot at Keighley’s East Riddlesden Hall and Shibden Hall, Halifax, between September and October, 1991.
Casting French actress Juliette Binoche as Cathy seemed unusual, but no more so than Merle Oberon starring opposite Laurence Olivier 52 years before.
Ralph Fiennes, Simon Ward, John Woodvine and Sinead O’Connor as Emily Bronte were among the cast.
Seventy-room Broughton Hall, near Skipton, was the base for crew and cast. It also doubled as Thrushcross Grange, home of Edgar and Isabella Linton. Ralph Fiennes went to art school with the wife of the-then owner, Roger Tempest.

The Guardian asks several writers about their favorite escapades. Marina Lewycka (A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Two Caravans) chooses the Peak District and North Lees Hall:

So I love to go out walking all day. When friends visit, we'll often walk close to Sheffield, down by North Lees Hall, near the gritstone cliff of Stanage Edge. Charlotte Brontë visited the house in the 1840s, and it's supposed to have inspired Mr Rochester's house in Jane Eyre. From there, you go down into the valley at Hathersage, where you can get a great cream tea, then you walk up by a little stream and a mill pond and take an old drover's track up along Stanage Edge to Robin Hood's Cave.

And the Edinburgh Evening News asks some of Edinburgh's best-known names what they loved reading as youngsters and why:

Mary Contini, 48, is an author and co-owner of Valvona and Crolla
"I remember loving Little Women, The Secret Garden, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and all those kinds of books when I was around 14, the age my daughter Olivia is now. They were such good reads – you were immediately pulled into the story. (Mark McLaughlin)

Russ Williams discusses Gothic vs Horror in the LA Writing Careers Examiner and thinks that The Sixth Sense is Brontë material (!):

An essential element of the Gothic is almost always romance. Just as Baldick leaves out the supernatural, which surely "haunts" much within the Gothic territory, he omits romance as well. Nowadays, if you want to write a good Gothic story, especially one that sells, you must have a strong romantic interest to animate your plot. Doomed love is the Gothic romantic theme par excellence, but you can also have it both ways, as does Emily Brontë in Wuthering Heights. Her main story is about a tragic romance, but she manages to insert a subplot romance with a happy ending. Volumes have been written about he relation between the Gothic and Romantic. All you need to know is, to write a successful Gothic story, in the words of the song, "You can't have one without the other."
If Emily and Charlotte Brontë typify the Gothic romantic end of the Gothic spectrum, authors like Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft champion the horror side. (...)
In film, an excellent example of a "purely" Gothic tale is The Sixth Sense. Referred to by Hollywood as a "supernatural thriller," this story is actually Gothic in the best sense of the word. Without retelling the whole story (the film is available on DVD if you haven't seen it), I want to emphasize the Gothic elements. The main character feels trapped by what happened to him in the past and senses a disintegration and isolation in his life, all of which he cannot understand. The theme of the supernatural is established early on by the boy with strange visions. The romantic element predominates, and in fact this entire story turns on the main character's love for his wife. In the end, the tragic reason his life has "fallen apart" stunningly reveals itself. Death has triumphed over love, but there's a final hope that love can be stronger than death. This is authentic Gothic stuff and could have easily been penned by an Emily or Charlotte Brontë of the 1990s. The real writer-director, M. Night Shyamalan went on to establish himself as one of the Gothic masters of Hollywood film.

The Stonington Times has an article about dogs and Keeper crops up:

“Bull’s Eye,” the very loyal and true pet of his very unworthy master Bill Sykes, is a character we’ve all met outside of Dickens. And when we read Emily Brontë’s novels we can easily imagine her roaming the moors, accompanied by the large and aggressive canine “Keeper.” The two of them, wind whipped and still wet, braving the Wuthering Heights, must once have been a familiar sight on those bleak, Yorkshire hills. (Penny Parr)

The Seattle Post reviews Stephen Frears new movie Chéri (adapting Colette) and makes the following remark about Rupert Friend:

And the couple at its center, Michelle Pfeiffer and the very Heathcliff-ish Rupert Friend, don't look so bad either. (Moira McDonald)

ArtDaily remembers the upcoming auction of the painting Wuthering Heights by L.S. Lowry.
Check this previous post for more information.

The blogosphere brings today Karine et ses livres reviewing The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in French, Cup-Bound and Scalding posting a poem devoted to Branwell Brontë and a short piece about Grace Poole. New posts with lots of pictures on the Brontë Sisters: Oakwell Hall, Gawthorpe Hall, the moors, Elizabeth Gaskell and Brookroyd. Posts about Jane Eyre on Emma in Oz and The Maiden's Court.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontëana, Brontëites, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Patrick Brontë, References, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Rose late. Thunderstorm, early.

Holman Hunt came at 10 to Breakfast. Great amount of talk.

At 12 he & I walked to Grey Inn’s Lane, & I alone to the Angel ― Bus ― to Hornsey Road, & walked on ― hot & tired ― to Woodberry by 1.45. Only W.N. there.

Talk enough ― about many matters.

At 8 he walked partly home with me. ― & by 10 I got home.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Britain and Greece have marked their roughly two hundred-year stalemate surrounding the ownership of the Elgin Marbles with a new salvo. The occassion: the June 20 opening of the new $200 million, 260,000 square foot Acropolis Museum in Athens. The museum’s opening can be seen as a rebuttal to claims by the British Museum, which holds more than half of the frieze’s total length, that Greece did not have a sufficient space to keep them. Indeed, Claire Soares of  The Independent sees this massive undertaking as a very deliberate demonstration of Greece’s ability to keep the frieze safe:  “Unlike any other museum in the world, it was designed to house something it didn’t own.”

The gaps in the Greek collection are completed with plaster casts of the originals, made to look by some reports conspicuous in their artificiality. As Sean Newsom of The Times of London argued recently , “We can argue all we like about how we saved the sculpture from years of turmoil in Greece, but with this room finally completed, it’s obvious where they now belong.”

Though no permanent loan requests or bequeathals seem to be in the offing, Greek officials have taken on a triumphal tone. The inevitable, it seems, has finally come, according to Greek Culture Minister Antonio Samaras: “For 200 years, the Parthenon Marbles have been amputated, now they must be reunited. The Parthenon frieze speaks through its totality; this voice should be heard not be silenced,”

Numerous other commentators have chimed in on Greece’s behalf–among them Christopher Hitchens and Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times. Compare these with responses from the Romantic period by Lord Byron, Felicia Hemans, Percy Shelley, and John Keats, among others. The striking thing, even with the opening of the new museum, is how little the debate has changed.

Nylon Magazine talks about the new covers designed by Ruben Toledo for the Penguin Classics DeLuxe Editions. Wuthering Heights (on the right) is scheduled for next August 25:

Pride and Prejudice is a book that needs no selling—the story of love, life, and first impressions is just as good today as when Jane Austen first wrote it. Same goes for Emily Bronte’s epic Wuthering Heights and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s damning The Scarlet Letter.
But if we were to judge a book by its cover, we’d argue that these classic reads have never looked better, thanks to the creative vision of Ruben Toledo. The artist is behind the three Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions, illustrating the front flaps of each. While his surreal take on the Yorkshire moors or his Technicolor vision of Hester Prynne might not change the actual details of the plot, they certainly add a stylish edge to book club mainstays.
The series gets its official release on August 25, but they’re available now for pre-order. Which means you have enough time to check out his work at the exhibit Toledo/Toledo: A Marriage of Art and FashionIsabel Toledo: Fashion from the Inside out (on view at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City through September 26) and watch the entire BBC version of Pride and Prejudice beforehand. (Rebecca Willa Davis)

Another article about Salinger's veto to a sequel of The Catcher of the Rye which mentions Wide Sargasso Sea. On Real Clear Politics:

Borrowing is an essential part of the creation of culture. If we eliminated all derivative works, we would lose, among other things, Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (based on a story by an Italian writer), and Jean Rhys's acclaimed novel "Wide Sargasso Sea," the story of Mr. Rochester's mad wife from Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre." (Cathy Young)

Intelligent Enterprise finds Brontë references in a very improbable source: Opinion Mining and Sentiment Analysis by Bo Pang and Lillian Lee.

It cites 332 references, mostly to technical literature, but it also presents the business case for sentiment analysis and firmly roots discussions in real-world examples, from movie reviews to quotations from literary sources such as novelist Charlotte Brontë. You may find the opening chapters, "The Demand for Information on Opinions and Sentiment" and "Applications," helpful, even if you don't read further into the monograph, which goes deep into the technology. (Seth Grimes)

Chris Power in The Guardian's Book Blog analyses one of the current big mysteries: the algorithms behind book recommendations.

Yesterday morning a friend of mine – let's call her Hannah – emailed to apologise for making me redundant as her favoured source of book recommendations. Beneath that stark notice of termination stood a link: www.bookseer.com. Hackles already up, I clicked through to a screen that asked me the title and author of the last book I'd read.
"The Illustrated Man", I typed, and "Ray Bradbury". In the wink of a modem I was furnished with a list of recommendations from both Amazon and LibraryThing. On the Amazon list, understandably enough, there were a few other Bradbury titles mentioned – Dandelion Wine, The Martian Chronicles – as well as Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Also Watchmen, which I thought was a rather good and not entirely obvious suggestion.
The logic behind LibraryThing's recommendations, however, was less discernible. Would Kim Stanley Robinson's Martian cycle get a mention? How about Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, which shares Bradbury's interest in commingling the horrific, the fantastic and the imperfectly human? Nope: Wuthering Heights. Quite madly, the rest of the list comprised Jane Austen novels and "saucy" rip-offs of the same.

The Tuscaloosa Liberal Examiner quotes Charlotte Brontë's conventionality-is-not-morality phrase to describe Governor Mark Sanford's sex scandal, The Times Literary Supplement recovers a 1905 article by Virginia Woolf which includes a couple of Brontë references, The Philadelphia Citypaper contains an enigmatic Wuthering Heights reference and the San Francisco Gate recommends Wuthering Heights 1939.

oberlep27 has uploaded to flickr (also on Discombobulated D.C.) a complete set of pictures (on the right) of the recent performances of Jane Eyre. The Musical by the TheatreLab in Washington D.C. One of the violin players in the performances is Joshua Coyne who is the subject of an article on WTOP.com. Student in the States recommends Jane Eyre, Without You I'll Be Miserable At Best, Into the quiet and Only from the heart can you reach the sky mention Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

A very curious Jane Eyre adaptation opens today in Greater London. No less than a version of John Courtney's Jane Eyre or The Secrets of Thornfield Manor (1848), the first theatrical adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's novel.

Jane Eyre and the Secrets of Thornfield Manor
by John Courtney and Catherine McDonald

Through the Window Theatre Company
The Colour House,
Merton Abbey Mills

Date(s): Fri 26/06/2009 - Sat 27/06/2009
Friday and Saturday Night Only
Time(s): 7:30pm

Overview

Supported by research by eminent Brontë Scholar Dr Patsy Stoneman, Through The Window Theatre were commissioned in 2008 to adapt and perform a new one-act version of Jane Eyre for the Brontë Society, based on John Courtney's 1848 adaptation The Secrets of Thornfield Manor. Now, one year on, we have revised and extended the play and will be premiering the new work in June 2009.

Synopsis

The year is 1848. Legendary playwright John Courtney is finishing his adaptation of Mr. Currer Bell's Jane Eyre...
The actors are preparing in the dusty corridors, the audience are making their way through the foggy London streets...
On stage, Jane Eyre grows from a lonely orphan into a young woman, and finds work as a governess at Thornfield Hall. She meets the dark, mysterious Mr Rochester and explores the even darker secrets of her new home.
Meanwhile in Haworth, Yorkshire, Charlotte Bronte, still disguised by her male pseudonym of Currer Bell, discusses Courtney's adaptation of her beloved novel with her brother Branwell. She is not best pleased by Courtney's ‘improvements' ...
The delicious Betty Bunce and the knavish Joe Joker are Courtney's delightful servant characters. They serve Brocklehurst, Rochester and other characters whilst getting into scrapes, fights, love triangles and, as Courtney says, "all the uproarious escapades of the lower order..." Their fate is now tied in with that of their masters!
From an unlikely friendship, and the frightening events which occur in Thornfield, Jane and Rochester learn to trust one another, and then begin to fall in love...
But Rochester has a secret, which will shatter all...

The Surrey Comet brings some details, like the origins of the project:
Picture: Catherine McDonald and Emily Jukes as Jane Eyre and Mrs Fairfax (Source)

It seems the indignant act of re-writing your favourite book to suit a Hollywood audience - Captain Corelli's Mandolin anyone? - was happening way back in the 19th Century as told in the new play, Jane Eyre and the Secrets of Thornfield Manor, showing at Merton's Colour House Theatre this week.
Charlotte Bronte’s passionate story of Jane and Mr Rochester was written to popular acclaim in 1846, but within three months adaptations and blatant rewritings of the book were being performed on stage.
Last year playwright and actor Catherine McDonald was commissioned by the Bronte Society to develop the first of these adaptations, written by John Courtney, into a one-act play that was performed at their AGM.
McDonald says: “Courtney’s adaptation is a raunchy comical farce. He creates new servant characters called Joe Joker, Betty Bunce and Sally Suds who romp their way through the story focusing away from Jane and Rochester.
“At the time Courtney was like the Shakespeare of his day having written 54 plays, though far removed from Bronte’s book this one was a sell out smash.”
In the one-act play McDonald used the character of John Courtney to narrate his own play.
McDonald has now cleverly expanded this show to weave together the story of Charlotte Bronte’s novel along with her well documented horrified response to the madness that had become of her work on stage.
McDonald says: “This play offers a dissection of what makes a novel work and what makes a play. It provides insight into life on the brink of change and looks at Charlotte Bronte, a woman ahead of her time.
“Bronte hates what has become of her book and more to the point that people love it.
"For those who are a fan of the novel I went back to it for the faithful retelling of the love story that sits alongside the farcical, comedy element of Courtney’s characters.”
McDonald worked with the eminent Bronte scholar Dr Patsy Stoneman, who discovered the lost manuscript for Courtney’s play and wrote the authoritative book, Jane Eyre on Stage 1848-1898, that explores the adaptations of Jane Eyre and explains their popularity.
Stoneman wrote that nineteenth century playwrights had no reverence for a text we regard as canonical and deleted and twisted it to suit their own purposes.
She adds that by focusing on the servants Courtney’s play becomes about class rebellion which is why it is so popular with the audience.
McDonald says: “Courtney’s play was appropriate for the audience of the time who were, what is named, the lower order. Ninety percent of society were illiterate and trawling through the novel would have been boring for them.
“In our play there is a discussion between Charlotte her brother Bramwell who understands the need to appeal to the different audience and acknowledges that people will still get to know and love her story.” (Claire Cain)

Categories: Jane Eyre, Theatre

Young Priestess by William Bouguereau

Painting of the Day Archive

Oh, for a limitless budget! Thanks to Jen again for sending me the link to these absolutely stunning Waterhouse art purses. I especially adore The Soul of the Rose one, and would buy it in a heartbeat if I could.

Electrical work may be more complicated, but for now its impact is still hidden. But paint! Now there is a visible taste of what the renovated Reading Room will look like! These two photographs from last week show the ceiling being transformed from dull green to crisp white and blue.

– Erika Dowell, Public Services Librarian

The Yorkshire Post reports the results of the recent auction of Patrick Brontë's newly-discovered photograph, which fetched more than double the initial estimate: £1, 476

A RARE photograph of the father of the literary Brontë sisters fetched £1, 476 at auction yesterday and will be given to the museum in Haworth.
The faded sepia image of the Rev Patrick Brontë, Rector of Haworth, was found recently among papers in an old film box.
It has been lost since it was sold for one shilling (5p) in 1898 and was expected to fetch £600.
Yesterday a woman from the south of England, bidding by telephone, beat off competition from a London dealer to snap up the portrait photo for nearly three times more than expected at Surrey auctioneers Ewbank Clarke Gammon Wellers.
The unidentified buyer said afterwards she would present the photo to the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth.
"I feel this is something that shouldn't be in private hands," she said.
The photograph was once on display along with other Brontë mementoes at the Temperance tearooms in Haworth.
Still in its original oval gilt frame, its whereabouts were a mystery until it was discovered at a provincial antiques fair. (...)
An inscription on the reverse of the portrait, presumably the original museum description, reads: "Rev P Brontë; Various relics including an oval photograph framed and glazed, a small china blue and white plate often used by him and a sword stick."

From BrontëBlog we would love to curtsy and bow and salute the anonymous bidder for such a gesture. We are not speaking for the Brontë Society, but thank her profusely for her generosity.

Categories: Brontëana, In the News, Patrick Brontë

Rose early: absolutely clear morning. ― Those blue hills & the wide lawn are delightful. Left at 7 ― & in Dogcart to Brigg by 8. Dr. Marks & his little men. ― Rail to Gainsboro & to Lincoln by 11. ― Wonderful beauty of Lincoln & its site. The garden[-]like farms, ― the hay ― &c. Went up the hill & into the Cathedral: all fine & grand. Left Lincoln at 12.15. & on ― greatly delighted with the view, ― to Boston, & Peterborough by 2. Then, express train, & in town at 4½ (there was Lord Wenlock ― always as good & kind as usual.) ――

& at 16 Upper Seymour St. by 5. ― All my Roman things there ― but it is a sad chaos, & in such a box of a place ―: the noise also distracts me, & I really cannot stay here. ― At 6.30 to the O. & C. Club, where was F.L. He is not changed at all, save by loss of beard. How we talked!

XX15

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Contemplation by Arthur Hacker

Painting of the Day Archive

Apologies for my silence. I had a birthday on Monday, and I had intended to do a post full of things I love, in selfishness for the event. But I ended up coming down with some bug, and was laid up till now.

But what a reason to emerge! Thanks to the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood for the heads-up, but The Lady of Shalott is now available for purchase on DVD!!!

It’s been over for a week, but I feel compelled to post pictures from my visit to the Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair. Before it ended, I was able to spend several hours with dealers and buyers one of the longest-running and grandest art fairs in Europe. 

Despite the gloom and doom supposedly hovering over the art world, there was a great deal of optimism from both dealers and collectors at the Fair. I came on the next to last day, and nearly everyone of the dealers of nineteenth-century or traditional art I talked with had sold a large number of his or her inventory. This was not the case with contemporary art dealers I met. Though not scientific, to me it indicates the slow and steady, if not always sexy, appeal of working with established genres.

While there were world-class  ceramics, furniture, modern art , works of silver and ancient relics, I was principally focused on nineteenth-century academic works. The photos from my visit, therefore, are a terribly unbalanced representation what was on view. Sorry.

Another thing to keep in mind: As in past review of fairs, I have taken photos of these images in person, at the fair and the results are sometimes surprisingly and sometimes less than ideal. 

The first work that caught my eye was a remarkable sketch (above) by  Géricault. Known for his obsession with horses–entire coffee-table books having been dedicated to them–its still startling to see one in person, and how much he can conjure with so few few lines.

 

Someone once told me a joke: “Question: What do you call the crumbs that fall from Richard Green’s table? Answer: Cake.”

The implication was that Richard Green Galleries is remarkably consistent in getting the best of the best. Most dealers and collectors would be satisfied to have the slightest portion of what this London dealer offers.

Previous to arriving several people had suggested that if I saw one work at Grosvenor, it should be the Green’s Lesbia and her Sparrow (above). A cult following of British Olympic painters (e.g. Leighton, Tadema, Godward, and Poynter) has come fruition in the pas three decades. Poynter is one of the group’s finest, and this is one of his gems. 

Lesbia was the great love of the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus (c.84-52 BC) and the subject of 25 of his surviving poems. Poynter chose one in particular as the subject for this painting: 

Sparrow, my girl’s darling

Whom she plays with, whom she cuddles,

Whom she likes to tempt with finger-

Tip and teases to nip harder

When my own bright-eyed desire

Fancies some endearing fun

And a small solace for her pain,

I suppose, so heavy passion then rests:

Would I could play with you as she does

And lighten the spirit’s gloomy cares!

(cited in My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, ed. Jeffery Eugenides, Harper Perennial, London, 2009, p. x).

Poynter began his career working in stained glass and cabinetry. This probably contributed to his heightened use of color and remarkable ability to imitate various materials, a skilled often needed wood graining.

Sir Alfred Munnings described Frederick Henry Prince (above) as “one of the most amazing characters I had ever met . . . a grown up boy.” This painting was commissioned by Prince, showing him at one of his favorite activities and the kind of scene Munnings had made his name producing: sporting pictures. If you are not familiar with Munnings’ work, you can be forgiven. Due to the way his paintings are sold–at sporting auctions and not nineteenth-century art auctions–outside of Great Britain, Munnings has not received the recognition his skill merits.

Everything in this painting is world class: the figures, the composition, observation of nature, and the economy of materials (note in particular the tails of the dogs; some only consisting of a single stroke.). Munnings is a genius.

Leytens is one of those great Flemish painters following in the wake of the Brueghel dynasty. There were so many wrote compositions mass-produced in enromous artist studios. Works that are able to transcend the typical formulae to create something original and compelling. The light and darks Winter landscape . . . (Above, and pitifully captured by my camera) made this work visible from far away. Upon close inspection it has all the charm of cabinet paintings from the period that were often meant to be viewed with a magnifying glass.  

 

Behold the power of narrative painting. A family has lost the recently-deceased patriarch’s will, and a scoundrel–seen exiting stage right–trying to take advantage of the resulting ambiguity. After searching through numerous documents–in the foreground and on the table–the will is held high and the rightful, and obviously deserving, inheritors are vindicated. Mustached evil is chased out the door by the family dog, the embodiment of fidelity.

Though I haven’t found it yet, it is highly likely that George Smith produced The Will Found to be a print. Prints and contracts with printers were often more lucrative for painters than the sale of the original work. Such was the case with Holbien in the eighteenth century.

There is disappointingly little written about James Webb, who regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy. The preponderance of his output was in watercolor, not oils. Yet, he shows an astounding facility and painterliness in this work.

Look at this beautiful passage of clouds! 

 

Robert Bowman is one of the world’s great dealers and experts of nineteenth-century sculpture. For several years he maintained both contemporary and nineteenth-century galleries. However, a few years ago, he downsized by closing his nineteenth-century gallery and showing those works almost exclusively at fairs like Maastricht and Grosvenor.

This year Bowman had several works by artists like Leighton and Rodin that can be seen in larger scale versions in museums around the world. Seeing The Sluggard (above), at this small size gave me a completely different eperience than the larger-than-life version I am used to seeing at the Royal Academy in London. While I find the larger version imposing and dynamic, this appears more delicate bring out a kind of beauty I hadn’t seen in the other. Also, the patina of this smaller work is beautifully rendered.

Claudel’s piece L’Abandon (above) was given a place of prestige at Bowman’s booth; and, it deserves all the attention it gets. According to Bowman:

This 1905 rare bronze . . . is the earliest edition ever seen on the open market. This is the second of an edition limited to 18, the first cast having been kept by the owners of the foundry.

Claudel, was 18 years old when she met and began a 15-year affair with August Rodin, aged 42. Understandably, Rodin had an enormous influence on her work. Bowman relates that the statue borrows from and reverses the gender roles of Eternal Spring (1881) by Rodin and is based ” on the eponymous 5th century Hindu legend in which the heroine, Sakoutala, loses the affection of her beloved prince only to regain it once more.”

Baily is the sculptor of the iconic statue of Lord Nelson, standing atop the column in Trafalgar Square in London, perhaps the most seen statue in the country. The monument to Nelson was completed in 1843, and Psyche (above) statue was finished the same decade.

Psyche, unlike the statue of Lord Nelson, is meant to be seen at an intimate range. The delicate butterfly is held in beautifully articulated fingers that include minute details of fingernails and lines in the palm.  

The statue is the epitome of idealistic beauty and looking at it, even briefly, can drop your blood pressure by several points.

Directly across from the Bowman Galleries stall was the that of Joanna Booth, a dealer in mediaeval and archaic works of art. St. Martin dividing his cloak for a beggar (above) is a remarkably fully-realized piece. This single angle of the work does not adequately capture the full effect it has in person. The beggar with a wooden leg, the bold gesture of the Saint cutting the cloth, and the interesting choice to make one so much larger than the other, the author’s mastery in depicting varied textures. . . here it looks almost like a cartoon caricature; but, in person, it takes on a majestic air that is humbling.

For me, going to museums is exhausting, but I rarely get weighed down at fairs like Grosvenor. This is due in part to the kind of paintings, like The Toyshop Window (above) rarely, if ever, shown at museums. Museum are after a kind of gravitas in their paintings. Unfortunately, this makes a whole category of paintings, full of charm and humor, absent from public exhibitions. Like eating heavy foods all the time, I get museum indigestion. Sometimes, I want dessert or, at least, a sorbet, to cleanse my palate.

I wanted to begin and end this post with my favorite work from the exhibition: For the Squire (above) by John Everett Millais. Millais’s works rarely appear in the private market; and, when they do, it is not often in the form of a fully-realized canvas. It is the kind of work that will never be featured in a show due to the lack of drama. It has all the so-called sentimentality that turns many off to the period. 

For me there is a purity of spirit, an innocence in this work that is communicated in a way that only painting can. The narrative–the delivering of a letter–is the lightest of pretexts for painting this little girl. Unlike the style that characterized his early Pre-Raphaelite works, this painting is not consumed with details. (The background, fabric, and hair are more suggested than copied.) Done when he was 53, it seems the product of a mellowed Millais.

–

There are many, many more works not included in this post that I have uploaded to my Flickr account. (In some cases, a work is followed by a photo of its label. That’s my way of remembering what I’ve seen and where I’ve seen it.)

The Literary Walks series of The Times is devoted today to the Brontës. And who better than Juliet Barker to guide us across Haworth and the Brontë moors?

There is no better place to begin a walk in Brontë country than at Haworth Parsonage, the home of the Brontë family for more than 40 years. A purist might wish to struggle up the cobbled Main Street, but I prefer to save my breath for the moors.
The parsonage stands at the top of the hill behind the church, its stolid exterior betraying no hint that it was a powerhouse of extraordinary creativity. It was here that, as young children, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne conjured up the exotic imaginary worlds of Glasstown, Angria and Gondal, which were to become a consuming passion well into their adult lives and lead to the creation of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
A visit to the parsonage, now the Brontë Parsonage Museum, is essential to set the scene for our walk. There is such a contrast between the handmade books, no bigger than a credit card, written in script so tiny that they are almost indecipherable and the imaginative power of the stories that they contain. There is a similar and equally symbolic contrast between the cramped parsonage and the wide open spaces of the moors, which were the inspiration and setting for the Brontës’ novels and poetry.
To follow on the footsteps of the Brontës, take the footpath from the parsonage, past the last remnants of the village and the old stone-pits and quarries, which Mrs Gaskell describes in her Life of Charlotte Brontë. You are heading high on the hillside, in the words of Emily’s poem: For the moors, For the moors, where the short grass like velvet beneath us should lie!
The great vista of open moorland broods on the horizon but the lower reaches of the hills are green: a testament to the tenacity of generations of Yorkshire farmers who have carved their fields out of a hostile environment and even today battle against the encroaching bracken and heather of the moor. The land is too poor to support crops, so the fields are small, bounded by drystone walls and provide only pasture for sheep. The scattered farmhouses hunker into the hillsides, as if sheltering from the constant “wuthering” of the wind. In the valley bottoms you occasionally glimpse a tall chimney and a square-built mill, sometimes with a row of cottages, all relics of the industrial revolution that transformed this corner of the West Riding and inspired Charlotte’s novel Shirley.
As early as 1850, Charlotte had observed that “various folks are beginning to come boring to Haworth, on the wise errand of seeing the scenery described in Jane Eyre and Shirley”. Today most visitors come with the landscape of Emily’s Wuthering Heights in mind. They won’t be disappointed, unless their impressions have been drawn from the films, rather than the books.
The real Brontë moors are as harsh and uncompromising as millstone grit. This is a landscape in thrall to the elements. The sinuous hills are riven with steep-sided valleys and, here and there, amid the heath and bracken, a landslip has gouged out a bare hollow or a black mass of rock rears on an exposed ridge. Clinging to the hills are a few scattered trees. There are no hedgerows, only grey drystone walls.
Apart from a few weeks in autumn, when the moors become a sea of purple, heavy with the scent of heather, the landscape is a variety of greens, browns and greys that change with the season and weather. The silence is broken only by the plaintive cry of sheep, the liquid warbling of curlew and the lyrical crescendos of lark-song. The one discordant element is the wind turbines, an affront to the eyes and an insult to the intelligence.
There are well-worn paths to the official tourist sites. All have questionable Brontë associations but that is irrelevant. “In the hill-country silence,” Charlotte wrote after her sisters had died, “their poetry comes by lines and stanzas into my mind”. We can share that experience and begin to understand the genesis of some of the greatest novels in the English language.
In search of Heathcliff’s lair
Out on the moor, following the path to the Brontë Falls, it’s easy to see the source of the power and the inspiration for Emily’s brutal battering-ram of a fable, Wuthering Heights. From the rim of the moor beyond the falls juts the ruined farmhouse of Top Withins, a hard, black angle of walls under a pair of skeletal trees.
Whether Emily modelled her fortress-like novel on Top Withins is open to question. But the isolated farmhouse under the edge of the moor was well known to her and, in its harshly beautiful setting, commanding a vast panorama of moorland, it makes by far the best candidate for Heathcliff’s lair.
Down in the valley, on a bank overlooking Ponden Reservoir, stands Ponden Hall, a Pennine farmhouse, long and low among its shelter trees. This was Emily’s Thrushcross Grange, home of the Linton family so sadistically and remorselessly destroyed by Heathcliff and his lover and foster-sister Catherine. It was also the setting for one of Emily’s lighter scenes, with Cathy and Heathcliff as naughty children, terrifying Edgar and Isabella Linton by making faces at them through the window — a chink of light and laughter in the dark stormy sky of Emily Brontë’s extraordinary imagination. (Juliet Barker)

Tom Hardy is the subject of an article in today's The Guardian. A paragraph is devoted to his performance as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights 2009:

Later this year, he'll play Heathcliff in a new adaptation of Wuthering Heights by Peter Bowker, writer of BBC1's recent Occupation. "Tom is the first Heathcliff I've ever seen who you honestly feel could beat the living daylights out of you," Bowker says. "He brings great pain to the role. What Tom instinctively understood was that Heathcliff knows power because he's been abused by those in power. Even at his most bullying, you sense what's driving him." (Gareth McLean)

The Boston Book Examiner makes a list of classic novels inspiring pop culture. Wuthering Heights and Twilight appear:

Wuthering Heights: Emily Bronte's novel is another inspiration for Twilight. Heathcliff, adopted into the Earnshaw family, is terribly mistreated by his adopted brother. However, his love for his adopted sister, Catherine, keeps him sane and alive. Eventually, though, Catherine meets another man, whom she becomes obsessed with, and she is torn between the two men. Catherine, more interested in her chances to advance socially, chooses another man over Heathcliff, so Heathcliff disappears. When he returns, having mysteriously acquired quite a bit of wealth, Heathcliff is determined to have his revenge on everyone who has hurt him. In an incredibly twisted plot of revenge, betrayal, and heartbreak, Heathcliff and Catherine's doomed relationship not only destroys them, but it destroys everyone in their path as well. (Tara Enwistle-Clark)

The Newark Book Examiner exaggerates a bit when it says:

In high school, students fantasize about burning their school books. Of course, since the books are school property, students generally aren't able to fulfill this particular dream. (...)
The cheapest books, and therefore the easiest to burn, are the novels. These little bundles of literature are generally less than ten dollars each and are the bane of many students' existence. Decoding the works of the likes of William Shakespeare and the Bronte sisters, who wrote their works in the vernacular of a different country (not to mention in a different century) was worse torture to some than facing all the algebra problems in the world. (Zinovia Stone)

The Suffolk Times announces two awards for a local student production of Jane Eyre at the Teeny Awards:

Two cast members from Mattituck High School's "Jane Eyre" were recognized: Megan Ross for outstanding performance in a drama and Moggy Vinciguerra for best supporting actress in a drama. (Ms. Vinciguerra won outstanding performance in a drama last year.) (Bridget Degnan)

Pictures of the two winners can be seen in the article.

Variety reviews the film Nebo, Peklo...Zem (Heaven, Hell... Earth) by Laura Veráková:

A comely ballerina has a passionate but painful affair with a mysterious older physician in contempo melodrama "Heaven, Hell ... Earth," the second feature by Slovak writer-director Laura Sivakova ("Quartetto"). This mostly compelling tale of a young woman coming to grips with her love life, career options and dysfunctional family plays more like "The Red Shoe Diaries" than "The Red Shoes," as the genre-savvy helmer tips her hat to romantic thrillers from "Jane Eyre" to "Fatal Attraction." Commercial fare on home turf, where it is still in theaters, the pic could attract fests and Euro tube sales. (Alissa Simon)

Village Voice reviews the performances of Sarah Michelson's Dover Beach dance piece:

Most provocative is a duet between Greg Zuccolo, who appears halfway through Dover Beach looking like Jane Eyre's Mr. Rochester in deshabille, and 13-year-old Allegra Herman, who has intermittently entered to watch. (Deborah Jowitt)

Amanda Fortini quotes on Salon.com a very heterogeneous group of references for her ideas about love:

As with most Americans, my own ideas about love were formed not only by books -- "Jane Eyre" and "Pride and Prejudice," "Emma" and "Wuthering Heights," yes, as well as the incestuous "Flowers in the Attic" series, "The Thorn Birds," and the Andrew Greeley books with their fornicating priests -- but by soap operas and romantic comedies: the tempestuous on-again-off-again affair of Bo and Hope on "Days of Our Lives," the jaunty repartee of "When Harry Met Sally."

Tales from the Reading Room posts about Justine Picardie's Daphne and Literary Trangressions posts about Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Categories: Books, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

Rose very late. 7½ . ― Friend Life may be proper ― but is not good for progress to me.. ― No letters: read & wrote a very little. ― E.C. not well, & she did not come down to lunch. ― ― After that, J.E.C. drove me in the dogcart (with Punch,) to Broughton, an old Church ― & then I waited for a funeral … (little child who came to me.) & then we went on to Sir R. Nelthorp’s park ― where was a very extremely beautiful bit of ground ― heathy & desert ― lined with [ling] & rabbit holes in sandy slopes, ― & a pond, where were many thousand blk[-]headed gulls ―: they come here on March 15. It was a vast beautiful sight. ― Homeward, we drove through “Manby” ― woods ― Lord Yarborough’s ― very beautiful & quiet & so home by 6½. Garden till dinner. Very quiet & pleasant evening. ― & at 11 I took leave of “Pussy” & later of J.E.Cross as good & pleasant a friend a earth holds ― I believe. I have passed 3 most happy days here. John’s stories are capital.

E.C. collects crysalises. A poor lad employed about the gardens, (Lame) she had to scold: ― Lad made no reply, but pulled out of his pocket something ―― “here’s a Chrysalis for you!” ―

At Bath, on his first going ― a heap of children ran out of school & pissed in the street. J.C. tried to stop one ―

“I warnt a peedlin at you!” ― said the little brat.

Some one was sent for to a remote baptism. ― “Which name?” ― said the Curate. “Why, I thowt yed ’ha browt a naam wi’ ye![”] ― said the parent. ― & after that child was christened Matthew, the curate left. ― “Ye man com back! ―” said the breathless parent. “After all, it’s a lass! & ye’ve named ’un Matthew![”] ―

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

The British Library has been working on a commendable project to digitize a vast archive of 19th century newspapers, and a web site for the project has received some glowing news coverage.

Some of the material available requires a subscription, but a lot of material can be accessed for free. I tested the search function, and was able to read, for free, some articles about the newly constructed Brooklyn Bridge in The Graphic, a London newspaper of the late 1800s.

Another great source for 19th century news is the archives of the New York Times. Entering queries at the archive search page brings up some wonderful old stories, and articles from 1851 to the end of the 19th century are available for free.

The US Library of Congress has also been working on an enormous newspaper archive project, and recently announced that its millionth page has been posted.

A press release from the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

BRONTË ACADEMICS DISCUSS BRONTËS’ LOVE OF THE ARTS

Brontë scholars from around the world will meet in Haworth on the evening of Friday 3 July, to discuss the Brontës’ relationship with the creative arts. The Brontës’ were passionate about the visual arts – all of the siblings drew or painted – but they were also interested in the arts more widely. This panel of academics, all of who have contributed to a new book of essays The Brontës in the World of the Arts, will discuss the Brontës’ interest in art, as well as music, theatre and performance. Chaired by Patsy Stoneman, the panel will include Christine Alexander, Meg Harris-Williams, Sandra Hagan and Juliette Wells, and is a rare opportunity for the public to hear such respected Brontë experts speaking in the UK. The event takes place as part of the museum’s contemporary arts programme.

‘The Brontës have had a huge impact on contemporary culture. They continue to inspire books, films, theatre and music, from Bollywood musicals through to opera and even pop songs. So it is very interesting to think about the Brontës’ own interest in performance and music, and the examples of this that we find in their writing. We hope that the public will come along to find out a bit more about the Brontës’ drawings and paintings on display at the museum too’. (Jenna Holmes, Arts Officer, Brontë Parsonage Museum)

The event takes place at 7.30pm on Friday 3 July at the West Lane Baptist Centre in Haworth. Tickets are £5 and can be booked in advance from the Brontë Parsonage Museum, contact jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188 for more information.

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum, Talks

A couple of alerts for today, June 24:

A student production of Jane Eyre. The Musical in Blackburn, UK:

Westholme’s Summer Production
Blackburn, UK

JANE EYRE THE MUSICAL
Wednesday 24th to Saturday 27th June 09

More information here.

And a talk in Delaware, Ohio:

Delaware County District Library
Book Discussion
At the Main Library on Wednesday, June 24th at 7:30 p.m., we’ll talk about Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

And Wuthering Heights 1939 in Gettysburg, PA:

Wuthering Heights - Classic 1939 film
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 7:30 p.m.
Majestic Theater
Gettysburg, US

Emily Bronte’s timeless and tragic romance brilliantly captured on film by Academy Award-winning director William (Ben-Hur) Wyler and stars Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier as the doomed lovers Catherine and Heathcliff. Superb, lush atmospheric drama with strong supporting performances by David Niven, Flora Robson and Donald Crisp.

Categories: Alert, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Talks, Theatre

Boreas (Study) by John William Waterhouse

Painting of the Day Archive

The Norfolk Film Examiner has compiled a list of 'films to slit your wrists by'. Number 1 of the list is... Wuthering Heights.

Wuthering Heights #1

The family of Catherine as a child takes in Heathcliff. They grow up together on the estate of Wuthering Heights and know immediately that they are soul mates; an impenetrable love grows over the years and bonds their hearts. They both believe that nothing could ever break their connection. However, although they are both in love with each other, Catherine marries someone else. Heathcliff, heartbroken and bitter runs away from Wuthering Heights, now unkempt, run-down and no longer a happy home and returns a very wealthy man. Heathcliff buys the estate and marries another woman he doesn’t love in the least to spite Catherine for she has devastated his heart and ego.
Healthcliff learns that Catherine is deathly ill and becomes crueler to his wife, angry that she is not Catherine. Catherine calls for Heathcliff on her death-bead and she dies shortly thereafter. Regardless of Heathcliff’s newfound wealth, he has nothing to live for and he dies as well. The end.
This film is beautifully written, performed and impossible to watch without a box of tissue and a hole forming in the gut. On the upside, it is implied that Catherine’s ghost takes Heathcliff and they reunite happily in the afterlife. (Renee Roland)

Judging by the picture that accompanies the article, we believe it refers to the 1939 Hollywood adaptation.

The Leicester Mercury reviews a performance of the band Birdeatsbaby.

"They sounded to me like a group of spurned Sunday school teachers exacting their musical revenge; joyless, devoid of warmth, often shrill - ie, all the annoying aspects of Wuthering Heights without any of the mad sensuality," was the verdict of one writer.

As is usually the case lately, the blog front is livelier than the news front: Jane Eyre is reviewed by Welcome to My World, Jazzster Reviews and My Dear Book. The Back and Visible Things posts about Sparkhouse. And Savidge Reads has just got Jude Morgan's The Taste of Sorrow in the post.

Categories: Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Wuthering Heights

Having just been to my first-ever William Morris Society Committee meeting, I found myself speculating, on the train back to Lancaster, as to what possible new directions the Society’s Programme Sub-Committee might venture into. I think we would want to be faithful to the stress in News from Nowhere on the holistic nature of creative human activity, i.e., that it should involve the body as much as (or more than) the mind, and that it should ideally take place outdoors – in that perpetual Nowherian June sunshine! – rather than indoors.

So among my preliminary thoughts on this topic would be:

Fafnir hedge-clipping competition – reach for your shears and, re-enacting Morris’s own annual ritual at Kelmscott, we see who can carve the most persuasive hedge decoration in the shape of Sigurd the Volsung’s dragon, Fafnir.

Singlestick demonstration and training – this was, after all, Morris’s great passion in MacLaren’s gym in Oxford and singlestick is, one gathers, making something of a contemporary comeback as a native British martial art.

Outdoor bathing and swimming – as happens in News from Nowhere, over and over in Morris’s late romances, and on Morris’s own expeditions up the Thames on the Ark.

Society camping expeditions – as in News from Nowhere itself, where ‘tenting’ is a very popular pastime, and as organised by the William Morris Labour Church after WM’s death.

Searching for snakeshead fritillaries in the Oxfordshire countryside – as May Morris was wont to do during her years at Kelmscott after her parents’ deaths.

Pike-fishing on the Thames – but I have written about this in this blog already (see entry for 9.10.07).

Outdoor political preaching – as among the 1880s socialists themselves. Perhaps, as a charity, the Society could not be too directly political, but it could preach a Morrisian message of craftsmanship under a suitable banner at various London pitches.

Cycling from Oxford to Kelmscott – which admittedly wasn’t something that Morris himself did, but cycling was popular among young socialists in the 1890s and several of them did arrive at Kelmscott Manor by this means.

Please add your own suggestions to this list via the ‘comments’ facility. Several of the ideas above could be combined together, of course, and what a healthy and wholesome vista then opens. If I could but see a day of it, if I could but see it!

Bad night. ― Rose very late. Fine, but windy. The air here is more pleasant to me that that of Wellow, or Wells ― or Littlegreen. ― After breakfast & newspaper, ― read a good bit of the Petra journals to J.E.C. ― Lunch. ― & afterwards, went with him, in Dogcart through Sir R. Sheffield’s Park to Barton, where was Mr. Sheffield, the Rural Dean ―.― Then, we walked by what they call the Cliff ― a range of Down ― [road] sumptuously overlooking the Trent & Ouse, & Humber, finer river scenery it is impossible to see.

a full[-]fed river ― & other scenes ― very delightful & glorious. Also there were young partridges, νέα ἀρνίθια. We went on to Alkborough, a village, where J. visited a sick clergyman: & then we walked back to Barton ― & drove all the way back again ― by 6½. ― We all 3 walked about till 7. ― Dinner, Roland & Edward Winn: ― & afterwards, ― Mrs. R.W. ― very nice & pleasant. ― It is curious to hear of Woolly, & the Wentworths. Saying a good deal. ― ― Bed at 11.30.

X14

James H. & a friend went to Denmark. In all the stationary shops “Bog=paper” was written up ― to the great shock of their [sentiments].

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

A Pavane by Edwin Austin Abbey

Painting of the Day Archive

Hardly anything to report today, apart from the fact that Emily Brontë is being used to defend txt language in a way. This is David Crystal's opinion as read in the Yorkshire Post:

"We really ought to be more relaxed about the whole issue. There is a lot of talk about the need to preserve standard written English and that's true. Without the correct use of grammar and spelling, it becomes more difficult to communicate not just with people in our own country, but with English speakers abroad.
"However, 96 per cent of spoken English is already non-standard and throughout history writers like Sir Walter Scott and Emily Brontë have used dialect in their books without too much problem." (Sarah Freeman)

The blogosphere is a bit more lively and international. Histoires de Fil, ici (in French) and Mulheres que pecam (in Portuguese) both write about Jane Eyre. Bokslukarens blogg (in Swedish) posts about the Brontë sisters. And finally The World of Romance briefly reviews Syrie James's The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë, a review of which will also appear on BrontëBlog soon.

Categories: Books, Emily Brontë, Jane Eyre

Slept wonderfully well. ― Fine ― & grand clouds. ― Rose at 8. After breakfast ― & toddling about ― wrote several letters. ― & then came one from S.W.C. very nice & kind. Then walked with J.C. to the schools ― & to Mr. Winn’s: very nice people apparently. Map of Lincolnshire ― walk in grounds &c. ― Mrs. J.C. gone out for the day. ― J. & I lunch. Afterwards ― 1.30 ― returned to walk. Meadows ― flat ― canal ― river ― flat, & then up the Wolds, which I call Moab mountains. Wonderfully pretty village, ‘Saxby’ in trees &c. View from top. The Humber. Broad distances ―: walk across wolds; pine avenue exquisite green field, & white sheep with trees & villages & plain & vast ruin certainly one of the very grandest river views I know. ―

Returned to the level, & walked by canal. Canal [Treksk ] boat ― cut thro’ fields. Tumble into ditch of black mud. Home by 6½, having greatly enjoyed the walk. ― J.E.C. is always the same.

The Winns were here at our return. ―

Dined at 7½ ― but John had been called away to a remote christening, so only Pussy & I were there ― but he came in at 8.30. ― Evening short ― we looked over Roberts’ Holy Land. ―

XX13

A: … went to a new living & was not aware that the Squire was waited for. “When the wicked man―” began he ― “ye munna go on ―” rose up & spoke the clerk. ― “he hath na come yet! ―”

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

What do a YA novel and a French essay about the pleasures of reading have in common? You guessed it: Brontë references:

Back Creek
by Leslie Goetsch
Publisher: Bancroft Press (February 15, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1890862525
ISBN-13: 978-1890862527

It’s the summer of 1975. Eighteen-year-old Grace Barnett knows she should be preparing to leave for college in September. But a strange Memorial Day boating accident on the creek near her Virginia home—she’s the only witness to the apparent suicide—kicks off a series of events that will define her family’s future as well as her emerging view of life. (...)
Grace’s story, like the Romantic novels she’s obsessed with, is layered, full of symbolism, and rife with issues for discussion, making it a near-perfect coming-of-age story for high school students. And thus, like the Jane Austen and Bronte sisters’ classics Grace so admires, Back Creek is ideal for classroom use at any school—public, parochial, or independent.

Two blog reviews clarify the Brontë references:

Books and Movies:

Grace copes by visiting her friend Cal, a 25-year-old Vietnam vet who was discharged for medical reasons but has no visible injury, and by re-reading her favorite gothic novels, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Life in the thumb:

How can you not connect with this young girl? She lives inside her two favorite novels, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. They're the one constant in her life that she can depend on, that and Back Creek itself.

Petite nuit
de Marianne Alphant
Publisher : POL (10 January 2008)
ISBN-10: 284682228X
ISBN-13: 978-2846822282

Petite nuit évoque ces images arrêtées où l'on se revoit en train de lire – à genoux sur le tapis d'un salon, allongée dans l'herbe, réfugiée dans une embrasure avec, selon les cas et les époques, L'Auberge de l'Ange-Gardien, La Guerre du feu ou La Légende de saint Julien l'Hospitalier. Scènes comme hors du temps, fondatrices, sans qu'on sache au juste pourquoi cette page, ce moment, cette lumière, cette position, ont ainsi résisté à l'oubli, aussi tenaces et inexplicables que des souvenirs-écrans. (...)
Quitte à mélanger sans fin les figures de cette addiction, Stendhal racontant Waterloo à une petite fille, une séance de tables tournantes chez Victor Hugo, Dostoïevski réclamant des livres à son frère, Freud montrant sa collection d'antiques, une soirée de poésie chez Madame Récamier, Madeleine Blanchet traversant la rivière en portant le champi, Gwynplaine découvrant un bébé dans la neige, Winnicott au chevet d'une patiente, la Comtesse de Ségur dans son château des Nouettes et Monseigneur son fils en pèlerinage chez des extatiques, Viennet reçu à l'Académie, Énée conduit chez les morts par la Sibylle, Charlotte Brontë écoutant le vent souffler sur la lande et les tombes de ses sœurs, et ainsi de suite jusqu'au trisaïeul Alfred Bougeault rédigeant son Précis historique et chronologique de la littérature française. (Google translation)

Categories: Books, References

Lights in the Harbour by John Atkinson Grimshaw

Painting of the Day Archive

 

Artists and art historians in the classical tradition like to point out the close relationship that art and science enjoyed from the Renaissance. Mathematical perspective, anatomical study of human and animal figures, geology, and meteorology all played serious roles in the fine arts.

This week the exhibition“Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts” opens at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England. It features a number of contemporary reactions in the fine arts to the publication of Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1859). One of its most stunning works is by the Pre-Raphaelite painter William Dyce (Scotland, 1806-1864).

Dyce was an ardent Anglican who had painted several religious works. In 1858 he traveled to Southeastern England. There it had become fashionable for professionals and amateurs alike to dig ancient urchins, plants, and brachiopods from the chalk cliffs of Kent. At the time, there was no widely accepted scientific or religious theory to explain the fossils. It was not until one year later that Dawin published his own ideas and ignited a firestorm.

During the firestorm, from 1859 to 1860, Dyce painted Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858. The title is a double entendre, referring both to his own memory of the scene and the collective rediscovery of relics from the dinosaur age. At first glance it looks like a typical, nineteenth-century landscape filled with well-bred people. Therein lies one of its great strengths: the commentary that behind something seemingly so ordinary there is a much greater issue at stake.

The painting itself has all the hallmarks of the best Pre-Raphaelite works: brilliant coloring, meticulous detail, careful observation, and poignancy of theme. For me, it is one of the great paintings of the 1850s, and one of the least known.

India Knight's column today in The Sunday Times contains the following paragraph which shows clear parallels with the situation of governesses in Charlotte Brontë's times. Check it out:

If your child’s tutor is so clever, so qualified, so possessed of all the magical transformative powers that parents will themselves to believe in, why are they tutoring some brat for cash? It can’t all be to do with Jane Eyre fantasies or the opportunity to holiday in exotic places while being treated like a member of staff (although actually people never know what to do with tutors. They’re hired help, but reasonably clever hired help. Do they eat with the au pair or eat with the family? Such are the ludicrous quandaries of the well-to-do). No: the truth of the matter is that the well educated are available to teach your children because that is, right now, the only career path available to them. Ironic, innit?

William Boyd publishes an article about parks and literature in The Guardian putting the Brontës into the category of rural writers:

Rural novelists (a baker's dozen in no particular order): Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, John Cowper Powys, Elizabeth Bowen, John Fowles, DH Lawrence, Walter Scott, Bruce Chatwin, Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë, John Buchan, William Trevor, Elizabeth Gaskell.

The Washington Times reviews Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger:

There are hints of the dark anger that pervades Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" in this latter-day gothic masterpiece in which Ms. Waters has dexterously set rigid British class conflicts in a subtly eerie setting. This is no easily defined ghost story, because the evil manifestation is only part of the gradual devastation not only of the memorably named house, but of its occupants who once lived an enviable existence. The author has captured sociological change and woven it into the supernatural. She skillfully portrays the strange and sinister force gathering at Hundreds Hall, where its targets are the remnants of the Ayres family, once privileged and wealthy patrons of the community. (Muriel Dobbin)

The Burnley Express talks about the much-awaited meeting of a couple of penpals from both sides of the pond. We are delighted to read that

Nicola, who works for Burnley Council, ensured 37-year-old Marsha saw some of the region's finest attractions including the Brontë's home at Haworth and Burnley's Singing Ringing Tree.

Bookbytes reviews Wuthering Heights, Le fil d'archal posts about the Brontës (in French and with the inclusion of the G.H. Lewes portrait so often mistaken by an Emily Brontë one). Both The Sound of Butterflies (the blog of the author Rachael King) and The Rainbow Notebook review briefly Wuthering Heights 2009.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights

Slept ill, woke at sunrise, & beholding the clear sky & red tiles & chimney=pots, ―― thought of Southern places in spite of myself. ―

Rose at 7 ― breakfast at 7½ ― in Hansen’s lower room ―: Mrs. H. very fat: ― little Rose a nice child.

At 8 ― cab ― (which the horse “came to grief” at Tottenham Court road ― & I had to get another,) to King’s Cross. Train at 9.20. ― Very pleasant & quick to Peterborough. ― Thence slower. Boston & Louth Churches, & great beauty of endless plains of cultivation. At Ulceby by 3 ― after much pleasure in the going: & by 4 to Brigg, where a servant & Dogcart met me. Down to Appleby ― most quiet village & picturesque. John & E. Cross ― & their home ― all very nice & [sound] ― & beautiful. Walk with J.C. & afterwards with both. Dinner: a very happy evening ― till late ― say 11.

Any snipes here? ― (Tourist’s query.)
Lashins on ’em, your honor! ― (Irish lad.
Any ducks? ―――――
The lake is paved with ’em!
Any barometers?
I best had ― thirty ―― & then mysteriously ―
“Whiles: at night!”

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Some recent non-English books with Brontë content. A couple of travel books in French and Portuguese:

Demeures de l'esprit III
Renaud Camus

Éditions Fayard
Date de Parution : 10/06/2009
Collection : Littérature Française
ISBN : 9782213637709

Ce volume est le troisième des Demeures de l’esprit, le deuxième (et le dernier) de ceux qui sont consacrés aux Iles britanniques : après le Sud et le Centre de l’Angleterre, plus le Pays de Galles, c’est cette fois le Nord de l’Angleterre,
l’Ecosse et l’Irlande que nous parcourons en compagnie de Renaud Camus, auteur et photographe. Le dramatis personnae n’a rien à envier à celui du livre frère puisqu’il va des sœurs Brontë à Joyce, de Laurence Sterne à Yeats, de Sir Walter Scott à George Bernard Shaw en passant par Synge, Carlyle ou Barrie, le père assez ambigu de Peter Pan. William Wordsworth n’a pas moins de trois maisons aujourd’hui ouvertes au public tandis que Robert Burns, le poète national de l’Ecosse, en a quatre ! (Google translation)

Passaporte
Viagens de 1994-2008
by Maria Filomena Mónica
Colecção: N I
Editora: Alêtheia, 2009

This travel book apparently mentions Brontë country as we read on Vidas Alternativas:

Filomena Mónica estudou em Oxford, gosta da Inglaterra, das suas gentes, leis e cultura, di-lo abertamente, os seus passeios por onde Dickens, Emily Brontë, Thomas Hardy ou Robert Louis Stevenson viveram e escreveram comovem-nos. (Google translation)

Categories: Books, References

Symphony in Blue and Pink by James McNeill Whistler

Painting of the Day Archive