Brontë Parsonage Blog

Red House: speak to councillors

2012-01-29T20:16:00.000Z

A public meeting of the Spen Valley Area Committee of Kirklees Council is scheduled for this Tuesday (31 January) in the Cleckheaton Town Hall, Bradford Road, BD19 3RH at 7pm. As the 'cabinet' meeting of the Council on 7 February is going to be closed to the public, this is one of few chances left to actually speak with councillors in the hope of influencing them to keep the Red House Museum in Gomersal open.

If you can make it, meet at 6.30pm outside the front entrance.

Must their world disappear in stages?

2012-01-29T17:30:00.002Z

ISM writes

We must protect theviews the Brontës loved was the headline to an article which appeared in lastSaturday’s (21 January) Telegraph Weekend. Well of course anyone who knows the area whichgave such inspiration to that literary family would agree wholeheartedly. Apparentlynot Bradford Council which is including Haworth and its neighbouring WorthValley villages in the plans to see 48,500 houses built within its boundariesby 2028.

Andrew McCarthy, director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum is quoted in the article as saying thatthe Brontës themselves lived on the dividing line between industry and untamedmoorland and that the walk to enter another world is not very far.

The fear isthat this world will disappear in stages. The Reverend Peter Mayo-Smith, vicarof the village’s St Michael and All Angels church, which has been thevictim of criminals and vandals who have stripped lead from the roof threetimes in the last eighteen months, says he finds solace in walks on the moor. Evenwhen the wind is strong and the rain lashing he describes these lonely expansesas wonderful.

Charlotte Brontë,after her sister’s death, wrote how Emily too loved the moors and found in thebleak solitude many and dear delights and not the least and best loved wasliberty.

Just as the Brontëswere always drawn back to the area for inspiration, those of us who follow intheir footsteps hope that if there has to be future development it will be donesensibly and with respect.

More Precious Than Rubies - Red House Museum

2012-01-25T16:06:00.002Z

Last week, Kirklees Council made public its budget proposals.

In addition to the recently publicised reduction in the opening times ofMuseums and Galleries across Kirklees, the proposals now include the completeclosure of Red House Museum in Gomersal.

If these proposals are passed, Red House would be closed in Septemberand the buildings sold - not necessarily as a museum.

Red House was built in 1660 and was the home of the Taylor Family until1920. It has important Brontë connections and is now furnished as a homein the 1830s when Charlotte Brontë was a frequent visitor. Red House, theTaylor family and the Spen Valley area were all featured in Charlotte Brontë'snovel Shirley.

Also on site are the recreated 1830s gardens, the restored Barn whichillustrates the numerous Brontë connections in the area and the renovatedCartsheds which houses the 'Spen Valley Stories' gallery.

Last year the site received almost 30,000 visitors and was recentlyawarded its second Sandford Award for the quality of its heritage educationalservices for schools. The site is an important asset for Kirklees andlocal businesses as a tourist destination which attracts visitors from all overthe world to the area.

Unlike Council Services which can be cut and reinstated in bettereconomic times, if the proposal to close and sell the site were passed anextremely important part of Spen Valley's heritage would be lost forever.

Richard Wilcockswrites:

So the Communities andLeisure Service department of Kirklees Council is recommending that the RedHouse Museum in Gomersal should be closed down in less than nine months. Justlike that! Once again, a local authority is calculating that a short-termcapital gain and a removal of dedicated museum staff is going to make up forthe loss of one of Kirklees’s few tourist attractions, which is much more thana museum and a learning centre. It could be put on a list of nationaltreasures. It is important not only for those dismissed in the official impactstatement as ‘Brontë enthusiasts’ (note that these come after the localbusinesses in the sentence) but for anyone who believes that the most fittingmemorial to Mary Taylor, a highly significant historical figure, not onlybecause of her lifelong friendship with Charlotte Brontë, is the museumsituated in her house. Perhaps that should be national memorial – let’s move beyond the parochial.

I well remember a booklaunch of about a decade ago, held in the Red House grounds: Joan Bellamy, whowas at the time a member of Brontë Society Council, had just published MorePrecious than Rubies, a titlewhich has Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Brontë, Strong Minded Woman underneath it. All present were complimentaryabout Red House, its exhibitions and the expertise to be found within its red-brick walls,and they were not just being polite. It was described as a great aid for thoseconcerned with education – and if proof is needed that the place is still agreat aid, look online at this document. Explaining her title, Joan saidthat it could easily apply to the museum as well, which she greatly admired.

Now the treasure could besold off – apparently, one quick-off-the-mark developer has already suggestedthat the seventeenth century building could be converted into very desirable flats, and that achic little bistro could be put into it as well.

The Council Cabinet are to meet on 7th February. There is to be nopublic consultation but they are inviting 'public dialogue'. The wholeset of proposals – including overviews of the council spending and the approachof each directorate – is available on the Council website .

Comments can be made on the website, via a local Councillor or by e-mailto consultation@kirklees.gov.uk

Brontë Society Chair SallyMcDonald is busy writing letters about this, and plenty of other people (no,you don’t have to be a Society member) are using their keyboards to sendemails. You as well? Letters to newspaper editors, protests to local MPs,messages to local radio and television – you could affect the outcome. The list below is not exhaustive, so please include your own contacts. Youdon’t have to be resident in Kirklees. Or England.

BBC Look North – christa.ackroyd@bbc.co.uk

Calendar – ITV Yorkshire –calendar@itv.com

Radio Leeds – layla.painter@bbc.co.uk

Yorkshire Post – yp.newsdesk@ypn.co.uk

Yorkshire Evening Post – eped@ypn.co.uk

Huddersfield DailyExaminer – editor@examiner.co.uk

Batley & Birstall News– batleyeditorial@ywng.co.uk

News Editor of SpenboroughGuardian – Margaret.heward@ywng.co.uk

Mirfield Reporter – dewsburyeditorial@ywng.co.uk

News Team at MorleyObserver – Erica.madelin@ypn.co.uk

Our friends at Brontë Blog have started a petition. Find it here.

See the Red House ('Briarmains' in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley) here in panoramic view.

Buy a Stella Vine print

2012-01-10T18:40:00.000Z

StellaVine is considered by some to be a ‘controversial’ artist because her portraitsare of figures ranging from model Kate Moss to footballer Didier Drogba, and herWarhol-related style could be described as ‘child-like.’ Television art punditWaldemar Januszczak described her as having “acombination of empathy and cynicism that can be startling”.

She is currently painting a portrait of the Brontësisters to raise much-needed funds for St Michael and All Angels Church inHaworth, which has just a few days left to raise £27,000: English Heritage hasset 20 January as the deadline for its offer to add a further £100,000.

The church roof needed seeing to even before thievesstripped lead from it – three times in the last eighteen months. EnglishHeritage gave church fundraisers a target of £65,000 and brave efforts havebeen made – but there is still that £27,000 to go.

You canbuy a print made from the painting for just £150, and your advance orders areimportant, for the reason mentioned above. There will be a total of one hundredonly. To order one, email your details to stellavinestudio@gmail.com or go to this website

More on the manuscript...

2011-12-28T12:05:00.001Z

Colin Randall (ex-Daily Telegraph, contributor to Abu Dhabi's The National, lives in France) has written a full and clear account of the events at Sotheby's for his France Salut blog:

http://www.francesalut.com/2011/12/bronte-in-paris-shame-about-haworth.html#more

It seems that the the French museum would be very willing to lend the little book to the Parsonage for an exhibition at some time in the future, and that it would have been willing to go up to a million pounds...

Manuscript will not come home

2011-12-15T14:18:00.000Z

News Release from the Parsonage:

The Brontë Society has been thwarted in its attempts to return an important Charlotte Brontë manuscript to the writer’s home in Haworth, West Yorkshire, now the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

The manuscript, which went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London on Thursday 15 December, was previously untraced and unpublished. It was expected to fetch between £200,000 - £300,000, though in the end sold for £580,000. The Society had been awarded a grant of £613,140 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), the UK’s fund of last resort for saving great heritage at risk. There was also support from the John Murray Archive, who pledged £20,000, the Friends of National Libraries, £10,000, and many donations in response to a public appeal launched by the Society.

Unfortunately, this was not enough on the day as the hammer price plus the significant buyer’s commission took the final price to above the amount of money we could raise.

The miniature manuscript, or ‘little book’, measures just 35 x 61mm, but its 20 pages contain more than 4000 words of tiny script, produced by the young Charlotte Brontë in September 1830 when she was 14 years old. It is part of the second series of ‘The Young Men’s Magazines’ inspired by a set of toy soldiers bought for Branwell Brontë by his father in 1826. The series consists of six ‘little books’ four of which are already in the museum’s collection with the final one still remaining untraced.

Bonnie Greer, President of the Brontë Society, said:

This 'Little Book' puts down in luminous prose not only the daydreams of a little Yorkshire girl, but it also contains the seed of the work of one of the greatest writers in the English language, Charlotte Brontë. It will not be going home, back to the place where it all began, the Parsonage at Haworth.

Its presence there would have placed it not only at the heart of the proud community in which she was born and raised, but would have brought full circle a Yorkshire story, a Northern story, a British story, a world story. We are hugely grateful to all those who supported our bid to bring this wonderful manuscript back to Haworth, especially the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

These remarkable miniature manuscripts are amongst the most popular of exhibits with visitors to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, but also of great scholarly interest. In particular, they chart Charlotte Brontë’s development as a writer and reveal how many of her early themes carry over into her published novels. The first piece in this manuscript recounts how a murderer is driven to madness after being haunted by his victims, and how ‘an immense fire’ burning in his head causes his bed curtains to set alight, prefiguring the well-known scene in Jane Eyre, in which Rochester’s insane wife sets light to his bed curtains.

Andrew McCarthy, Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum, said:

This is unquestionably the most significant Brontë manuscript to come to light in decades and an important part of our broader literary heritage. It belongs in Haworth and we are bitterly disappointed that scholars and members of the public may now not have the opportunity to study and enjoy it as part of our public collection. We very much hope that we will be able to establish contact with the new owner.

* The manuscript was acquired by Le Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits, which is situated at 222, Boulevard St Germain in Paris. Apparently, there are plans to put it on display in January.

Manuscript belongs in Haworth

2011-11-15T15:57:00.001Z

News release:

The Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, West Yorkshire is appealing for help from funding bodies and members of the public to acquire an important Charlotte Brontë manuscript which is to be auctioned at Sothebys in London on Thursday 15 December.

The manuscript, previously untraced and unpublished, is expected to fetch between £200,000 - £300,000 and contains three works by the young Charlotte Brontë, produced in September 1830 when she was 14 years old. It is part of a series of manuscripts known as ‘The Young Men’s Magazines’ which were inspired by a box of toy soldiers bought for Branwell Brontë by his father in 1826.

The soldiers sparked a remarkable burst of creativity from the young Brontës who began creating stories which were handwritten into tiny books intended for the toy soldiers to ‘read’. Their minute scale and miniature details, such as title pages and advertisements, were modelled on a popular publication of the time, Blackwood’s Magazine. The Brontë Museum has the largest collection of these little manuscript books in the world and they are amongst the most popular exhibits with visitors and have also been the subject of much scholarly research in recent years.

The little books chart Charlotte Bronte’s development as a writer and reveal how many of her early themes carry over into her published novels. The first piece in the manuscript to be sold at Sotheby’s recounts how a murderer is driven to madness after being haunted by his victims, and how ‘an immense fire’ burning in his head causes his bed curtains to set alight, prefiguring the well-known scene in Charlotte’s novel, Jane Eyre, in which Rochester’s insane wife sets light to his bed curtains.

This manuscript is currently in a private collection and has never previously been published. It’s certainly the most significant Brontë manuscript to come to light in decades, but we should also see this as a national treasure with significance to our broader literary heritage. It would be very sad indeed if this wonderful manuscript were not repatriated or was again lost to a private collection. We feel very strongly that it belongs here in Haworth and we’re appealing for people to get in touch if they can help us raise the funds to make sure it does return, so that visitors can enjoy it, either here at the museum or through our on-line resources.

Andrew McCarthy

Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum

As an independent charity the museum is constantly trying to raise funds to support its work, a fundamental part of which is seeking to acquire such important Brontë material and making it accessible to the public.

It’s very difficult for us to compete in a market where these items can fetch such high prices and we need the support of organizations and individuals to make sure that they are returned to Haworth. If anyone feels they can make a financial contribution to help us, this would be very much appreciated

Andrew McCarthy

Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum

Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights

2011-11-07T17:15:00.001Z

Richard Wilcocks writes:
Haretondisturbed me the most in this film based on Wuthering Heights. Dour before his time, he appearsnow and then in the early scenes, a dirty blonde-haired urchin, to gawp atvisitors, or to witness violent abuse from the sidelines. In the final scene,he is seen hanging up dogs by their collars, and we know where he got thatfrom. Thedepiction of Hareton is one of the pointers to the ‘cruelty breeds cruelty’ message inAndrea Arnold’s film – and in Emily Brontë’s novel, if that can be seen,glibly, as a straight deliverer of messages. Considerable respect has beenshown to the original: a fair amount of thought and research seems to have goneinto finding out what might have been in Emily Brontë’s mind and how she saw hercharacters, and into the late eighteenth century in Yorkshire. All theartefacts – stoneware jars, spades for digging out peat and so on – look as ifthey have been borrowed from a folk museum, the costumes appear to beauthentic, and Heathcliff is black.

Allperfectly credible. In the novel he is described variously as “a little Lascar”and “a dark-skinned gypsy in appearance” and he was found in the slaving portof Liverpool. The Lascars of the time were seamen who had been recruited fromplaces like Bengal or Yemen, with thousands living in England in the time ofthe Brontës, many with white British wives. Gypsies, with distant roots inIndia, had been travelling around Europe for centuries. More to the point,Emily was well-acquainted with the evils of the Slave Trade (abolished in 1807,just after the action of Wuthering Heights) through her father, who had beenhelped out as a poor student at Cambridge by no less than William Wilberforce.She would have known about the magnificent Yorkshire mansions built with thewealth created on slave-powered plantations in Jamaica, Harewood House nearLeeds for example, and about the Sill family of Dentdale, which owned two ships called The Dent and The Pickering. The Sills were said to havekept slaves instead of regular servants at West House, their large, colonial-stylebase in the Dales, now renamed Whernside Manor and redesignated as an outdoor pursuits centre. It is just a walk away fromCowan Bridge - I have done it. And the Sills must have known cotton magnate and pillar of theAnglican Church John Sidgwick, whose young children were such a tribulation forCharlotte Brontë during her time as a governess at Stone Gappe...

*Watch the trailer here

Theunknown James Howson from Leeds was cast as the adult Heathcliff, with theequally unknown Solomon Glave as his young version. We do not find out whichlanguage he speaks when he first arrives, because there is very little by way of speakingin the whole film. It is not dialogue-free: a few sentences andphrases from the novel are employed, rather like the quotes a candidate might fish out foran A-level essay, with more of them in the film’s second half, after Heathcliff’sreturn, than in the first. At other times, the words which the characters useseem to have grown from improvisation sessions, giving the action a kind of KenLoach feel at times. Those words are more brutal than in, say, Loach’s Kes, and come as quite a shock tothose who are accustomed to dialogue which has been passed through a Victorianfilter. To leave out most of Emily Brontë’s beautiful prose – and the secondhalf of her story, as usual – are bold moves which a few literary folk might findoutrageous. I can fully understand the opinions of those who might describe thefilm as ‘coarse and disagreeable’, but then the structure of the novel does notmatch the needs of the cinema. Unlike Cary Fukunaga, who retained as many ofCharlotte’s words as possible in his Jane Eyre, Andrea Arnold has gone in anopposite direction, because she has decided not to bother with conventionalcostume dramas.

She doesnot go down the route of, for example, Penny Woolcock, who used a large numberof Shakespeare’s words in her 1997 BBC Macbeth on theEstate, in whichresidents of the run-down Ladywood Estate in Birmingham together with a core oftrained actors created an effective screen drama (all baseball bats and drugdealers) which brought out the violence and the moral issues in a classic textand related it to today. This Wuthering Heights relies on cinematography, theimpact of fresh and young actors who have not been to drama school (eat your heart out, Stanislavski), anauthentic period feel and a powerful, often startling harshness. Arnold hassaid that she “had to pick out the things that had resonance to me” and thatshe wanted to give the children plenty of time at the beginning.

This wasa good move, because the children are by far the most interesting. SolomonGlave and Shannon Beer have “not acted before” (hasn't their school got a drama club?), but manage to be fascinating,holding everything together for an hour. Full marks to Arnold there. The storyis told through sounds and sights: we see the boy’s amazement and disorientation when he arrives, Cathy’swarm smile – the only warmth – a feather brushing a cheek, his hand on thehorse’s rump when he rides behind her, his smelling of her hair, the weals onhis back after a beating by Joseph, her mouth as she licks the blood from them,their crude and muddy sexual fumbling out on the moors. Sensual imagery with avengeance! Raw teenage emotion in our faces! And I loved Shannon Beer’scharming rendition of Barbara Allen. She’s a proper wild, wicked slip of a girl.

Irishcinematographer Robbie Ryan won the Golden Osella Award at the last Venice FilmFestival for Best Cinematography, deservedly. His low shots through clumps ofsedge and his panoramas of the moors (filming took place on the bleaker areasaround Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales) are stunning, but what is especiallymemorable is his selection of close-ups of the insects, flowers and smallcreatures to be found in the heather and under the bilberries. I was lookingout for harebells, but did not notice any. Perhaps they were the wrong kind offlower here. The wind sounded right – I recognise that wind – as it batteredthe microphone relentlessly.

I wasappropriately taken aback by the images of slaughtered animals – a sheep hasits jugular severed and a rabbit has its neck broken to match emotions, but I suppose you might see something more traumatising on the sixo’clock news. I am still hopingand trusting that Isabella’s dog was wearing some kind of harness when it wasfilmed being attached to a hook.

Thecreatures of the wild moors a couple of centuries ago have a strongpresent-times feel, because casting in this way has put racial prejudice in theforefront. Heathcliff is full of revengeful passions because he has beenracially abused. The violent skinhead Hindley (Lee Shaw) is notablyfoul-mouthed when he does speak, like an adherent of some far-rightorganisation, and the enforced baptism scene shows that the church used to be prettyshort on tender loving care when it came to new dark-skinned members of thecongregation. The West Yorkshire accents are just right, and could be heard inmany of the streets of 2011. I include my own street in Leeds.

In thesecond half, the adult Heathcliff (James Howson) does not spend long onrelishing his revenge on Hindley, but that is not the only disappointment. BothJames Howson and Kaya Scodelario, who plays the adult Cathy, bear only tokenresemblances to their child counterparts, and have far less presence. Cathy is notdifferentiated from Isabella enough, and seems to be unrelated to her youngerself, which can not be explained away by her sojourn in the sophistication ofThrushcross Grange, where manners (and the mild weather) are always better. It is always raining at Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff seems clumsier and less sympathetic, a fact which is nothelped by James Howson’s lack of acting experience (more forgivable in SolomonGlave), and the close-up shots of flowers and insects which sustained the first halfbecome a little tiresome because they are repeated too often. Ironically, the increased amount of dialogue also becomes irritating, because it is not what we have become accustomed to. James Northcote’sacting as Edgar is fine and faultless, but seems out of place here, as if he has steppedout of another film.

And thatother film could almost be the 1939 version which is at the other end of the spectrum. Still,the Andrea Arnold version is visually stunning, ground breaking, worth seeing, and couldeven draw some in the audience towards reading the book, to discover all that dialogue.And all those harebells.

Look at this new blog

2011-11-06T13:01:00.003Z

The Bronte Weather Project is a year long research residency by Rebecca Chesney based at the Parsonage which began in September 2011. During the residency Rebecca (a visual artist based in Preston) will be studying the local weather patterns and reading Brontë texts to find out how they were influenced and inspired by the weather.

Visit her new blog by clicking here.

Add caption

Bonnie Greer- absolutely magnetic

2011-10-18T13:18:00.003+01:00

Afternoon Tea with Bonnie Greer and the Brontës

Richard Wilcocks writes:
This event was sold out soon after it was announced: the audience walkedpast a group of hopefuls sitting beside the ticket desk, but all seats in StMargaret’s Hall were filled. This was one of the most popular events at thisyear’s Ilkley Literature Festival. On each seat was a pamphlet for people whomight have felt an urge to sign up for the Society.

It is likely that the urge came upon more than a few, because Parsonage Director Andrew Macarthy was pretty convincing as he talked about substantial improvements to theMuseum and the many artists and authors who have participated in itsContemporary Arts programme. He was followed by the eloquent Liz Henry, whospoke on behalf of Brontë Society Council, welcoming Bonnie Greer anddelivering a potted version of her résumé. Chair of Council Sally McDonaldbegan the interview, and soon we were into Wuthering Heights.

“I saw the Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon version at age thirteen...when she said ‘I am Heathcliff’ I understood immediately... the novel brings arealization that we are the only species which knows we are going to come to anend, and it has a woman in it who talks directly about how she feels, aboutlove...

This book doesn’t settle... we are taught that we have to ‘settle down’when we are young... Emily was restless...”

Bonnie Greer related Emily’s condition to herself and her own writing,mentioning Obama Music and the restlessness of Chicago and explaining thatwhen she wrote her novel Entropy, her dominant thoughtswere of synaesthesia. “This is where you smell a word, or see a colour when youread a number...it’s the primitive mind which links everything up... Emily’sstate of being was musicality.

All my work is synaesthetically created... Emily heard the music of herenvironment and it is captured in the words of Wuthering Heights.” SallyMcDonald mentioned that the novel had been compared to an overture with a breakin the middle.

“The Brontës have been prettified in the movie versions I have seen.... butthese are Northern women! And it was appropriate that this man (Heathcliff) wasblack. Look at history, and Liverpool... this part of the world was tied upwith slavery... Wilberforce and Douglass spoke at meetings in Yorkshire whereabolitionists predominated... but there was support in the government for asecret deal with the Confederacy... Emily would have heard the abolitionistarguments...she was born in the same year as Frederick Douglass.”

In Jane Eyre I recognize that refusal not to look down when your bettersare speaking to you – from my own childhood. It’s in Obama Music.”

Tea, scones and cakes followed, all supplied by volunteers from Counciland Parsonage staff, and served to a background of music from the Canzona String Quartet, which visited the Parsonage Library to look at music belonging to and played by the Brontës. They found the original versions of some string quartet movements, which included Locke's overture to Macbeth and Worthy is the Lamb from Handel's Messiah.

Everybody was deeply impressed by the whole event. Liz Henry (pictured below) told the Blog: “BonnieGreer has an amazing ability to hold an audience. She is absolutely magnetic.”

From the publicity department of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden:

ROH 2 in the Linbury StudioTheatre

Yes opens on 22 November

In 2009 the writer and cultural commentator Bonnie Greer was invited toappear on the BBC’s flagship political discussion programme Question Timealongside the leader of a right-wing nationalist political party. The BBC’sdecision to transmit the programme, and Bonnie Greer’s decision to appear init, provoked a storm of discussion. Bonnie has written the libretto for thisbrand-new 'docu-opera' by award-winning composer Errollyn Wallen, which is madefrom Bonnie’s own experiences and from the many public and private responses tothe situation. An ensemble of six musicians, including an electronicsoundscape with the recorded voice of Errollyn Wallen, will accompany acast of eight singers, and Bonnie herself, to play out the emotional andpolitical turmoil of a wide range of individual British citizens, each withtheir own personal and cultural perspective.

October half-term happenings

2011-10-17T15:46:00.005+01:00

News release from the Parsonage:

There are plenty of reasons to visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth this half-term week, with lots to see and lots of activities planned for younger visitors and families. With the critically acclaimed new film version of Jane Eyre in cinemas, the museum’s displays are focusing on its author, Charlotte Brontë; including new displays of her clothes, letters, manuscripts and personal treasures. A new adaptation of Emily’s novel, Wuthering Heights is also released next month and the museum’s special exhibition, Genius: The Brontë Story, explores how these two great books came to be written, and also includes lots of interactive displays for children and families.

My Favourite Thing! will run throughout half-term, every day at 2pm, with members of staff at the museum and volunteers talking about the secret history of some of the most remarkable items in the museum’s collection; whether it be a little book, a brass dog’s collar or Charlotte Brontë’s wedding bonnet, the talks will intrigue young and old alike.

There will also be the opportunity to join local artist, Rachel Lee, for a ‘drop-in’ family workshop on Tuesday 25^th October. Rachel will be demonstrating an ingenious way of turning brightly coloured fleece into little felt creatures and helping children make their own fleecy, furry friend to take home with them. The event takes place throughout the day and is free with admission to the museum.

On the afternoon of Thursday 27^th October, hugely popular children’s author Jacqueline Wilson, will be visiting Haworth to talk about her latest novel Sapphire Battersea and her love of the Brontës. This event is now fully booked.

The museum is open 11am until 5pm daily, with last admission at 4.30pm. www.bronte.info.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Contacts & Further Information:

Andrew McCarthy (Director) – 01535 642323 – andrew.mccarthy@bronte.org.uk

____________________________________________________________________________

Mai più in oscurità

2011-10-11T20:00:00.002+01:00

Maddalena De Leo (Ascea Marina, Italy) sent the Parsonage Blog this introduction to her new novel in Italian - Mai più in oscurità (No more in the dark):

Maria Branwell (1783-1821) was the mother ofCharlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, British authoresses of the early VictorianAge, whose literary fame rests on masterpieces like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. We know very little- if notnothing at all - of Maria and her brief life, beside the fact that she, havingmoved by chance to Yorkshire from her homeland in Cornwall, met and married in1812 a hot-tempered Irish clergyman named Patrick Brontë, giving birth later toa progeny of literary geniuses.

I have always beenfascinated by the premature death of the Brontës’ mother and, above all, by herhomeland, a country incredibly rich in Celtic myths and legends. For thisreason, and being myself a scholar of Charlotte and Emily, I have recentlyvisited (or re-visited) not only all the places connected to the two writers,but also Cornwall, especially Maria’s hometown and house. I had therefore theopportunity to access a whole universe of information, anecdotes, doubts, andassumptions about the somewhat 'obscured' personality of this importantpersonage in the Brontë saga, who has unexplainably been forgotten for abouttwo centuries.

The book is based on realinformation, reliable sources, and above all on my own imagination, because Ithought it was right to 're-invent' – starting with documented material – whatI believe Maria’s life, cheerful character, and superstitions were, from hertwenties to her premature demise.

My starting point was areal event: in February 1850, Charlotte was encouraged by her father to readthe letters Maria had sent him during their engagement. With a leap of fantasy,I then had the creator of Jane Eyre herself write a fictional diary of hermother, to describe and re-live in it Maria’s character, wishes, hopes, andsorrows. In this hypothetical diary, Maria recorded the most important eventsof her life since she was a girl, and could therefore leave us herunintentional autobiography through her own daughter’s literary fame.

In the appendix Itranslated into Italian for the first time the complete text of Maria’sletters, beating heart and inspiration of the whole novel.

Thebook Mai più in oscurità has just been published by Photocity Edizioni and can be ordered at http://ww4.photocity.it/HomePage.aspx#EDIZEXTERN

The Jane Eyre for our times

2011-10-07T10:47:00.000+01:00

Penelope Jenkins writes about a Brontë Society event with the writer of the new film, Moira Buffini, and its producer, Alison Owen, which took place on 17 September.

There have been over 30 film and television adaptations of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre. The latest, showing until October 6th at Warwick Arts Centre, stars Mia Wasikowska as Jane and Michael Fassbender as Mr Rochester. At a recent Brontë Society event the film’s screenwriter, Moira Buffini, and producer, Alison Owen, revealed how they adapted the novel from page to screen.

Producer Alison Owen, known for her previous films Elizabeth and The Other Boleyn Girl was certain that there was room for another film of Jane Eyre. “I didn’t feel that there had been a definitive version and wanted to make a film with a younger Jane – others had been made with an older Jane. The novel is about the discovery of sexuality and emotion," she explains.

Thankfully the film’s backers, BBC Films, didn’t need much persuading to produce a 2011 version, despite BBC television screening its own adaption as recently as 2006. Screenwriter Moira Buffini, with whom Owen previously worked on the film Tamara Drewe, was passionate about the story she wanted to write. “The novel covers society, poverty, women and men, and is not just a love story.” It was her job to distil the novel into 120 minutes of screen time, not an easy task considering the complexity of the novel and its structure. “I could imagine all the scenes dramatically but by the end of the first draft I knew the structure of the book wasn’t going to work on screen,” she says. “Until Jane leaves Thornfield it was going swimmingly. In dramatic terms you want to be tightening everything up and racking up tension, but then introducing a year, a new family and lots of characters didn’t work.”

Buffini’s solution was to begin the film with Jane’s flight from Thornfield Hall. The viewer sees her previous experiences filtered through Jane’s memory. “I think the Rivers are important and really interesting characters,” Buffini explains. “In terms of the austerity of their house and what Jane has been offered by Rochester you can see what her alternative would be.”

Owen and Buffini felt that the story became more powerful when they cut away extraneous material.

Owen and Buffini both recognise that the casualty of this structure and screen time for the Rivers (with Jamie Bell giving an excellent performance as the sympathetic yet repressed St John Rivers) is the amount of screen time devoted to Jane’s formative years at Lowood and her relationship with Helen Burns. Buffini thinks, however, that “because you are looking through Jane’s memory you can be selective”. More scenes at Lowood were shot but Owen and Buffini felt that the story became more powerful when they cut away extraneous material.

There’s powerful chemistry between Jane and Mr Rochester, with the age difference between the actors emphasising Jane’s youth and inexperience. Mrs Fairfax, effortlessly played by Dame Judi Dench, acts as a mother figure, warning Jane to keep Rochester at arms’ length until their wedding, advising that “men don’t often marry their governesses”. Buffini says that they were incredibly lucky with the casting of Wasikowska and Fassbender. “Mia’s intelligence shines through which is one of the qualities that Jane has. Fassbender made Rochester’s authority look effortless. The pair talk each other into love in very difficult language.” Neither actor wanted the language modernising to make it easier to speak.

Ellen Page, the star of the offbeat film Juno, had been the first actress the pair talked to for the part of Jane. Owen is open when it comes to the vicissitudes of casting. They needed an actress who was well known enough to draw in audiences and satisfy the financiers, but who also could equate to the budget. Page was unconfident about tackling the Yorkshire accent (Yorkshire and its moors play a key scenic role in the film) which is when the team talked to Wasikowska. She had been cast as Alice in Tim Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland and showed potential to become a huge star. As Jane they saw a naivety about her, bringing home to the viewer that Jane is experiencing situations and emotions for the first time. Importantly she and Fassbender have the Yorkshire accent down to a tee, belying their Australian and German/Irish roots.

Jane Eyre is, as classic works of fiction go, relatively cheap to make. Jane Eyre, Owen admits with a chuckle, is, as classic works of fiction go, relatively cheap to make. Unlike Pride and Prejudice or Vanity Fair there are no balls, street scenes and sumptuous location changes. The 2011 Jane Eyre, she says, is a film for austerity times on an austerity budget.

The film’s director, Cary Joji Fukunaga, had a clear idea for the way it was to look. Whilst he includes the wild lushness of the Yorkshire scenery there’s also a starkness to his visual direction, making use of low levels of light and gloomy rooms lit by fire or candlelight. Sticking to the original text in an almost documentary way, he avoids the pomp and finery of many classic novel adaptations that become mere heritage productions, bedecked with antiques, carriages and nostalgic representations of yesteryear. In Jane Eyre there’s no unnecessary visual detail.

“We wanted to make the Jane Eyre for our times,” Buffini says. “We wanted to show how modern she still is and how her story is still relevant to us, particularly to young women.” Will this in the future be thought of as the definitive adaptaton? “Someone will come along later and make another for their times,” she says, but the team hope that theirs will be the benchmark from which to measure it by.

Penelope Jenkins is Editorial Assistant for the Knowledge Centre at Warwick University and a member of the Brontë Society. This article first appeared on the Knowledge Centre's website, which can be accessed here.

Contemporary Arts Programme

2011-10-05T16:56:00.003+01:00

News Release from the Parsonage:

Autumn/Winter Contemporary Arts Programme

The Parsonage will launch its new season Contemporary Arts Programme with an event to celebrate National Poetry Day. On Saturday 8 October, poet Aoife Mannix will be resident at the museum throughout the day, inviting visitors to contribute to a crinolined dress ‘poetry installation’. Following the event, Aoife will weave these visitor contributions into new poetry which will be exhibited as a series of poetry installations in the rooms of the Parsonage in November.

Other events in the new programme, which will run from October until March 2012, include an afternoon with hugely popular children’s author Jacqueline Wilson (pictured above) on Thursday 27^th October, and an event with the screenwriter for the upcoming film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, Olivia Hetreed, on Friday 9 December. Both events will take place at the West Lane Baptist Centre in Haworth.

The Parsonage will also launch a new project with Artist in Residence Rebecca Chesney. Preston-based artist Rebecca will be setting up a weather station at the Parsonage to record weather readings over the next twelve months. She will then cross-reference the data with descriptions of weather in the Brontës’ letters and novels to compare how the weather in Haworth has changed since the Brontës’ day. Working with local people to collect the information, Rebecca will use her research to create an exhibition of new work for the museum next summer.

A full list of events in the new contemporary arts programme is listed below:

Aoife Mannix: Poet in Residence

Saturday 8 October 2011

Brontë Parsonage Museum

To mark National Poetry Day, poet Aoife Mannix will be resident at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. She will be asking visitors to contribute lines of text to a crinolined dress installation that will evolve throughout the day into a sculptural piece. Aoife Mannix will weave these visitor responses into new poetry inspired by her residency, which will be exhibited as a series of poetry installations in the rooms of the Parsonage from 8^th November 2011 until 1 January 2012.

Aoife Mannix is an Irish writer and poet based in London. Her first novel Heritage of Secrets was published in 2008. She is the author of four collections of poetry; The Trick of Foreign Words (2002), The Elephant in the Corner (2005), Growing Up An Alien (2007) and Turn The Clocks Upside Down (2008). She is currently poet in residence for BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live and for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Free with admission to the museum. Event takes place throughout the day.

Thursday 27 October, 2pm

Jacqueline Wilson

West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth

One of the nation’s favourite authors, Jacqueline Wilson visits Haworth to read from and talk about her work, including her new book Sapphire Battersea.

Jacqueline Wilson wrote her first ‘novel’ when she was nine years old. She has since gone on to write over forty books, and creating enduring characters such as the famous Tracy Beaker. Her books are loved and cherished by young readers all over the world, and have won numerous prizes including the Children’s Book of the Year, the Smarties Medal and the Children’s Book Award. In 2002 Jacqueline was awarded the OBE for services to literacy in schools and from 2005 to 2007 she was Children’s Laureate. In 2008 she became Dame Jacqueline Wilson. Jacqueline Wilson is also a great admirer of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and she has written the introduction to the Whites Pocket Classic edition of the novel.

Tickets: £5 and must be booked in advance.

Special ticket offer for talk with admission to the museum: £8.40 adult; £6.80 child.

Bookings: jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk/ 01535 640188.

Age guidance 8 + and children should be accompanied by a ticket buying adult.

Olivia Hetreed: Wuthering Heights

Friday 9 December, 7.30pm

West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth

Andrea Arnold’s new film version of Wuthering Heights will be released in cinemas on 11 November. The film’s screenwriter, Olivia Hetreed, visits Haworth to discuss how she adapted the novel for the screen.

Olivia Hetreed’s first feature film, Girl With a Pearl Earring, was nominated for multiple Oscars and BAFTAs including Best Adapted Screenplay. The film starred Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth and was adapted from the novel by Tracy Chevalier. Olivia Hetreed started her career as a documentary, drama and film editor before moving into screenwriting for ITV drama, including adaptations of What Katy Did, E.Nesbitt’s The Treasure Seekers and The Canterville Ghost.

Tickets £6 and must be booked in advance from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188.

Friday 24 February, 7pm

A horror of great darkness: Gothic from the Brontës to Twilight

West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth

From Dracula to Twilight, the gothic has thrilled, disturbed and drawn out our darker sides for centuries. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights played an important part in the Victorian reinvention of the genre, and continue to have an influence on the contemporary interpretation of the gothic. Dr Catherine Spooner explores our continuing obsession with zombies and vampires, and shows how the gothic influences contemporary culture, from literature and film through to fashion, advertising and music.

Tickets £5 and should be booked in advance from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188.

The Garden of Oblivion

Friday 2 March – Thursday 5 April

Brontë Parsonage Museum

Franklin is an artist based in Brussels, Belgium, and has spent many years creating a body of intricate drawings inspired by the Brontës’ lives and works. Franklin has used brush, pencil, pen and china-ink to create this series of detailed drawings, each work taking months to complete. The small-scale works are layered with symbolism, taking inspiration from the Brontës’ imaginative and spiritual world. Franklin’s work draws heavily on poetry and literature, and has been exhibited in Belgium, including Musee Arts et Marges, Brussels and Ermitage Saint Hadelin, Belgium.

Exhibition free with admission to the museum

Ross Raisin

Wednesday 7 March, 2pm

West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth

Novelist Ross Raisin discusses his new novel, Waterline.

Ross Raisin was born in Silsden in 1979. He went to Bradford Grammar School, studied English at King’s College London and has an MA in Creative Writing from Goldsmith’s University.

His debut novel, God’s Own Country was published to critical acclaim in 2008, and tells the dark tale of a teenage farmer’s son living on the Yorkshire Moors. Ross was shortlisted for 8 separate awards for the book, including the Guardian First Book Award, John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and Portico Prize, and won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2009. He lives in London.

Tickets £5 and should be booked in advance from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188.

For further information please contact the Arts Officer:

01535 640188

jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk

www.bronte.info

New Wuthering Heights survey

2011-10-02T11:41:00.000+01:00

Paul Daniggelis writes:

This brief survey below was prompted by reviews and trailers of the new

It is primarily designed to satisfy my curiosity of how people see WH.

Wuthering Heights (WH) film presentation by Andrea Arnold.

It is not a requirement that you have seen this version but if you

respond to these questions it would help if you note that you have seen it.

You may explain or not any of your answers as you will.

You may pass the Survey on to others who may wish to respond

but it is primarily designed for those who have an abiding interest

in the Bronte legacy, not for the casual observer.

I will at the appropriate time compile the results for the perusal

of all who respond.

If you would like to ask your own questions regarding this new film

please do so.

Thank you for your responses.

1A. Do you consider WH to be primarily a Romantic novel?

1B A novel of Obsession and Revenge?

1C Other?

2A In your opinion is Heathcliff evil?

2B A person to be admired?

2C A product of an abusive background?

2D A sympathetic character

2E Other?

3A In your opinion is Cathy selfish?

3B Confused?

3C Normal?

3D Other?

We know there is sex in WH but it is not explict.

4 Will you welcome explicit sex scenes in WH?

People use offensive language all the time. Presumably

there was explicit language excised from WH.

5. Will you welcome explicit langauge in the new WH

including the "N", "F" and "C" words?

Interpreters of the Brontes and their novels have

occasionally implied "incest" as part of either their

lives or their novels or both.

6. Will you welcome the introduction of incest as a theme in WH?

Ms Arnold has filmed only half the novel as has Hollywood far more often than not.

7. Can you accept yet another half-told story?

The film cast a black person for the first time in a Bronte story.

8A Do you find this offensive?

8B Acceptable?

8C Other?

9. In this politically correct world, will your opinion of Heathcliff be

altered because he is black in this film?

Thank you for your interest.

Paul Daniggelis

El Paso, Texas, USA

urbisoler@aol.com

Review - We are Three Sisters

2011-09-15T16:36:00.003+01:00

Photo by Nobby Clark

Richard Wilcocks writes:
BlakeMorrison’s new play We are Three Sisters has opened at the Viaduct Theatre in Halifax’sDean Clough, and will soon be touring – see the previous blog post for fulldetails. It starts with a hymn, charmingly sung by the sisters and theirbrother, before the three young women make their way past gravestones to entera space with a dining table, wherethey sit at their little writing desks. Charlotte talks about the death of hermother (I remember them carrying the coffin out and the organ swirling fromchurch and a handful of mourners, black as crows.) This, the audience mightguess, is going to be another tale of woe. It is definitely not just that.

Humour isthere in abundance, and funnily enough, it works. From what I remember of thelast time I saw a production of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, which was used as the template,there were a few titters and no belly-laughs, but Morrison is far from slavish:he dips into the Chekhovian pot to take what he needs, and manages to find someuncanny connections between the Prozorovs and the Brontës. This has been done before – it ishighly probable that Chekhov read a Brontë biography in Russian, and directorsof his play have sometimes made Brontë references, but Morrison has createdsomething which is new and remarkable. We are Three Sisters (title taken from what Charlottesaid to publisher George Smith during her trip to London revealing that thesurname was not Bell) is partly a work of homage to the great Russian, but alsoa work of homage to Juliet Barker, who advised the playwright, who must havedipped into The Brontës frequently.

Games areplayed with the chronology. Although the action is in early 1848, there is abog-burst, and the curate is a version of William Weightman, who died in 1840.There is some witty interference with historical facts as well, which addsamusing artistic verisimilitude, for example when Mrs Robinson turns up at theParsonage along with the lovestruck Branwell, and Charlotte and Anne come across themsnogging.

All ofthe sisters are impressively presented to us: our disbelief is truly suspended. Thepillar portrait hangs above the fireplace, and the sisters on stage bear astrong physical resemblance to Branwell’s depictions, especially Emily. Sophiadi Martino seems to have studied the painting carefully while psyching herselfinto the part, fixing her mouth to match the one in the painting. She isforthright and challenging, furiously protecting her identity, a parallel forMasha, the quick-tempered one, though Masha is the victim of an early marriage,and this Emily’s husband is all in her imagination, a man who gets so close hecould be part of her, she tells us. Di Martino is particularly compelling. CatherineKinsella’s Charlotte is maternal and caring, just like Olya over there in theRussian backwater, and her reactions to the letters which arrive from Londonare a joy. Significant decisions are made in London, where there are so many beautiful sights and interesting people! Rebecca Hutchinson conveys the romanticism and fading naivety ofAnne with great skill, especially in her encounters with the flirty curate, ageneral approximation for the lovesick Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin, acharacter who is fond of expounding on the way the world is going, or shouldgo, and who was played originally by Constantin Stanislavski himself. Anne is also addressed affectionately as a seagull by the doctor. A knowing wink from Morrison?

WilliamWeightman was obviously a charmer, but his flirtations were within strictboundaries as far as we know, confined to smiles and Valentine cards. Thecurate here (Marc Parry) is also charming, but rather brash at times, soundinglike someone with a social conscience in the twentieth century. He brings inthe Chartists, who were, I suppose, well before their time. Morrison’scharacterisation is perfectly logical, linking with the Year of Revolutions,and he does not push things too far by, say, mentioning FeargusO’Connor and mass demonstrations.

Patrickis sweet and bumbling, an excellent Ulster-accented performance fromex-comedian Duggie Brown, and Eileen O’Brien is simply brilliant as Tabby, thesoul of Yorkshire, with a blunt manner which was very recognisable for thisaudience, and which raised the biggest laughs of the evening. Branwell (GarethCassidy) stamps around wonderfully, a spoilt puppy if ever there was one – likeAndrei in the Chekhov, who brings in his love, the lower-class Natasha, to spoilthe atmosphere and hound the servants.

Natashain the Morrison is a startlingly vulgar Lydia Robinson. She is just a step ortwo away from Mrs Bucket, or even the Widow Twankey, but Becky Hindley pulls itoff, stopping short of pantomime, truly hideous in a glaring green outfit(colour of bad luck for Chekhov) and providing a powerful contrast for thegrey-clad and unfashionable sisters. She treats poor Tabby with utter contempt(A pot of tea would be nice. (To TABBY) Did you hear, tea? Don’t just standthere when I’m talking to you. Go on. Move.) Appalling!

Morrisonhas drafted in two characters taken from the historical records – the doctor,John Wheelhouse, and the teacher, Ebenezer Rand, well-known in Haworth intheir time. Both give opportunities for memorable vignettes. They areside-characters, not all that much more than two-dimensional beings who bringthe focus more strongly on to the three-dimensional principals, though thedoctor (John Branwell) is given some depth, an ageing, cynical andmaterialistic wooer of Anne with a hipflask always at hand. He is, like theteacher, a complete Morrison invention, though he seems to come out of aDickens novel.

Barrie Rutter is riveting as the even more Dickensian Teacher, whopresses his self-published writing on everyone he converses with - true to thefacts if you heard Ian Dewhirst speak during the June weekend about the manyamateur – and seldom readable - authors around in Haworth in Brontë times. This teacher is a real,Latin-quoting pedant, and I can say that I have met one just like him, largerthan life, the sort of character you steer clear of at parties. The Teacher, orrather Barrie Rutter, shook my hand as I came into the theatre, along with mostof the other members of the audience, because he is the director and this isNorthern Broadsides, the acclaimed Northern Broadsides which gave us thoseterrific Wars of the Roses and which has worked with Blake Morrison before.It’s a company which stamps when others just walk, and I love that.

Chances are, this play will be around for a long time...

Book for Bonnie Greer

2011-09-15T16:18:00.000+01:00

Afternoon Tea with Bonnie Greer and the Brontës is the title of an event which is part of the Ilkley Literature Festival. Tickets are shifting, I am told, so book yours now online here.

It takes place on Sunday 16 October at 3pm in St Margaret's Church Hall, Ilkley. Tickets are £7 - and are not available from the Parsonage. Try ringing the Ilkley box office at 01943 816714 to check availability.

Review - Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre

2011-09-05T18:57:00.003+01:00

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Cary Fukunaga was obviously a tad nervous last Friday evening as he waited in the Parsonage garden, standing with dozens of others waiting for a tour of the house and an exclusive preview of his film, specially organised by the BBC. Presenter Christa Ackroyd soon put him at his ease with professional skill, planting him on a bench amongst the shrubs and asking him questions for BBC Look North. So why make another Jane Eyre movie after all those others? What’s different? This one’s such a contrast with what you’ve done before isn’t it? Your second big one? He explained everything, as he has many times before, mainly on the other side of the Atlantic, with a boyish charm and an endearing directness, but there was something extra in his voice – here he was talking to a woman who knew her stuff, at the celebrated spring, where Charlotte had actually penned the original. “I might not survive the night!” he said at the end of the interview.

He did, no problem: the overwhelming feeling from the audience in the Baptist Chapel in Haworth’s West Lane (the only local building suitable for the screening), judging from the applause and from many comments, was of approval.

The film takes liberties, as it must, but it is loaded with respect for the original text. The adjective ‘faithful’ tends to be over-employed in these matters, but faithful it is, to the spirit of the novel. Some previous versions for the cinema have been the sort of thing to give headaches to those described as ‘purists’, for example the 1918 silent version entitled Woman and Wife in which Rochester believes that Bertha is dead until he is told the truth by Mason, who tries to blackmail him. She then drowns. Fukunaga’s version could just be considered as a very distant relative of the early versions – with spectral figures emerging from gloom – but the plot is well in line with what Charlotte wrote, with a highly competent screenplay by Moira Buffini.

Fukunaga says he was unaware of all other adaptations until the research period, but that he knew the Robert Stevenson/Orson Welles version well. There are a few similarities perhaps, for example in the sheer malignity of Mr Brocklehurst, but many differences: the fresh, feisty nineteen year-old Mia Wasikowska of 2011 contrasts drastically with the romantically tremulous Joan Fontaine of 1943.

Viewers who have read the book might be a little disorientated at the beginning, because the film begins with Jane’s distraught flight from Thornfield and her progress across bleak moorland until she finds refuge with St John Rivers and his sisters. The flashbacks follow – and there is plenty of space given to Lowood. It was clever to adopt the non-linear approach because it allows interest to be maintained right up until the end, enhances the suspense, puts St John in a significant position and “allows all the scenes to be peppered over the movie to keep them watching” in Fukunaga’s words. The director was worried about Charlotte’s final chapter, which he thought was “the weakest”. The ending he provides is appropriately brief and cameo-like, Rochester and Jane under a tree at Ferndean. All of which could be compared favourably with the previous BBC version of 2006, the very watchable television series with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stevens. This also began with disorientation – a young girl in a red flowing robe in a desert – and practically dumped the Lowood scenes, making little use of an excellent child actor – Georgie Henley.

Fukunaga’s Lowood (and, of course, Moira Buffini’s) is a convincing nightmare of physical and mental abuse, presided over by a quietly sinister Brocklehurst (Simon McBurney) where the relationship of Helen Burns (Freya Parks) with the young Jane ( spirited performance from Amelia Clarkson) is treated with great sensitivity. Craig Roberts’s John Reed is a credible bullying brat, and Mrs Reed (Sally Hawkins made me shudder) chipped out of a block of ice. Jayne Wisener’s Bessie is much younger and prettier than the one I had in my head, Valentina Cervi’s Bertha Mason likewise – she is no neglected horror, just a little dishevelled. Richard Mason in the form of Harry Lloyd looks way behind Rochester in years. In fact youthful looks are quite a feature, or perhaps that is just me, having formed my mental visualisations quite a few years ago.

Mia Wasikowska was an inspired choice for Jane, and Fukunaga was lucky to find the young Australian, because she catches the character’s sense of independence, quick wit, restraint and passionate intensity better than most of her predecessors. Plain she is not – at times she looks as if she has stepped out of a painting by Millais. She conveys Jane’s capacity for mental fight and her gradually emerging love with considerable subtlety, and the crisp exchanges with Rochester, intelligently selected from the original by Moira Buffini, are a delight. Her Yorkshire accent is well...nearly right, but this should not be noticed by many from outside the area. Michael Fassbender’s Rochester has just the right squire-like air about him, and does not reveal much sensitivity until he unlatches himself later – all very satisfying and... faithful. In fact, he is strikingly curt and unpleasant at first, taunting the new governess about tales of woe, when he still sees her as one of a species. The story of how his coarseness is refined by the girl from the class beneath him is beautifully told, and many hearts will race at their final togetherness. Jamie Bell’s dogmatic St John is also convincing, and Jane must have been simply polite to have told him she wanted him as a brother rather than as a husband, because this one is only a few steps away from Brocklehurst in his enthusiastic religiosity, a kind of non-violent and less-punitive cousin.

One of the most memorable (superb as usual) performances is from Dame Judi Dench as Mrs Fairfax, who has an undebatably perfect Yorkshire accent. The character here claims not to have known about the locked-up woman being Rochester’s wife, but then who was it that warned Mason? A wide-eyed Romy Settbon Moore plays Adele Varens just as I picture her, although she could have picked up a few more words of English to prove that her teacher was effective at TEFL.

Haddon Hall in Derbyshire makes another appearance as Thornfield, and the desolate Derbyshire moors of the Peak District are crucial for the film’s atmosphere, all those greys, etiolated yellows and apocalyptic skies straight out of John Martin paintings boxed up by cinematographer Adriano Goldman, to go with Dario Marianelli’s terrific musical score. I recognised the stunning view from Stanage Edge, just outside Sheffield, where I once climbed. The darknesses in the film provide a realistic period feel. The result is reminiscent of Kubrick’s classic Barry Lyndon, in which lights and music are also exquisitely matched. Few households of the early nineteenth century could afford constant lighting. Candles, especially those made from beeswax, were expensive. The light in Thornfield seems to come from the windows during the day, and from candles or the fireplace at night. The scene where Jane arrives at Thornfield to encounter Mrs Fairfax takes place in deep, authentic gloom, with a floating candle flame as the only guide.

The film is in cinemas nationally in a few days’ time and should be as much of a success in Britain as in the States. Hopefully, it will also bring more visitors to the Parsonage Museum.

Jane Eyre movie - Focus Features

2011-09-03T20:06:00.001+01:00

The link to BBC Look North seems to have expired..

This one still works - it's 'everything you might want to know' about the film.

http://focusfeatures.com/jane_eyre/articles

Jane Eyre screening in Haworth

2011-09-03T19:27:00.002+01:00

We watched it yesterday evening - and met Cary Fukunaga the director, who travelled to Haworth specially. A full report and review will appear on this blog very soon.

In the meantime, here is the BBC Look North report, which won't be available for long:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01407q2/Look_North_(Yorkshire)_02_09_2011/

The Brontës and the Bible - Conference Report

2011-09-03T16:17:00.000+01:00

Maddalena De Leo writes:

The Brontë Society Conference was held this year at Homerton College, Cambridge from Friday 26 to Sunday 28 August. Its theme was the Bible and its formative effect on the language and religion of the Brontë family. This was particularly appropriate as 2011 marks the four hundredth anniversary of the promulgation of the King James Bible, the book which above all others the young Brontës would have known by heart.

The talks were opened on Friday afternoon by two famous Brontë scholars - Tom Winnifrith and Christine Alexander - and concerned Patrick Brontë and his daughters before they began to write their novels. On Saturday morning there was a delightful Jane Eyre panel with no break for questions until the discussion period and then lunchtime talks on The Professor and Villette, finishing with Anne Brontë. The highlight was Dr. Marianne Thormahlen’s talk on Anne and her Bible.

On Sunday Emily Brontë was the subject of Michael O’Neill’s brilliant lecture: he concluded the conference speaking about her ‘visionary religion’. Unfortunately another important Brontë scholar, Dr Brian Wilkes, was not present among us due to serious health problems. In addition to the well-known speakers from all over the world, this year for the first time the Brontë Society included some young PhD students, who lectured on the chosen topic with competence and skill.

The conference venue, carefully chosen by our organizer Sarah Fermi, was the beautiful campus of Homerton College with its amenities and easy access to the centre of Cambridge. Two special treats were also arranged by her for the more than one hundred delegates present. On Friday evening Professor Donald Burrows, the renowed Hándel expert, talked about the Bible and Hándel’s Messiah also playing some short extracts on the piano. The other treat took place after the grand silver-service dinner in the magnificent Great Hall of Homerton College on Saturday when special guest Patrick Wildgust, the Curator of Lawrence Sterne’s Shandy Hall, compared the sermons of Sterne with the two known published ones of Patrick Brontë.

During the conference I took many photographs and made many videos, which will appear on Youtube in the near future. I also will compile a DVD of the whole Conference which I’ll donate to the Brontë Society. In conclusion I can say that this great Brontë religious and cultural weekend in Cambridge was for me another important occasion to meet old and new Society friends with whom to share once again a wonderful Brontë-related experience.

Below: Conference Delegates, Maddalena De Leo with Brontë Society Chair Sally McDonald, Christine Alexander:

We are Three Sisters

2011-08-26T11:38:00.000+01:00

News release from Northern Broadsides:

We are Three Sisters: a new play by Blake Morrison

Against the backdrop of a dark, remote northern town, three remarkable young women live their lives brightly.

Haworth1840’s; in a gloomy parsonage where there are neither curtains nor comforts, Charlotte, Anne and Emily Brontë light up their world with outspoken wit, aspirations, dreams and ideas. And throughout their confined lives intensely lived…. they write.

Anyone who has read a Brontë novel cannot fail to be stirred by their overwhelming humanity, charged emotion and brooding, prescient unease with the status quo.

Now come to know the voices behind them.

With exquisitely drawn characterizations, a nod to Chekhov and a touch of poetic license, We Are Three Sisters is a pearl of a play which evokes with piercing clarity the life and distinct personalities of these three spirited individuals.

(Review is in the post for 15 September)

Tour Dates and Venues:

9 – 17 September: The Viaduct Theatre, Dean Clough, Halifax

20 – 24 September: The Lowry, Salford

27 Sept – 1 Oct: The Dukes, Lancaster

4 – 8 Oct: The Tobacco Factory, Bristol

11 – 15 Oct: The Lighthouse, Poole

18 – 22 Oct: Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough

25 – 29 Oct: The Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond

2 – 5 Nov: Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield

8 – 12 Nov: New Vic Theatre, Newcastle under Lyme

15 – 19 Nov: The Rose, Kingston

22 – 26 Nov: York Theatre Royal

Summer fun

2011-07-21T11:26:00.000+01:00

News release from the Parsonage:

There’s a packed programme of activities for visitors to the Parsonage this summer holiday. Throughout August the museum will be offering a varied programme of free activities for all - whether an avid Brontë fan, casual visitor, or a family on a day out - there will be something of interest for everyone.

My favourite Object! The Parsonage contains so many wonderful objects and manuscripts it’s hard to pick a favourite, but that’s what the staff and volunteers have had to do for this series of five minute talks. Every weekday at 2.00pm you can come and listen to one of them telling the stories behind some of the most intriguing items we have in our collection, from the huge brass dog collar to a pair of Brontë stockings!

Talks and Walks Listen to an informal talk about the fascinating lives of the Bronte family and then join a short guided walk around Haworth and explore what Haworth was really like in their day. Discover why Patrick fired a pistol from his bedroom window every morning, and how the Reverend William Grimshaw forced reluctant parishioners into church on a Sunday. Every Tuesday in August.

Wild Wednesdays! Discover a different activity every Wednesday throughout August.

Wednesday August 3^rd Join poet Anne Caldwell in creating a writing trail inside and outside the Parsonage on the theme of ‘Wild’ and ‘Tame’.

Wednesday August 10th Make your own wallet inspired by Branwell’s very own, out of recycled materials with local artist Rachel Lee.

Wednesday August 17th Storyteller Christine McMahon weave magic in the museum as she tells traditional northern folk tales.

Wednesday August 24^th Come along and sit in a special silhouette chair and have your portrait created by artist Simon Warner; better still, have a go yourself and immortalise your friends and family!

Wednesday 31^st August Create some beautiful rubbings from a tree planted by Charlotte, carved with intricate illustrations from the Brontë childhood Tales of the Islanders’.

All events are free with usual admission charge to the museum. Please check the website for full details of events and admission charges – www.bronte.info

Following the busy summer period, the museum will be hosting its second Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing from 16-18 September. The weekend features talks, readings, workshops and family activities all celebrating and showcasing women’s writing. Speakers include novelist Barbara Trapido and Moira Buffini, screenwriter for the new film version of Jane Eyre, which is released in September. The full programme will be released very shortly, and you can sign up to our mailing list to receive the full programme as soon as it is available: jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188.

Thanks for the donations

2011-06-20T15:41:00.001+01:00

Isobel Stirk writes:

It gave me great pleasure to welcome members of the Brontë Society to St Andrew’s, Kildwick – a church I have been connected with since childhood.

I wish to thank, most sincerely, fellow members of the Society for the many very generous donations which were left in the church or have been forwarded on to me later. Each one is very gratefully received and will be put towards the upkeep of this Grade 1 listed building.

If anyone is in the area again please get in touch.

Behind the scenes at the Parsonage

2011-06-18T12:51:00.000+01:00

News release:

The Parsonage will be opening its doors for a series of very special ‘behind the scenes’ tours on Wednesday 22 June and Tuesday 26 July, 7.00pm. Each evening will include a guided tour of the museum, a visit to the museum’s Library and a special opportunity to see some of the treasures of the museum’s collection at close quarters and new acquisitions. Wine and canapés will also be served.

The museum is not able to offer guided tours during normal opening hours due to limited space, and its Library, which was part of a Victorian extension added on to the Brontë house in the 1870s, is usually open only by special appointment for research purposes. The Parsonage Museum, which houses the world’s largest collection of Brontë manuscripts, letters and artefacts, is able to display only around ten percent of its collections and the special tours will provide an opportunity for people to see some of the rarely seen treasures of the collection. There will also be the chance to find out more about the history of the Museum’s collection and how it is cared for and to see some of the most recent acquisitions.

I’m sure these special evenings will be extremely popular. The guided tour will give people a wonderful insight into life at the Parsonage in the Brontës’ time and the chance to see the Museum’s unique Library and some of the wonderful Brontë treasures it contains. It’s a very special experience indeed. Along with wine and canapés, it will all make for a delightful evening.

Andrew McCarthy

Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum

Bookings will be taken on a first come, first served basis and can be made for Wednesday 22 June or Tuesday 26 July, 7.00pm. Tickets are £16 each.

To book, please contact Sonia Boocock, Brontë Parsonage Museum, 01535 640192/

sonia.boocock@bronte.org.uk

Return to Haworth II

2011-06-14T09:06:00.002+01:00

Helen MacEwan writes:

There are many delights to sample over the annual Brontë Society weekend in Haworth apart from the hearty Yorkshire fare in its pubs.

There is the opportunity to meet other members. They come from all over the world but the Society’s heart is in Haworth and the Parsonage Museum. Members include local people with a stock of anecdotes from their years in one of Britain’s oldest literary society as well as encyclopaedic knowledge of every place in Yorkshire ever visited by a Brontë or used in one of their novels (over the weekend we had a private viewing of Ponden Hall, supposedly the model for Wuthering Heights, and a visit to Gawthorpe Hall whose owner introduced Charlotte Brontë to Mrs Gaskell). Some of these Yorkshire members even have links to families who were associated with the Brontës. Thus they form a living link stretching right back to the Brontës themselves.

There are the local researchers like Keighley archivist Ian Dewhirst who spoke about the grimness of working-class life in Haworth in the 1840s with wit and passion, conveying to us the immediacy with which the period can be experienced through the mis-spelt letters of farmers and mill workers of the time. Again, a local enthusiast acting as a living link between us and the past.

There is traditional entertainment such as that provided by the Haworth light opera group, which included one of the monologues performed in 1930s music halls by the comedian Stanley Holloway, recited in a broad Lancashire accent challenging for members from outside the British Isles!

There are the traditional, time-honoured rites of the Brontë Society, such as the annual service for its members in the church where Patrick Brontë preached for over 40 years and the cream tea always partaken of outdoors unless it’s raining too hard.

But the Society isn’t just about the past and tradition. The Museum runs an arts programme with talks and exhibitions by contemporary writers and artists. This year we listened to novelist Sally Vickers (Miss Garnet’s Angel) talking about her work and how the Brontës have influenced it. At the prize-giving for the Society’s literary competition, the winners included many young writers. The winner of the poetry section has just published her first book of poems.

And from this year the Society has a new President. The writer Bonnie Greer is from Chicago, although she has lived in Britain for decades. This was her first AGM and she was delighted to be invited to lead the Society, mingled affably with members and gave us a stirring speech about the need to work to preserve literary societies and museums for future generations.

(This report also appears on the Brussels Brontë Blog)

Below, Gawthorpe Hall:

Return to Haworth I

2011-06-14T08:57:00.002+01:00

Renate Hurtmanns writes:
After the outstanding AGM of 2010 (a first for me), I felt happily excited when the bus dropped me off in Haworth in the afternoon of 3 June.

Less focused on lectures this time, we had nevertheless a highly enjoyable weekend full of variety again and also extremely amusing in different ways: a great evening of light entertainment provided by Haworth’s Gilbert and Sullivan group (among others a funny and very special version of “Cinderella”), but above anything else the Brontë spoof Withering Looks by Britain’s most famous literary lunatics Maggie Fox and Sue Riding – extremely inventive and utterly hilarious!

We also had lots of fun around the usual dinner at the Old White Lion on Sunday evening - pitting our Brontë brains against everyone else while trying to find the correct answers to Judith Bland’s 60 questions out of the Brontë books and lives.

But the real highlight for me was our walk on Sunday morning to Ponden Hall, often cited as the model for the Lintons’ home Thrushcross Grange– although none of the sisters left evidence of making such a link themselves. In part this opinion is due to its location, on the way up to the moors, in part to the fact that there were so few larger houses in this area.

Actually, Ponden Hall corresponds in some measure to the description of Wuthering Heights given by Emily and seems thus far more identifiable with Heathcliff’s home - being less grand and more humble than Thrushcross Grange as described in the novel. The date plaque above the main entrance, by the way, identifies the rebuilt house as dating from 1801 - the date that begins the story in Wuthering Heights.

Emily Brontë’s association with the Heaton family at Ponden is well documented: one of the Heatons served as a churchwarden to Patrick and it is known that she used the library which was reputedly the finest in West Yorkshire. Branwell Brontë was also a frequent visitor to Ponden where he attended pre-hunting gatherings.

As soon as I entered the large hall - realising that this was Wuthering Heights as I had imagined it – I had a kind of vision, i.e. Heathcliff standing by the fireplace when Mr Lockwood came in and asked for shelter from the snow-storm outside … And a second one in the master bedroom overlooking the valley beyond, where a tiny single-paned window in the east gable - underneath which a box bed, as in Wuthering Heights, was once standing but has sadly disappeared - is said to be the one where Cathy’s ghost knocked at the glass. I closed my eyes one second and could nearly hear her voice pleading: “Let me in, let me in”….

I didn’t take photos – unfortunately for those who read these lines, but not for me because for me the best souvenirs are those that you keep in your heart. And this I will – forever !

Now that I am back home again I feel like Emily when she was away from Haworth – nostalgic and missing the Moors already, their stillness, their grandeur and beauty and I can’t wait to go back to them!

(This report also appears on the Brussels Brontë Blog)

Below, Ponden Hall:

A memorable excursion

2011-06-10T12:00:00.002+01:00

Chris Went writes:

Our annual excursion this year focused on places associated with two very different periods in Charlotte’s life. In the morning we travelled to Lothersdale where, in the summer of 1839, Charlotte was a governess with the Sidgwick family of Stonegappe. The house is not accessible and almost impossible to see from the road (the photograph below was taken from a public footpath), but we were able to appreciate its exceptionally beautiful setting which is probably little changed since the nineteenth century. Christ Church, Lothersdale, built in an attempt to counteract the influence of Methodism, was consecrated late in 1838. Although it was funded by the Sidgwicks, they attended Kildwick Church, and Charlotte would have accompanied them there.

In the church at Kildwick, we were welcomed by Isobel Stirk and the ladies of the parish who provided tea, coffee and biscuits. Isobel gave a short talk which dealt comprehensively with the history of the church, which was known as 'Lang Kirk', and she was followed by Angela Crow and Richard Wilcocks. Angela read extracts from the letters Charlotte wrote during her employment with the Sidgwicks, alternating with a monologue written by Richard and performed by him in role as John Benson Sidgwick. Drawing on original sources and research into the attitudes of the time, this was a cleverly constructed ‘recollection’ of a rather unsatisfactory governess. We had plenty of time to explore the church and its surroundings, and were treated to a most sumptuous and memorable buffet lunch by the parish ladies. While we were eating, Michael Murphy, former organist at Kildwick, played music associated with the Brontës which included pieces by the Irish composer John Field, the originator of the piano nocturne.

The second half of the day’s programme consisted of a tour of Gawthorpe Hall near Burnley, the former home of Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth. Sir James, something of a self-made man, collected celebrities. Although Charlotte disliked him, and was quite scathing about his wife, Lady Janet, she was manoeuvred into visiting Gawthorpe Hall in the spring of 1850, and again in January, 1855 with her husband. The house was subjected to major renovations by Sir James but, with a few exceptions, it is much as Charlotte knew it. We were conducted around the house in three parties, and were also able to have a glimpse of the impressive textile exhibition mounted by Bolton Progressive Threads.

The weather was kinder to us than we might have expected, the day finishing in sunshine. Charlotte may have disliked her time at Lothersdale, and may have found her visits to Gawthorpe Hall a trial, but we enjoyed ourselves very much and were greatly appreciative of all the people who went to so much trouble to make our day memorable.

Below, Stonegappe:

A feast of music

2011-06-10T11:37:00.002+01:00

Isobel Stirk writes about the concert in St Michael and All Angels Church, Haworth on 5 June:

Outside, a rather cold wind and black clouds - in a darkened sky way out towards Top Withins - did not encourage anyone to linger as they made their way to the church. Inside all was bright and cheerful as the audience perused their programmes and looked forward to a veritable feast of music.

This included the first public performance of a setting by composer Robin Terry, whose music has been performed in many countries, of Ian Emberson’s Brontë-related poems - Mourning Ring. Michael Templeton, a baritone soloist with Steeton Male Voice Choir, accompanied by Robin, sang four songs very movingly. The theme of Jane Eyre was very much to the fore: one song featured the time when Jane realised she could not marry Edward Rochester, another when she wandered lost and alone over the moors, in another there was a reference to the shipwreck in Villette.

Someone who has delighted many a Brontë audience - Society member Alan Graham - showed, once again, what a talented pianist he is. He transported us back to the Warsaw of the early 1800s with the music of Maria Szymanowska. We heard pieces by Clara Schumann who had a galaxy of experience within her long life. Champion of her husband’s work, she outlived many of her children and, although carer of grandchildren and her dying husband, achieved so much. Alan played, with feeling, a Song for the Pianoforte by Fanny Mendelssohn, talented sister of Felix. A contemporary of the Brontës, Fanny shared her sibling’s passion for music. Like the sisters, she died at a young age in 1847.

Having managed to master only Greensleeves on the recorder, and not very well, I had looked forward with anticipation to hearing solo pieces played on that instrument by Laura Justice and I was certainly not disappointed. It was a bonus to have Robin Walker, the composer of the first piece, explain a little about A Rune for St Mary’s. He asked us to think of a rune as something indescribable, a letter from an unknown alphabet. Listening to the haunting sounds which Laura produced, it was easy to imagine being on the moors high above Todmorden , the setting for the piece, and it seemed as if the wind which always blows around the lonely place could actually be heard.

I had been in the church earlier when a group of enthusiastic Japanese tourists were looking around. What a pity their visit was not a couple of hours later, because they may very well have been familiar with Ryohei Hirose, the composer of the modern Japanese piece. The sounds Laura produced in her interpretation were incredible. Closing my eyes at one point it almost seemed as if I was listening to a violin.

This wonderful concert had been meticulously planned by Ian and had, I am sure, been enjoyed by everyone present. It ended with a setting, by John Ireland, of Masefield’s great poem Sea-Fever. This was sung with great gusto by Michael Templeton.

Leaving the church the leaves on the trees lining Church Street were still showing their backs, the wind was still whistling among the gravestones and the black clouds were getting ominously nearer- but it did not matter. We had, for a short time, been taken to an almost magical place- for isn’t that where Ian’s poems and artwork always lead? However don’t take my word for that- go to his website and read his E book The Zig Zag Path. You have a treat in store.

Encyclopedic and entertaining

2011-06-05T11:31:00.001+01:00

Richard Wilcocks writes:
The encyclopedic and extraordinarily entertaining Ian Dewhirst MBE gave the Saturday morning talk. He is far from being a romantic, and keen on facts, most of them the product of his own extensive research at a local level. Equipped with a well-thumbed collection of notes and extracts, he put the Brontës in the context of a Haworth which was often malodorous, where many were poverty-stricken in a way which is often nowadays linked to 'the developing world' and where people usually died long before before their three score years and ten arrived. Children were lucky to reach the age of five. The doctor (and what did he know anyway?) was called as a last resort, if at all, so perhaps Emily's refusal to see one as the consumption took a final hold of her on the couch was not that unusual or remarkable.

He covered well-trodden ground to some extent, but introduced a series of interesting anecdotes and snippets which made this talk more than a sociological excursion through dry statistics and cold statements. For example, in his search for original sources he has browsed through the record books and crumbling ledgers of old mills, the ones that remain that is, because many of them were pulped during the Second World War as part of a government plan to produce more paper, and found all those small things which connect us to real, 'ordinary' people.

He read from letters which were often full of misspellings and without any punctuation, and also from poems: apparently Haworth was packed with people writing in their spare time, and the Brontës must have read at least some of their efforts, the quality of which ranged from the extraordinary to the awful. He found one poem by a local man which was no less than three hundred pages long, but not up to Brontë standards: he got as far as page two.

Mingling on Friday

2011-06-04T08:49:00.001+01:00

The first evening of the Annual Weekend. Warm and sunny.

After the talk by novelist Sally Vickers, members mingled. "Haven't see you for a while," was the commonest opening line, of course. Bonnie Greer mingled too: "It's such a great honour to be President of the Brontë Society, something I could never have imagined when I was a child. I hope I can continue to be a part of the great work."

"It's fantastic to have Bonnie," said Society Chair Sally McDonald. "In fact it's quite extraordinary."

"I'm looking forward to presenting the prizes with Bonnie for the Brontë Society Literary Competion. We had over a hundred entries, and the quality was very good," said Sarah Fermi.

"I love just being here in Haworth. I arrived yesterday and was soon walking on the moors. All the tensions in my life disappear when I do that," said Judith Watkins from Toronto.

"I enjoyed the talk by Sally Vickers about her new novel, and now I'm enjoying meeting people with different opinions on the same theme," said Nigel Nicholl from Pontefract.

"Haworth is so beautiful. This is my first visit to the village and to the Parsonage. All the people are very nice," said Jorge de Britto from Brussels.

"I am looking forward to the poetry - my contribution - of course. The company is always good here!" said Ian Emberson.

Annual Weekend - soon

2011-05-27T12:52:00.002+01:00

News release from the Parsonage:

With new President, Bonnie Greer, in attendance, the Brontë Society has a packed weekend of events lined up for its annual gathering in Haworth, 3 -5 June.

Bestselling novelist Salley Vickers will launch the weekend on the afternoon of Friday 3 June. Her novels include the word of mouth bestseller Miss Garnet’s Angel. She will be will be reading from this and discussing her work at the West Lane Baptist Centre at 3.30pm. Tickets cost £6.00 and will be available on the door.

On Saturday 4 June literary lunatics Lip Service perform their cult classic, Withering Looks at 8pm. The show gives an intimate look at the lives of the Brontë sisters – well two of them anyway, Anne’s just popped out for a cup of sugar. But they do have maniacal laughter from the attic, consumptive coughing and some tormented souls to compensate! Tickets cost £20.00 and should be booked in advance from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188. Tickets include admission to the museum on the day of the performance.

On Sunday 5 June, pianist Maya Irgalina from the Royal Northern College of Music will again be performing on the Brontës’ cabinet piano. Visitors to the museum can look around the Parsonage as the music, chosen from the Brontës’ music books and including Beethoven and Handel, drifts through the house. The piano was restored in 2010 and this is only the second time that it has been played in over 150 years. This event is open to all on payment of normal museum admission.

Visitors to the museum over the Brontë weekend will have a chance to see the museum’s current special exhibitions. Patrick Bronte In his Own Right focuses on the remarkable life of the Brontës’ father, Patrick. To be forever known is a haunting sound installation for the Dining Room by artist Catherine Bertola, responding to the Brontës’ letters.

In addition there are also a range of other events for Brontë Society members including the Society’s annual lecture, afternoon tea, a church service to commemorate the Brontës at St Michael & All Angels Church, social events and walks. For further information about the Brontë Society and forthcoming events contact peter.morrison@bronte.org.uk

* There will be plenty of reports, reviews and photographs on this blog.

Blake Morrison's talk

2011-05-24T16:06:00.001+01:00

D. Court writes:

Having attended school in Skipton at the same time as Blake Morrison I had looked forward with anticipation to the evening at Haworth when he was talking about his life and work.

It was very evident from the start that, although now based in London, his roots are very much in the North and this is reflected in much of his work. He talked about his poetry - The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper and Pendle Witches which had been illustrated with drawings by Paula Rego - a name familiar to Parsonage visitors - who had had an exhibition there of lithographs based on Jane Eyre. He described how, after much encouragement from Barrie Rutter of Northern Broadsides, he had written a play, which will tour in the autumn, portraying Chekhov’s Three Sisters as the Brontës. It was interesting to hear about the many parallels in the story- three sisters, an unpredictable, temperamental brother, sorrow and tragedy - but also the many differences- with Chekhov the father is dead, Patrick is the sole survivor of his large family.

Morrison talked about And when did you last see your father? his memoir of his relationship with his father – which was later to be made into a film of the same name. He amused the audience greatly by reading how his father, a local doctor, embarrassed the family after getting increasingly impatient in a long traffic jam on the way to a motor race. Driving an Alvis convertible car, Dr Morrison hangs his stethoscope on the mirror and sails past all the cars. Turning into the first gate he sees - of course it is not the correct one for his ticket - he somehow persuades the steward that he has been sent the wrong ticket, has paid for the correct one and is allowed in. Morrison talked briefly about the complications of finding out that someone he called ‘ aunt’ was actually the lover of his father.

He talked movingly about the death of his father and how he had insisted in the film that in this scene after his father had died, and he and his mother are at each side of the bed - just as it had happened on that day - the sheet was not pulled over his father’s body. His mother had wanted to look at the face she loved for as long as it was possible.

After writing this memoir of his father he went on to write Things my Mother never told me. He had never known that his mother Agnes O’Shea- also a doctor who had been born in Ireland - was one of twenty children. He described finding letters his parents had written to one another suggesting various names for her instead of Agnes and she was always known as Kim.

He ended a very enjoyable evening by reading from his book The Last Weekend - a story of rivalry between friends- one a leading barrister and the other a schoolteacher. He read about Ian’s struggle as a teacher and he left us wanted to know how things worked out for him as, after dealing with a particularly difficult pupil by leading him to the head teacher by his ear, he has to face disciplinary action, maybe termination of his employment, when the boy’s family make a complaint. Perhaps at the school in Skipton, when we were there, this thing was probably part of the school day.

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and, although maybe a little different now in colour, it was good to see that Blake Morrison still has a good head of hair, which I remember him for, and still has great affection for Skipton and the local area!

A good deal

2011-05-24T15:54:00.001+01:00

Geoff writes:

Hello, as an avid reader of this blog I thought readers may be interested in the availability of the 1973 Yorkshire TV production of The Brontes At Haworth.

The set is available for about £9 and the DVDs are playable on any DVD player in any country. Just go here: http://www.ioffer.com/search/items/brontes%20at%20haworth

This is far cheaper than the rather expensive £30 asked by Amazon. Transfers are clear and sound very good, acting top class, highly recommended!

New treasures at the Parsonage

2011-05-24T11:02:00.003+01:00

News release from the Parsonage:

Charlotte Brontë’s mahogany writing desk, a pen-holder and some sugar tongs are amongst the latest acquisitions to join the important collection of material owned by the Parsonage.

These rare Brontë items once formed part of a large and important collection of Bronteana amassed by William Law who sought out people that knew the Brontë family in order to enrich his own collection. After his death in 1901, these passed to his nephew, Sir Alfred Law, who sold some of the drawings and manuscripts at auction. Some of the personal Brontë items, including the selection given to the museum, were previously given as gifts to his nurse.

Sir Alfred Law died in 1939 and the present whereabouts of the remainder of this unique collection, which is known to have included manuscripts and books of great rarity and value, remains a mystery.

Along with these Brontë treasures donated to the Parsonage were a wooden trunk, a display case, a black morocco stationery case, a pocket cigar case and copies of Brontë books- all previously owned by William Law himself.

It’s always exciting when new Brontë items come to light and when we’re able to add to the museum’s wonderful collection. But a donation on this scale, with an item as significant as the writing desk used by Charlotte Brontë, is very rare. We’re delighted that these items are now where they belong, here in Haworth; where they can be enjoyed by generations of visitors to the museum. We’re extremely grateful for such a generous donation. (Andrew McCarthy, Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum)

The anonymous donor purchased these items from an auction at Sotheby’s in London on 17th December 2009 but decided that the appropriate place for them to be housed permanently would be the Parsonage museum.

The items will be on display from Tuesday 31 May.

Further information from: Ann Dinsdale (Collections Manager) 01535 640198 – a.dinsdale@bronte.org.uk or Sarah Laycock (Collections & Library Officer) 01535 640199 - sarah.laycock@bronte.org.uk

Review of latest Jane Eyre movie

2011-05-16T08:45:00.002+01:00

Chrissy Breen Keffer writes:
Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre is marked by departures. The movie starts with Jane wresting open a door and fleeing Thornfield Hall. But the movie is marked by other departures as well.

Mr. Fukunaga's main characters are far from the caricatures of past depictions. As Jane is about to be sent to the Lowood Institution, she confronts her Aunt Reed, and condemns the lie her aunt told Mr. Brocklehurst: "Deceit is not my fault." To which her aunt replies, "But you are passionate." Mia Wasikowska's Jane (played with an artless maturity that eludes actors twice her age) is no meek church mouse; she is a fiery red-head who doesn't cower before anyone. Similarly, Michael Fassbender (pictured below) brings subtlety and depth to the role of Rochester. In this movie, we see Rochester as Brontë intends him to be: purposeful, yet with a sense of humor and a soft vulnerability.

Constrained by cinematic time limitations, Mr. Fukunaga necessarily weeds out scenes from the novel. Much of Jane's story - her years at Lowood, interactions with Rochester (farewell mysterious gypsy!), her stay with the Riverses - is whittled down to a bare minimum. Some of the complexity of the original story is lost - this is especially true of Saint John Rivers; he is no foil to Rochester - yet Mr. Fukunaga is still able to capture the essence of Jane Eyre.

Mr. Fukunaga takes directorial liberties, but to good effect. He restructures the book, weaving the story of her childhood into the story of her adulthood. The serene yet beautiful English countryside becomes a window to Jane's state of mind (expansive and blooming with Rochester, wind-whipped and snow-covered with Saint John). He also employs some tricks of the trade - thumps, creaks, startling noises, and whispers carried on the wind - to give the movie its gothic feel.
This movie is marked by departures: from previous projects for the director (Sin Nombre) and cast (Wasikowska's Alice in Wonderland, The Kids Are Alright and Fassenberg's Inglorious Basterds), from previous portrayals, and even from the arc of the novel. But these departures, ironically and counter-intuitively, bring it closer to the original than any previous version.

- reviewed by Chrissy Breen Keffer on May 15, 2011 (author of An American Heir: A Modern Retelling of Jane Eyre)

Below- Cary Fukunaga:

SEE ALL REVIEWS: CHECK ON SEARCH

Blake Morrison coming to Haworth

2011-05-06T17:07:00.003+01:00

News Release from Jenna Holmes:

Skipton-born writer Blake Morrison will be returning to Yorkshire later this month as part of the Parsonage’s contemporary arts programme. At an evening event on Thursday 19 May at 7.30pm, at the West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth, the novelist, journalist, poet and critic will talk about his latest novel and his upcoming stage play We Are Three Sisters, for Halifax-based theatre company Northern Broadsides. We Are Three Sisters will tour theatres around the country later this year and takes inspiration from the story of the Brontë sisters.

Blake Morrison worked as literary editor of The Observer and Independent on Sunday before becoming a full-time writer in 1995. He has published two memoirs, Things My Mother Never Told Me and And When Did You Last See Your Father? which was made into a film starring Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent. Blake Morrison is Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, London.

Tickets £6 from the Brontë Parsonage Museum

jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188

*****read this article in The Stage on the opening of We Are Three Sisters in Halifax.

Cumbres Borrascosas

2011-04-30T20:49:00.003+01:00

Hernán Espinosa writes from Buenos Aires:
Back in 2007 you posted in your blog news about my rock opera Cumbres Borrascosas based on Wuthering Heights, when the opening night was frustrated due to a fire that burned the whole theatre, remember? (http://bronteparsonage.blogspot.com/2007/06/theatre-fire-in-cordba.html).

Well, it´s my pleasure to inform you that, nearly four years after the tragedy (in which I never found the strengh to return with the show), Heathcliff and Catherine are back! This time, we´ll be presenting Wuthering Heights, a rock-opera in the FIRST LATIN AMERICAN MUSICAL THEATER FESTIVAL which will take place in Buenos Aires next 6, 7 and 8 MAY.

Here in our production´s blog you will find all our updates, including photos of the brand new cast, TV presentation and more.

That´s all folks
Hugs from ARGENTINA!

www.eldiariodeohlamour.blogspot.com

¡Buena suerte a todos! (RW)

Jane Eyre - a review

2011-04-24T15:06:00.002+01:00

Here is a review of the new Jane Eyre movie from the USA, where it has already opened. Look out for reviews on this blog in September, when it opens in the UK.

Paul Daniggelis writes from Texas:
Seeing Jane Eyre on the big screen was a tremendous pleasure.
The scenery was often overwhelming in its beauty and the delicate
piano music suited Jane very well. The acting was such that one
was not aware that they were acting. I was alone and allowed myself
to absorb the atmosphere that pervaded the film.

In less than two hours, there simply wasn't time to do the story justice
and I felt it ended rather abruptly. That may be due to the fact that I did
not want it to end. The best scenes from novel and film are the delicious
dialogue sequences between Jane and Rochester. These, again, were
severely curtailed by time restraints.

In order to justify the good nature of Mrs Fairfax, she claims in the film
that she was not aware that the lady in the attic was Rochester's wife.
Where they got that idea I do not know. As far as I can remember,
Charlotte wrote no such thing. Indeed, it is often speculated that it
was Mrs Fairfax who let Richard Mason know of the impending wedding.
How else to explain the untimely appearance of Mason at just the
fateful moment of swearing allegiance.

One other fault, in my opinion, was the full growth of beard and mustache
on Rochester's face. During the final kissing sequence it appears that Jane
gets a mouthful of hair for her troubles. Not a romantic conclusion.

Nevertheless, it was exciting to watch my favorite novel come to life once
again. Too bad they could not have added another hour or so.
------------------
Because I experienced a shortfall in an earlier attempt to see this film,
I have been promised the Jane Eyre poster that graces the theater as
soon as the run is over.
------------------
For the benefit of young people and those unfamiliar with Charlotte Brontë's story, I wonder that these Brontë films are not prefaced with a written and spoken explanatory note, i.e.

The film you are about to see is based on a novel written by Charlotte Bronte in 1847. It has sold an estimated x number of copies throughout the world. Jane Eyre has been translated into x number of languages and adapted for radio, film, stage and television x number of times. Her sister, Emily, has had equivalent success with her novel, Wuthering Heights written in 1847. Sister Anne, whose classic novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was written in 1848, has achieved classic status as well.
This remarkable family lived and died at their Haworth Parsonage in Yorkshire, England.

(NB Check the links on the right)

Below - Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska in a scene from the movie. Associated Press/Focus Features.

The Brontë Boy - Review

2011-04-18T12:47:00.001+01:00

Chris Went writes:

The Brontë Boy is a production which, rather than aiming to please the purist, seeks to explore the spaces between the known facts of the Brontë story through a dramatic – at times melodramatic - representation of Branwell’s fantasies and failures to his decline and death. It is unfortunate that the play’s author chose to stray beyond those spaces, producing an abridged tale abounding in inaccuracies, anachronisms and outdated scholarship. Within the framework of the plot some of this was acceptable. Having said that, Michael Yates demonstrated his clear understanding of Branwell’s inability to function in a world in which the actual was not interlarded with the imagined. His Branwell, played by Warwick St John, fuses the magnificence of his fantasy life with the facts of his sordid decline so that one is forced to conclude that, from childhood, Branwell was an actor, carrying his performance of himself as he wished to be portrayed, right to the end of his life. If Warwick St John seems too loud, too energetic in the small space of the studio theatre, that is all to the good, reflecting something of the devastating effect Branwell’s histrionics must have had within the confines of the Parsonage.

Framed as Branwell’s dream, the play takes us from his early Angrian plays with Charlotte (Melanie Dagg) through his various attempts to make a living for himself, to his last days under the influence of gin, laudanum and John Brown. The scene in which Branwell revisits his childhood is achieved with a good deal of humour, Melanie Dagg succeeding in presenting a Charlotte who, young enough to relish, still, the battles and bloodshed, is beginning to speculate on what happens when the fighting stops. Love, they agree, and feasts. But, warns Branwell, there will never be peace.

Asadour Guzelian as Patrick Brontë carries an awkward part with competence. Yates has made his Patrick a rather conventional, scripture-quoting parson with little evident warmth. He hints at a harshness towards his son which is not apparent in any textual source. At the same time he seeks for the causes of Branwell’s faults beyond home and family, placing the blame, finally, on John Brown and the Freemasons.

With a rare and refreshing instinct Michael Yates has chosen to ignore the accepted perceptions of Emily as shy and unpleasant, and Anne as shy and frail. These are small parts which allow little scope for the development of character, but we are shown an Emily (Vicki Glover) who is lively and vivacious and Anne, played by Hayley Briggs, comes over as the cheeky girl glimpsed in the earliest diary papers. It is Melanie Dagg, however,to whom the script gives the fullest opportunity. She carries it off with absolute conviction, always in her part even when the focus of attention is elsewhere. Her ability to portray utter, pitiful, yet understated, misery is superb.

So much of this production was so very enjoyable, but the play lost direction in Act II when the focus of attention shifted to John Brown, portrayed as Branwell’s evil genius. Eddie Butler played Brown as a very working-class Yorkshireman complete with Leeds accent and flat cap. As such, he was good, but he was not John Brown. As far as is known, Branwell’s downfall had nothing to do with his involvement with the Freemasons. John Brown may have done little to discourage his drinking habits but, probably, he had no real influence in this area. Yates’ Brown was a man distrusted by Patrick Brontë and blamed by him for his son’s failings. Since, in reality, this could not have been the case – Brown was entrusted with Branwell after the debacle of Thorp Green, and was one of the few witnesses at Charlotte’s wedding – the plot here is inevitably thin and confused. Brown is made to behave in ways which would have been unacceptable not only to the Brontës but to himself: the scene in which Branwell, drunk, introduces an equally drunken Brown into the Parsonage parlour strikes a very off-key note. Brown’s dialogue with Emily concerning “many infinities, many truths”, and his attempt to waltz with her, suggests that Yates was tempted along different plot lines, as does the closing scene in which Brown, having dug Charlotte’s grave, refers back to that moment.

In spite of the confusion introduced by Brown’s character, this was still a professional production, well directed by Colin Lewisohn and sympathetically staged, and there were many, many instances of a real understanding of difficult characters. Particularly clever was the way in which Branwell was made to lift well turned phrases from his fiction and insert them into his letters. Indeed, the use of the text of Brontë letters was extremely well done.

Costumes and props were simple but appropriate and stage management neat and as unobtrusive as possible within a studio setting. The simple programme, containing synopsis and details of the actors, was refreshingly uncluttered by advertisements, but it was good to see a recommendation to visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum, with appropriate details, included in the layout.

This performance was presented by Encore Drama at The Carriageworks in Leeds on Saturday 16 April 2011. The Brontë Boy plays at The Square Chapel, 10 Square Road, Halifax, HX1 1QG on Wednesday 20 and Thursday 21 April at 8.00pm.

See Encore's trailer by clicking here.

Spring Walk 2011

2011-04-16T11:35:00.001+01:00

IMS writes:
'We had to walk to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We set out cold, we arrived at church colder.'

Not so for the twenty four members of the Society who met, in the car park at Cowan Bridge, to walk in the steps of the Brontës. It was one of those rare April days which seem more like June or July for the sun was shining brightly and copious amounts of sun cream were being applied before the group set off. The busy A65 was negotiated and soon we were outside the school where Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily had been for a short time and where it is thought Charlotte was provided with some of her deepest emotional experiences which are brought to the fore in Jane Eyre.

‘I was stiff with long sitting and bewildered with noise and motion of the coach.’

‘I dimly discerned a wall before me and a door open in it.’

‘There was now visible a house or houses- for the building spread far-with many windows’.

‘A large building- half of which seemed grey and old- the other half quite new. The new part containing the school-room and dormitory’.

We stayed awhile looking at the building- now three cottages- perhaps the top row of windows had been the dormitories- we imagined Emily peering out, south east, in the direction of Haworth thinking of her animals, her brother and youngest sister she had left behind. We were brought back into the present by the rattling of a long ladder as one of the cottage residents prepared to clean his windows- it was time to move on. We passed through fields resplendent with spring flowers, watched the lambs gambolling together and eventually reached Tunstall church.

‘It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance of cold meat and bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served round between services’

Soon rucksacks were being unpacked and shady spots sought and after sandwiches had been eaten, even on such a lovely day, there was a coolness as we entered the interior of the church and in the depths of winter it would have been miserable for the girls to eat their meagre allowance of cold meat and bread in the little room- its only access now up a very steep ladder- above the porch.

The second part of the walk beckoned and as I walked toward the gate leading out of the churchyard I saw something very interesting. I love coincidences- chance occurrences or some connected persons and events- and it was quite by chance that I was drawn to read the inscription on one of the headstones. I was so surprised to read the name of an infant male with the first name of Hindley. The only time I have ever encountered this name before was in ‘Wuthering Heights’. I asked myself- was this a common name in use in that area- had Emily known someone at Cowan Bridge who had a brother with that name? Very intriguing- but that’s the Brontë story of course!

‘Great grey hills heaved up round the horizon’

Onwards we went. The scenery was magnificent. We saw Ingleborough, with its flat top, standing sentinel in the distance, we looked to the west and saw the gentler hills of Bowland, and away to the north the Lakeland hills stood out bold and proud.

‘We returned by an exposed and hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.’

We crossed a ford, waded through a stream, we even carried out ingenious repairs to the sole of someone’s walking boot, and we commented many times how difficult the walk would have been for the schoolgirls with long skirts and thin shoes.

‘Her grave is in Brocklebridge churchyard;’ ‘a grey marble tablet marks the spot, inscribed with her name.’

We crossed over the busy main road once again and made our way on a green path towards the church of Leck. Here we paused for a while around the grave of a girl from the school, who had died in the epidemic when the Brontës were there.

‘I discovered that a great pleasure lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls of the garden: in a bright beck full of dark stones and sparkling eddies’

One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late, with Mary Jane, in the wood.’

We made our way back towards the car park- making a detour through the wood. We imagined the girls, during the time when death was a frequent visitor to the school, enjoying their new found freedom, eating their repast of thick slices of bread and cheese amongst the majestic elms, ashes and oaks and the woodland plants which sprang up all around.

‘My favourite seat was a smooth and broad stone, rising white and dry from the very middle of the beck.’

Any of the many boulders and stones, in the babbling brook, fitted that description but it was good to think that the girls could give way to childish things even in the midst of much suffering and sorrow.

‘I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations, for Gateshead and its daily luxuries.’

So our walk came to an end, farewells were made and soon I was joining the long queue of traffic returning home to West Yorkshire from the Lake District or perhaps the Lancashire coast. Had those people, impatient now to get home, enjoyed the day- eating in the many cafes- looking round the shops in the towns, partaking of ice creams, hot dogs and the like. Probably they had and I hope so, but I would not have exchanged my day with them for anything!

To be forever known

2011-04-06T13:41:00.002+01:00

News release from Jenna Holmes:

A new sound installation by artist Catherine Bertola, in response to Haworth Parsonage and commissioned by the Brontë Society as part of its Contemporary Arts Programme, will open at the Parsonage on Saturday 16 April 2011.

Catherine Bertola creates installations, objects and drawings that respond to particular sites, collections and historic contexts. Underpinning her work is a desire to look beyond the surface of objects and buildings, to uncover the invisible histories of places and people as a way of reframing and reconsidering the past. Bertola often draws on the historic role of women in society, craft production and labour.

‘To be forever known’, is a haunting new sound installation for the Dining Room, that draws on the history of Haworth Parsonage and its famous occupants. Using scientific methods of revealing the resonant harmonies and tones of architectural spaces, Catherine Bertola will ‘capture’ the sounds of the Parsonage. The artist recorded herself reading aloud extracts from the Brontë sisters’ letters. These recordings have been played and re-recorded over and over again into the space, until the words become whispers and the resonances of the room are revealed; the sisters’ thoughts and feelings once again echoing within the walls of the house.

The sound installation will be accompanied by a series of photographs ‘Residual hauntings’ that feature the artist recreating some of the domestic rituals that took place in the house during the Brontës’ time.

To accompany her exhibition, with support from Art in Yorkshire, supported by Tate, Catherine Bertola has also curated a series of three ‘Conversaziones’ to take place at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Conversaziones were small gatherings held by the Victorians in their homes, to discuss topics of the day. Catherine will recreate this Victorian custom after hours at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, bringing together a series of expert speakers and a small intimate audience to discuss themes relating to the Brontës.

Conversaziones

Thursday 12 May, 7pm

Radical Women

Lucasta Miller and Jane Robinson discuss the role of radical women, from the original Bluestockings to the 20th Century suffragettes, who like the Brontës, transcended perceived ideas of femininity.

Jane Robinson is author of Bluestockings: The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Fight for an Education.

Lucasta Miller is a writer and critic, and author of The Brontë Myth.

Thursday 16 June, 7pm

Everyday Lives

Ann Dinsdale and Suzanne Fagence Cooper take us through the domestic rituals of an early nineteenth century household, to discover how the Brontë sisters would have occupied their time outside of writing. Ann Dinsdale is Collections Manager at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Suzanne Fagence Cooper is V&A Research Fellow at Buckinghamshire New University, has written several books on Victorian art and culture, and has been a consultant for BBC programmes including What the Victorians Did for Us, and Simon Schama's History of Britain.

Thursday 7 July, 7pm

Between the Lines

Historian and biographer Kathryn Hughes explores how artefacts and historical evidence can help us to access the people and places of the past.

Kathryn Hughes is Professor of Lifewriting at UEA. Her biographies include George Eliot: the Last Victorian and The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton. She is a journalist and critic, regularly writing for The Guardian and appearing on BBC Radio 4.

Tickets are £14 per event and places limited. Bookings: jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188.

Artist’s Biography

Catherine Bertola was born in Rugby in 1976, grew up in Halifax and studied Fine Art at Newcastle University. She currently lives and works in Gateshead, UK. She has created site specific installations for a variety of sites and contexts, for organisations such as Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester), V&A Museum (London), Millennium Gallery (Sheffield) and the National Trust. Catherine Bertola has work in several public and private collections and is represented by Workplace Gallery, Gateshead and M+R Fricke, Berlin.

http://www.workplacegallery.co.uk/artists/_Catherine%20Bertola/

Further Information

Art in Yorkshire, supported by Tate

Art in Yorkshire, supported by Tate is a year long celebration of the visual arts in 19 galleries throughout Yorkshire. Works from Tate’s collection of historic, modern and contemporary art will be showcased through a compelling programme of exhibitions and events. Visit http://art.yorkshire.com

Personal Tempest

To be forever known forms part of Personal Tempest; a group exhibition curated by Tereza Kotyk, inspired by Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Thomas Bernhard’s publication Amras which will exhibit at UH Galleries, Hatfield in 2011. An exhibition of Conrad Atkinson’s Emily Brontë-inspired work will be on show at South Square Gallery, Thornton (the Bronte birthplace) from 2 April until 22 May 2011. As well as revisiting Conrad Atkinson’s 1992 installation For Emily, originally commissioned by the Henry Moore Foundation, South Square will also curate previously unseen drawing works which illustrate Atkinson’s fascination with the impulses of the literary mind. Writers William Wordsworth, Emily Brontë and Ted Hughes are represented metaphorically loading shopping trolleys with the components of their inspiration.

ENDS

Saturday 16 April – Friday 08 July 2011

Museum open daily | 10am – 5.30pm | Last admission 5pm

For further information contact the Arts Officer Jenna Holmes

Telephone: +44 [0] 1535 640188

Email: jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk

Website: www.bronte.info

Worse than expected...

2011-03-28T14:53:00.000+01:00

Wuthering Heights

BBC Radio 3

Sunday 27 March,2011

8.00pm

Ellen Dean Janine Duvitski

David Birrell Mr Lockwood/Linton Heathcliff

Russell Boulter Hindley Earnshaw/Hareton Earnshaw

Samuel Barnett Edgar Linton

Carl Prekopp Heathcliff

Natalie Press Catherine Earnshaw/Catherine Linton

Produced in Bristol by Tim Dean

Review by Chris Went:

Lovers of Emily Brontë’s novel have endured much over the years, from William Wyler’s abbreviated Hollywood rendition through Juliette Binoche’s French accented Cathy, the BBC’s radio serial which made the house the narrator, to Tom Hardy sniffing his way through the last TV version. “Oh, damn my soul! but [it’s] worse than I expected – and the devil knows I was not sanguine!” So said Heathcliff on first meeting his son. As a comment on this latest offering, it seems appropriate.

Jonathan Holloway’s new radio adaptation promised a ‘modernised and hard-hitting’ version, and listeners were warned that it contained strong language and racist terms. According to Holloway this was ‘.....part of my attempt to capture the shock the book caused when it was published.’ The Daily Express told its readers that the play would ’.....portray Cathy and Heathcliff as listeners have never heard them before.’ This proved to be true, but not entirely in the way the Express reporter meant.

Andrew McCarthy of the Brontë Parsonage Museum has been widely quoted as saying that ‘It doesn’t take much imagination to fill in the blanks’ referring to the part of the novel where the child Hareton horrifies Ellen Dean with his ‘string of curses’ and his admission that it is Heathcliff who taught him to swear. There are many points in the story where a modern adaptation might insert the words which Brontë undoubtedly knew but could never write - at least not for public consumption: Heathcliff’s first encounter with the Lintons when his swearing shocks old Mrs Linton; Hindley who ‘entered, vociferating oaths dreadful to hear’ and any number of lesser occasions. In a dramatisation the inclusion of the F-word for such scenes makes some sense: Brontë meant us to imagine stronger terms than ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ so there is no point in being mimsy about it. The problem was not the word itself, but how and where it was used. Its insertion it into dialogue for which Brontë allowed no such implication was irritating but to have it interjected into a massacred version of Cathy’s great ‘I am Heathcliff’ speech was unforgivable. Several terms of abuse used of, and by, Heathcliff jarred horribly less because they were offensive but because they were wildly anachronistic. In a thoroughly modernised version they would have been appropriate but, inserted into the fractured remnants of the original text, they sounded ridiculous.

However, the use of offensive language was not the problem. That aspect was a mere curiosity, artistically defensible if properly executed within a high quality production. In this case it was little more than a gimmick, and the whole best forgotten. Whilst there are many difficulties in the way of a satisfactory visual rendition of Wuthering Heights, it would seem perfectly possible to produce a creditable – even a great – radio version of the book. What we had was a disjointed script which gave the impression of being written by someone who had relied on a précis based on a skim-reading of the book. A listener new to the work would have been hard put to follow the plot, while those who know it well could only be infuriated.

Jonathan Holloway’s script did manage to keep the main characters more or less to their correct ages – something virtually every film adaptation has failed to do – though Ellen Dean was played by Janine Duvitski as a middle-aged woman throughout. It was Ellen who opened the play with a fanciful speech about the moor, and who was given dialogue and opinions which come straight from Holloway’s mind. According to his Ellen: Hindley Earnshaw’s wife, Frances, was ‘an impoverished, doll-like idiot’; Isabella broke into the Grange after her escape from Wuthering Heights, and the mingling of Cathy Linton’s and Hareton’s light and dark hair were reminiscent of the light and dark curls which went with Catherine to her grave. But the worst is not yet!

Holloway’s script used several scenes from the book which are invariably omitted from dramatisations but in virtually every case there was distortion. Ellen’s vision of Hindley as a child at the stone pillar is a notable example. In the book this incident is so sharply evocative that one wonders whether Bronte had her brother in mind when she wrote it. Holloway reduced it to the banal by making the vision a real child – Hareton. Again and again there were changes, additions and contradictions. Mr Earnshaw was away to Liverpool for six days; Isabella went to live in Surrey; Heathcliff had been in the army; Catherine’s final illness was brought on by her being out all night on the moors; Cathy Linton was pleased to discover that Hareton is her cousin; Hareton turned against Heathcliff and threatened him; Ellen told of the ghosts of Catherine and Heathcliff peeping through Joseph’s bedroom window. Joseph, incidentally, was referred to but never heard, while Zillah was made to give Ellen an account of the wedding of Cathy and Linton Heathcliff. We also heard that Edgar Linton gave his nephew up to Heathcliff before the latter made a single demand. To be fair to Holloway, his portrayal of Linton Heathcliff as a self-obsessed, whining, unpleasant wretch was true to the book, but not the deception by which Cathy and Ellen were imprisoned at The Heights. The mangling of the plot at this point was particularly exasperating.

The disjointed nature of the plot as portrayed by Holloway has already been noted as bewildering to anyone unfamiliar with the novel. Based on this portrayal, anyone who has heard of ‘Wuthering Heights’ as a story of a passionate love affair, of Heathcliff’s and Catherine’s obsession with eachother, would struggle to understand just why Heathcliff cared twopence for Catherine. Her part was reduced to a few words here and there other than what might be called her great speeches. ‘Great’, however, is not an appropriate word in this context. The scene in which Catherine confides in Ellen about her intention to marry Edgar even though she does not love him as she loves Heathcliff was edited and ’modernised’ into trivial, contradictory nonsense. The interchange in the kitchen of Thrushcross Grange which culminates in Edgar’s attack on Heathcliff and Catherine’s hysteria was similarly reduced. Worse still, Natalie Press’s Catherine delivered her lines in an early BBC accent strongly reminiscent of Joyce Grenfell. As for passion, Violet Beauregard exhibited far more in her desire for a Wonka golden ticket! Doubling up as Cathy II, Press’s voice and flat delivery were exactly the same.

This doubling up – David Birrell as Lockwood and Linton Heathcliff and Russell Boulter as Hindley and Hareton Earnshaw – was occasionally confusing and, with the omission of the character of Joseph, implied underfunding. A few seconds, here and there, of incidental music failed to inject any desperately needed atmosphere. Heathcliff, played by Carl Prekopp, did manage to sound devastated at Catherine’s death but, particularly in the second half of the story, his voice lacked the necessary harshness so that his Heathcliff came across as a nice man with a sense of humour trying hard not to be.

A Lockwood soliloquy closed the play, but what the character had to say – thankfully not much - simply carried the awfulness to the bitter end. The dereliction of Gimmerton chapel was applied to The Heights, Bronte’s lyrical ending was ignored, and Lockwood, echoing the opening words of Ellen Dean, cursed and blessed the moor. The listener would be heartily forgiven for cursing the BBC for this infliction and blessing it for having the charity to limit it to ninety minutes.

John Martin: Heaven and Hell

2011-03-28T14:43:00.003+01:00

The Laing Art Gallery, New Bridge Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 8A

Until 5 June 2011. Monday - Saturday 10 am – 5pm; Sunday 2pm – 5pm. Closed 29 April 2011. Entry is free.

Review by Chris Went:

In 1829, describing the founding of Glass Town, Charlotte Brontë wrote: ‘How long has it taken to rear the Grand Hall where we now are? Have not those marble pillars and that solemn dome been built by supernatural power? If you view the city from this Gothic window and see the beams of the morn gilding the battlements of the mighty towers, and the pillars of the splendid palaces which have been reared in a few months, can you doubt that magic has been used in their construction?’ If the 13-year-old Charlotte could have seen the original painting of ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’, a mezzotint of which surely influenced her first vision of Glass Town, she might have imagined that the artist too had worked under the influence of magic.

There is something distinctly strange, surreal, about Martin’s work, something – one is tempted to believe - precognitive and uncannily knowing. The scale of his representations of Belshazzar’s palace, of Nineveh and Pandemonium reminds one of the vastness of the computer generated cities of “Star Wars”, or the similarly devised landscapes of “The Lord of the Rings”. To look at the depiction of the destruction of the earth in his ‘Last Judgement’ is to be reminded painfully of the recent disaster which struck Japan. Not for nothing was that event described over and over as being of biblical proportions, and biblical proportions are what John Martin produced so successfully.

The exhibition occupies the five galleries which make up the whole of the first floor of the gallery and as such, is the largest the Laing has ever mounted. Each room’s display is themed to tell a part of Martin’s story from his birth in 1789 at East Landends near Haydon Bridge in Northumberland, to his death on the Isle of Man in 1854 using clear wall-mounted text boards which, cleverly sited, are accessible without being intrusive. Indeed, both the staging and the lighting of the exhibition are superb: nothing is allowed to detract from the works. The atmosphere is comfortable, the staff friendly and helpful, and there are plenty of places to sit down.

It is obvious that Martin always intended his art to be commercial. Whilst working as a painter on ceramics he produced small landscapes, watercolours of classical subjects and illustrations for prints, all of which were designed to sell. Some of his earliest oils seem somewhat flat and almost amateurish: two small paintings of Kensington Gardens, both done in 1815, do not prepare one for the awesome scale and drama of the Welsh mountain landscape of ‘The Bard’ (1817). Again and again he painted cities which appear almost organic: growing out of crags and peaks apparently intended not merely to impress but to overawe, and when Martin illustrates destruction, be it Sodom and Gomorrah, Nineveh or the earth itself, he does so with all the visual tropes of a modern disaster movie.

Although Martin was never beloved of the art Establishment, he enjoyed a long period of commercial success largely through the production of mezzotint prints of his most popular works. As well as ‘Belshazzar’s Feast’ the Brontës owned ‘Joshua Commands the Sun to Stand Still’ and ‘The Deluge’. They may also have had a copy of ‘St Paul Preaching at Athens’ all of which feature in the exhibition, as does ‘The Last Man’ which Charlotte saw on her visit to London in 1850, describing it in a letter to her father as “a grand, wonderful picture”. She might have added that it provokes a strong sense of desolate misery. Many of Martin’s prints were used in popular annuals of the time, some of which the Brontës owned, and it was common for publications such as Blackwood’s Magazine to analyse popular works in great detail. In July, 1828 Blackwood’s published a detailed description and critique of Martin’s ‘The Fall of Nineveh’ which is believed to have influenced Charlotte’s poem ‘The Trumpet Hath Sounded’ (December, 1831).

It is easy to imagine, whilst viewing the main part of the exhibition, that the young Brontës must have wished for coloured reproductions of Martin’s works. However, the display of mezzotints in the Barbour Gallery allows a completely different view of Martin’s best-known pictures. While the prints lack the drama of colour, this is more than compensated for in sharpness of line and detail. The monumental scale of the buildings, the ominous quality, the turbulence of celestial phenomena are depicted with a startling clarity. There is a sinister eeriness about the prints which is not present in the paintings. In short, the mezzotints are far more frightening than the coloured works.

The final section of the exhibition, The End of All Things, shows Martin’s last great work: the three enormous paintings entitled ‘The Great Day of His Wrath’; ‘The Last Judgement’ and ‘The Plains of Heaven’, all painted between 1851 and 1853. Each one is disturbing, either obviously or subtly. One expects to be disturbed by scenes of cataclysmic annihilation; one does not expect to find a representation of heavenly bliss unsettling. It may have been entirely unintended, but in the waterside rocks of paradise one seemed to see the ghosts of those monumental, monstrous palaces and colonnades which one had just seen swept away at the last judgement.

The Laing Art Gallery is staging John Martin: Heaven and Hell as part of ‘The Great British Art Debate’, a partnership project between Tate Britain, Tyne and Wear Archives & Museums, Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service and Museums Sheffield. The Great British Art Debate is a series of events and exhibitions bringing art from national collections to the regions. It aims to encourage the public to join in a debate about what British art has to say about identity and Britishness today. The exhibition will also be staged at the Millennium Galleries, Sheffield from 22 June to 4 September, and at Tate Britain, London from 21 September to 15 January, 2012.

The Laing has a pleasant cafe offering a good range of snacks and meals at reasonable prices. There is also a shop selling postcards, prints, gifts and books. In stock is “John Martin Apocalypse Now” by Barbara C. Morden which tells Martin’s story, exploring the nature of his art with lavish illustrations. It is published by Northumbria Press at £30.00.

Below, The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah:

Buy Ponden Hall?

2011-03-28T10:32:00.002+01:00

Ponden Hall is up for sale. All the details are here.

Richard Wilcocks writes:
Branwell wrote a short story about the house - Thurston's at Darkwall - and used the well-stocked library there along with Emily. She knew the well-off Heaton family which lived there very well. Heaton sounds rather like Hareton, and there is a date plaque above the main entrance which informs us that the rebuilt version of the house dates from 1801, which happens to be the date when Wuthering Heights begins, and this leads some to believe that Emily imagined Heathcliff living there. I like this idea, for the simple unscholarly reason that a few years ago I walked by it in heavy snow...

There is a tiny single-paned window on the east gable. Emily, some believe, had that in mind when she wrote about the ghost of Cathy scratching at it, trying to get in. I like that idea as well, but there is no evidence...

The main tradition, however, is that it is identifiable with Thrushcross Grange, home of the Lintons: it would probably have seemed grand to the Brontës, with few other large houses in the area, but again there is no evidence at all. The Grange was in a large park, too.

The library has been dispersed to who knows where since the late nineteenth century when many of the books were sold off in a Keighley market-place. Perhaps someone there still has a Shakespeare First Folio in an attic.

You would still have to be well-off to buy the place: the interior has been refurbished brilliantly.

John Martin in Newcastle

2011-03-16T12:10:00.000Z

Chris Went writes:
A major exhibition of John Martin's paintings opened on 5 March at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The exhibition, which will run until June, features eighty of Martin's oil paintings including Belshazzar's Feast, which is on loan from America.

This is a rare opportunity to see the originals of the prints which inspired the young Brontës when they created their imaginary worlds. Entry to the exhibition is free.

‘Saucy Pat’ exhibition opens at the Parsonage

2011-03-15T12:47:00.000Z

News release from the Parsonage:

He was father to three of the most famous authors in the world yet most of us know very little about Patrick Brontë. This year marks the 150^th anniversary of his death in 1861 and the Brontë Parsonage Museum will be opening a new exhibition to celebrate the life and work of this ‘somewhat eccentrik’ Irish curate. The exhibition, Patrick Brontë: In His Own Right will open on 17 March, St Patrick’s Day.

Patrick was born in Ireland in a small cabin and was the eldest son of a poor farmer. From a very young age he was highly ambitious, enthusiastic and intelligent; by the time he was just sixteen he had already opened his first school. A few years later Patrick had secured himself a place at Cambridge University to pursue a career in the Church. He left Ireland for England where he was to spend the rest of his long life, eventually settling in Haworth at the Parsonage.

This new exhibition features some of Patrick’s own publications, as well as many letters and personal possessions …

This exhibition is a first for the museum. Understandably, there’s been a tendency to focus on Patrick’s famous daughters and their great literary achievements, but Patrick was an extraordinary figure in his own right; as an author, scholar, clergyman, and social campaigner, as well as the father and educator of his remarkable children. This exhibition is long overdue and will give visitors an insight not only into Patrick as the ‘father of genius’, but also into his own fascinating background and his prominent role within nineteenth century Haworth

(Andrew McCarthy, Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum)

The exhibition will also feature a number of important loan items from the John Rylands Library at the University of Manchester and the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds. After the death of his last daughter, Charlotte, Patrick asked Elizabeth Gaskell to write “an account of her life”. The letters on loan from the John Ryland’s Library document Patrick’s involvement in the first biography of Charlotte Bronte by providing Gaskell with background information on his early life and memories of his daughter.

Also included in the exhibition will be a very special letter on loan from the Brotherton Library in Leeds. Written by Maria Branwell before she married Patrick, it is addressed to ‘My Dear Saucy Pat’ and is one of the few surviving letters that exist by Mrs Brontë, giving a wonderful insight into their courtship. After the sudden death of his wife, Patrick was left to raise their six young children on his own; of which his three youngest girls made them the most famous literary family in the world. He outlived all of them, eventually dying at the age of 84.

Contacts & Further Information:

Sarah Laycock (Collections & Library Officer) 01535 640199 sarah.laycock@bronte.org.uk/

Ann Dinsdale (Collections Manager) 01535 640198 –a.dinsdale@bronte.org.uk

Companion piece to Deaths and Entrances

2011-03-14T08:35:00.001Z

Paul Daniggelis in Texas sends this link - following on from the piece about the New York-based Martha Graham Dance Company's companion piece to Deaths and Entrances for the troupe’s eighty-fifth anniversary celebrations.

Review of The Brontës and their Poetry by Anne Crow

2011-03-09T18:01:00.001Z

Heidi Büchner writes:

This book is the work of an accomplished teacher, to be sure, someone who gets to the point quickly and who knows when not to go on for too long. Drawing heavily on sources such as the monolithic The Brontës by Juliet Barker and also the Selected Poems that Barker edited for Everyman, Anne Crow presents us with a concise and readily accessible survey, with extensive quotations to illustrate the frequent salient points which she makes. She includes an excellent four-page chronology near to where her text commences, which begins in 1776 (American Declaration of Independence, in the year before the birth of Patrick Brontë) and ends with that patriarch’s death in 1861. Included are most events and publications which could be construed as relevant: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, for example, is placed next to the rejection of the Third Chartist petition in 1848, along with the deaths of both Branwell and Emily.

Crow is careful in particular to include plenty of background and information on Patrick to begin her survey, with interesting extracts and commentaries on Cottage Poems which are frequently skimmed over by those who want to home in, perhaps too speedily, on the lives and works of his talented son and daughters. Some of Patrick's poems have plenty of charm, while others seem bland, in spite of clever crafting. All are hard to obtain.

There is concise information on both Thornton and Haworth – all going over well-trodden earth – and evidence of some personal research, with some poignant photographs taken (by Crow herself) in Haworth cemetery.

Crow’s selections are a little scanty, and not entirely ‘predictable’. She gives almost equal space to the poems of Patrick and Branwell as to those of each of the sisters, which seems like an invitation to scrutinise, say, Branwell’s The desolate earth (written during his time at the Luddenden Foot railway station) with the same critical eye as Anne’s Lines Written at Thorp Green. This could be a very useful exercise for a group of sixth formers studying for A level!

The Brontës and their Poetry was self-published (by ‘Crowscapes’ no less) using the facilities at www.lulu.com

It can be bought from the Parsonage shop.

ISBN: 978-0-9562328-2-3

Bulareyaung Pagarlava

2011-02-16T13:00:00.001Z

Thanks to Paul Daniggelis in Texas for the following info:

Taiwanese choreographer Bulareyaung Pagarlava has been invited by the New York-based Martha Graham Dance Company to do a companion piece to Deaths and Entrances for the troupe’s 85th anniversary celebrations.

This is the second collaboration between Pagarlava and the company, following his 2009 contribution to Lamentation Variations, in which young choreographers respond to Graham’s Lamentation (1930).

“Bula is one of the talented, important, new voices in the international dance scene,” Janet Eilber, artistic director of the group, said. “When we decided we wanted a contemporary companion piece to Graham’s masterpiece Deaths and Entrances, we turned to Bula.”

Deaths and Entrances, which premiered in 1943, is based on the lives of the Bronte sisters. Here is the link.

See also Deaths and Entrances. Brontë Studies: Vol.32, Part 2, 138-144, July 2007.

Jane Eyre 1943

2011-02-08T10:48:00.001Z

The Parsonage will be screening the 1943 Hollywood film version of Jane Eyre as part of their contemporary arts programme next week.

The event takes place on Friday 18 February, 7.30pm at the West Lane Baptist Centre in Haworth. The film is being screened to celebrate the museum’s acquisition of the original film screenplay, which is now on display at the Parsonage, complete with handwritten notes by its author, Aldous Huxley.

The 20^th Century Fox production was directed by Robert Stephenson and stars Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine. It also briefly features a very young Elizabeth Taylor in one of her first screen roles, as Jane Eyre’s school friend Helen Burns. The film will be screened after a short introduction by Charmian Knight, and there will be an interval with refreshments served.

The screenplay, produced in the war years, is stamped, ‘’Less shooting over here means more shooting over there! Save our film!” It was acquired by the museum last year, with assistance from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, and will be on display throughout 2011.

Tickets are £6/ £3 (under 16s) and can be booked in advance from

jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk/ 01535 640188.

Now read about the latest version on film at http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=20896212#editor/target=post;postID=6730907215260031952

Welcome, Bonnie Greer!

2011-02-02T10:50:00.004Z

Ms Bonnie Greer OBE has accepted the post of President of the Brontë Society and will preside over the Society's Annual General Meeting in June.

Ms Greer, pictured here at the Parsonage, said, “The work of the Brontës encompasses some of the most exquisite examples of the beauty, strength, wonder, and depth of the human spirit. This is their gift to us, and the answer that I give the little girl I was long ago, when I asked myself what relevance they had for me, growing up African American on the South Side of Chicago.

Their universality is unquestioned. Their power to speak to all people down through the ages is a legacy and a flame I want to help perpetuate and cherish. It is a great honour to accept this position. That little girl still inside of me who loved the Brontës so is twirling around filled with joy. ”

Chairman of the Brontë Society, Sally McDonald, announced the appointment saying, “The Brontë Society is thrilled that Bonnie Greer has accepted the Society’s invitation to be our President.

Everyone is very excited that we will be working with Bonnie and we are very much looking forward to her return to Haworth later this year when members will meet and welcome her as our President. Bonnie has been a true friend to the Society over the past year.”

In 2010 Bonnie Greer spoke in Haworth as part of the Brontë Society’s Contemporary Arts Programme, returning soon after to open a newly refurbished exhibition space at the Parsonage museum. She joined members of the Society and spoke eloquently at a fundraising event at Watermen’s Hall, in London, in November, having earlier that day received an OBE from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace.

Bonnie Greer is also the judge of the short story section of the 2010-2011 Brontë Society Literary Competition.

Born in Chicago, Bonnie Greer is well known in Britain as an award-winning playwright, novelist, and broadcaster. Her latest play, Marilyn and Ella ran at The Apollo Theatre in London in November 2009, and her new book, a biography for young people of the poet and novelist, Langston Hughes, entitled Rebel with a Cause, will be published by Arcadia in the spring. Her libretto for the new opera Yes, composed by Errollyn Wallen, will premiere at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden’s Lindbury Theatre in autumn, 2011

Parsonage reopens next month

2011-01-24T10:03:00.000Z

News release:

The Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth will be re-opening on Tuesday 1 February following a hectic month of activity including maintenance work, cleaning, conservation, revaluation of the museum’s collections, decorative archaeology and development of new displays.

The museum closes every January so that essential work can be carried out without disturbing visitors. As well as all of the usual tasks undertaken, this year included a team of experts visiting the museum to carry out decorative analysis which it is hoped will provide new evidence of the scheme of decoration in the Parsonage during the Brontës’ residence.

The work involves taking samples from walls, mouldings and woodwork and analyzing these using polarizing microscopy. It is the first time that such analysis has taken place at the Parsonage and, it is hoped, could lead to exciting new discoveries about the Brontës’ décor and the history of their Parsonage home. Information relating to the project will be made available to visitors and the museum will be formulating a plan to completely redecorate the Parsonage in 2012.

Visitors to the museum will also be able to see a variety of new displays, with more of the museum’s collection on display than ever. Items on display for the first time will include the original screenplay for the 1943 Hollywood film of Jane Eyre starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine. The screenplay is annotated by its author, the British writer Aldous Huxley. Huxley is famous for books such as Brave New World and The Doors of Perception, in which he wrote of his experiments with hallucinogenic drugs. The screenplay, produced in the war years, is stamped, ‘’Less shooting over here means more shooting over there! Save our film!”. It was acquired by the museum last year, with assistance from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, and the museum will be screening the film at the West Lane Baptist Centre in Haworth on the evening of Friday 18 February. The Brontës will be continuing to feature in the world of the movies with new film versions of both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights expected to be released in 2011.

A great deal of work goes on at the museum in January and we’re very much looking forward to re-opening our doors in February. There have been lots of changes to our displays and we hope that visitors from near and far will come along and see what’s new.

Andrew McCarthy

Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum

For further information on museum opening and events contact bronte@bronte.org.uk/ 01535 642323 – www.bronte.info

Joan Quarm dies at 90

2011-01-04T10:57:00.002Z

Thanks to Texas Brontë Society member Paul Daniggelis for sending us this information.

Click on the clipping to make it larger.

Get in touch

2010-12-29T12:11:00.002Z

Would the man who commented very recently on our May 2007 post Haworth Clampers as 'Anonymous' please get in touch by email. You may have a legal case, especially if damage was done to your vehicle.

A visitor from Greece

2010-12-13T11:27:00.000Z

Elena Spanou from Greece has posted on her blog a very interesting account of her visit to Haworth and the Parsonage, together with some superb photographs. Here is the link: http://ksotikoula.blogspot.com/