Celebrations at the Brontë Parsonage

Tracy Chevalier

A tour of the current exhibition - Charlotte Great and Small - with a series of commentaries from its curator, Tracy Chevalier, was one of the highlights of yesterday's bicentenary celebrations at the Parsonage. An item in a glass case in the Bonnell Room, where the tour started, is one of the letters which an agonised and infatuated Charlotte sent to Monsieur Heger at the Pensionnat in Brussels, which was first torn up by the recipient, then sewn back together by Madame Heger.

Interestingly, we were told that studies of the folds in the paper show that M.Heger kept it intact for years. One speculation is that Mme. Heger wanted to preserve it as evidence that her husband had not actually 'done anything' with his pupil. Four works by the artist Ligia Booton take off from this letter, and hang on a wall nearby, part of the exhibition.