Yorkshire Day at the Parsonage

The next event organised by the Friends of the Brontë Parsonage will be held on Sunday 29 July, the day that Haworth is celebrating Yorkshire Day. The Friends will be serving tea and home-made cakes in the small field next to the Parsonage from 10.30a.m. until 4.00p.m. There will also be a second-hand book stall, a plant stall and a craft stall selling items made by Museum staff.

So far this year the Friends have held a Ceilidh to celebrate Patrick Brontë's birthday and the Irish connection, sold tea and scones over two days at the Haworth 1940s event (the Parsonage remained open throughout the war years) and held a raffle at the Bronte Society AGM weekend in June.

In addition they have also served refreshments at various evenings organised as part of the Museum's Education Programme. It has been a busy six months and in this short space of time the Friends have raised over £1,000 for Museum projects, so please come along and support them.

Pat Berry

New Acquisitions

The Brontë Society has recently acquired three new items for the Museum Collection. They are:

A letter written to the Trustees for the Church Lands of Haworth, dated 1 February 1834, written by Charlotte Brontë and signed by her father. The letter concerns the rotation of the Trustees and the division of labour in collecting the rents. It was formerly owned by a descendant of James Greenwood of Haworth

The Society also purchased two letters which were auctioned at Christie’s on 3 July. They are Charlotte’s letter to W.S. Williams, written on 9 November 1849, and Patrick Brontë’s letter to George Taylor of Stanbury, dated 29 February 1844. Both letters were part of the huge collection of important historical letters amassed by Albin Schram, found in a filing cabinet in his laundry room.

Charlotte’s letter was written just days after the publication of Shirley, and expresses her disappointment on reading the first reviews. Charlotte was clearly missing the support and encouragement of her sisters Emily and Anne, who both died whilst she was writing the novel, leaving her vulnerable to the critics’ hurtful comments.

Patrick’s letter is a compassionate appeal written on behalf of Enoch Thomas, one of his churchwardens, said to be suffering a ‘very severe and great affliction’. He is clearly concerned about Thomas’s well-being and believes that ‘his friends ought to do for him all that lies within their power’. After attempting to interest George Taylor in Thomas’s plight, Mr Brontë goes on to enquire after Taylor’s own family. It is a letter which challenges the notion that the Brontës had little contact with the world outside their parsonage home, and that Patrick Brontëwas a selfish recluse who took little interest in the lives of his parishioners.

Details of the letter and a transcript will be published in the Society’s journal, Brontë Studies, and for those who are unable to visit the museum we are currently developing an online catalogue with virtual access to items in the Collection. It is our intention that this letter be appreciated by audiences beyond the locality of the Museum and access via the internet is one way in which this can be achieved.

All three letters will be displayed at the Parsonage over the coming months.

Ann Dinsdale
Collections Manager

Brontë - the name

This is my report on the 'What's in a name?' campaign which began just before Easter. To illustrate it, thunder clouds, because Bronte means thunder in Greek.









The aim of the letter sent to named managing directors of about forty companies in March (and subsequent phone calls) when I was still Chairman of the Brontë Society was not just to obtain donations and sponsorship but to put the Parsonage in the public eye just before Easter. A media release was sent out on 19 March 2007 which resulted in substantial articles in the local and national press, ten minutes on the Radio 4 programme You and Yours and two sessions of a similar length on the Radio Leeds Breakfast Show.

John Roberts wrote an article which was prominently placed (page 2) in the Yorkshire Post of 20 March. An article by Louise Jury in the Independent on 21 March was well-informed and accompanied by three illustrations. There was also a 'third leader' about the letter by Charles Nevin on the editorial page. On the same day, a very good article by Clive White (who rang several companies in the local area) was published in the Bradford Telegraph and Argus. Other articles appeared in the Keighley News and on various blogs and websites.

The You and Yours interview (lunchtime 26 March) resulted in a number of phone calls and emails, all sympathetic. The programme had used no less than four researchers to phone around for reactions from companies found on the Internet, which made me jealous. One reaction, from a Mr Robert Bolton from Bronte Whirlpools Ltd of Silsden, turned out to be typical – “I chose the name because the company is in Bronte Country. Otherwise we would have been Aqua something.”

The Radio Leeds broadcasts resulted in phone calls to the station, one or two jokey but all of them sympathetic. The presenter mentioned that she had been impressed by the Parsonage Museum during visits there, and there was talk of the fact that it might be a good place to visit over Easter.

The companies which received the letters were sifted from a long list after a check (by a volunteer named Ruth Wilson at the Parsonage!) that they were still in business and that they were reasonably large. Many of them received follow-up phone calls from myself. Some replies were cautious or evasive (eg “I’ll ring back when I have discussed this with my partner/head office etc”), some were surprised (“What letter?”) and some were very friendly. Here is a selection:

Rita Marsden from Brontë Weaving Shed in Haworth (visited personally) said that she was sending the letter on to head office in Edinburgh but that she was “interested in collaboration”.

Miriam Spollen from Brontë Bridal in Dublin was very friendly, and would like to visit the Parsonage (she comes over to Harrogate frequently). She promised a cheque and said she would get back to me in the autumn.

Julie Eyre from Brontë Business Networks of Solihull said she chose Brontë because of her own name and because she used to live in Oakworth. She sent her best wishes but added that hers is a start-up company and unable to give donations at the moment. However, the company would be willing to give advice on websites.

Mrs Clare Pickles of Brontë Country Cottages “will ring back after I have discussed it with my husband”.

Mr H.S. Sohal of Brontë Countrywear Ltd (Manchester) “will ring back after I have discussed it with fellow directors”.

John Matthewman of Brontë Tweeds rang to invite me to tour his mill in Tingley, which I did. It has not changed much for a hundred years and produces mainly tartan blankets and lambswool scarves of high quality. Apparently the same products can be labelled 'Brontë' or 'Highland'.

“It’s to emphasise that they are British,” he explained. “We are one of the few working mills left around here. We have so much competition from India and China.” He is unable to donate money but told me about a deal he has with the National Trust. He can supply items like scarves “at cost price” for resale. This information has been relayed to Parsonage shop manager Sean Killian, who will pay a visit.

Stephen Leach from Brontë Engineering Technologies also invited me to visit his company in Bradford, which specialises in valves for desalination plants. He was very sympathetic, has visited the Parsonage, and spent much of the visit telling me about the uselessness of Bradford Council. He has asked for his company website (currently under construction) to be linked to the Parsonage website and the Parsonage Blog, and said that he will send a cheque.

Alan Hardie of Patterson Arran Ltd of Livingston, Scotland (Brontë Biscuits, Café Brontë) sent a letter saying that there were “opportunities to work with you” but claimed to have “limited funds”, so no donation.

Sir James Aykroyd Bt (of Birstwith Hall, Harrogate) sent a letter saying that he had bought Brontë Liqueur and related trademarks some time ago “but due to other interests have so far done nothing to commercialise the product”. He pointed out that Sir James Roberts was his grandmother’s father, and that he can do little to help us at the moment – but he attached a cheque for fifty pounds. He said that should Brontë Liqueur be reintroduced he would be happy to include in the selling price a small contribution to the Society for each bottle sold. He wished us good luck in our fund raising efforts. In a subsequent phone call he repeated what he had put in the letter. He was invited to visit the Parsonage.

Incidentally I did not stand for re-election as Chairman of the Brontë Society at the last meeting of Council. I can no longer spare the time because my small business (publications and design) is expanding.

Richard Wilcocks

Below, a reminder of the original letter:

REMINDER

Copy of the original letter below:

Dear (name of Managing Director)

I am writing to you for the simple reason that your company uses the name Brontë in its title. I am guessing that this was chosen because it confers a certain prestige upon you, associating you in the public’s imagination with the Brontë family and perhaps the Brontë Parsonage Museum as well. Bronte is both the name of a town in Sicily and the Greek word for thunder, and it was chosen by the Reverend Patrick Brontë (with the addition of the diaeresis) as a new version of his family name of Brunty early in the Nineteenth Century, mainly because of its associations with Lord Nelson, a national hero at the time.

I hope that «Company_Name» is currently prospering. I am wondering whether you have recently visited the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, which is run by the Brontë Society. If you have, you will know that the home of the Brontë family, the Georgian house where Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë wrote the books which made them world famous, is lovingly preserved by a dedicated staff in spite of a tight budget.

There is a programme of special events at the museum which runs throughout the year, which includes special exhibitions, talks, day-schools, courses, children’s holiday workshops, film, theatre and musical performances. Its education programme is ‘inspired’ according to the Judges’ Citation for winners of the prestigious Sandford Award.

The Brontë Society possesses one of the most important collections of Brontë items in the world, housed in the Parsonage, an invaluable resource for the many researchers seeking to shed further light on the Brontë writings, the Brontë family and the social, political and economic history of the Brontë times. Thus, there will always be a demand on the Society’s financial resources as newly-discovered and existing Brontëana come on to the market. There is also a considerable cost in the professional care, conservation, storage and management of the Society’s existing collection.

The Brontë Society gets no direct government assistance, so it is reliant on the generosity of its supporters and visitors to the museum. This is where you come in, because I believe that you could help. I am inviting you to make a donation to us, which would be gratefully received and publicly acknowledged.

Your company could sponsor an appropriate artefact, a special event, an exhibition, a children’s workshop…….the list is long. Or, you could contribute to our Acquisitions Fund, with a focus on a particular item. Your company’s name would feature in our publicity.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by letter or email, or by ringing me directly on . I would be very happy to meet you personally to discuss how you could help us.

Best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Two letters for the Parsonage

Good news! The Parsonage was able to buy the two Brontë-related letters which were auctioned at Christie’s yesterday as part of the Albin Schram collection which has been featuring in the national news.

The first is a letter from Charlotte to William Smith Williams written in November 1849, in which she flays the critics of Shirley. An extract from the letter is in Margaret Smith's collection, but the entire letter is unpublished. The Parsonage attempted to buy the letter in 1999 but missed out - so it is even more satisfying to have got it now at a good hammer price - £18,500.

The second letter is from Patrick: “In this letter, Mr Brontë writes to George Taylor, one of the trustees of Haworth Church, on behalf of Enoch Thomas, one of his churchwardens. He is clearly concerned about Thomas’s well-being and believes that ‘his friends ought to do for him all that lies within their power’. After attempting to interest George Taylor in Thomas’s plight, Mr Brontë goes on to enquire after Taylor’s own family.

"It is a letter which challenges the notion that the Brontës had little contact with the world outside their parsonage home, and that Patrick Brontë was a selfish recluse who took little interest in the lives of his parishioners.”

Again the letter was missed out on in 1999, but has now been purchased for a very reasonable £2600

Alan Bentley

Well-dressed in August

Throughout August, the Parsonage will be hosting a summer season of family activities to ensure children of all ages have something exciting to do in the school holidays, whilst learning a thing or two about the lives of the Brontë family.

Events take place on consecutive Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays commencing 7 August and ending on 30 August 2007. These will include exploring history through artefacts, re-enactions and arts and crafts workshops.

New this year will be an audio dramatization of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë leading on from the display at the Museum, and a Brontë trail for families to follow accompanied by tour guides who will tell the story of life in and around the Parsonage.

Note down the date for a new costumed performance of Jane Eyre, the well dressed Governess on Wednesday 8 August at 11.00am, 2.00pm and 4.00pm which will explore the life of Jane Eyre through the clothes that she wore.

The summer season is always popular, with children and parents from across the UK making the trip to the Parsonage. Children will get the chance to dress up, write with quill pens and make bags and shoes whilst adults are entertained by Museum staff - in particular Andrew McCarthy - staging the hilarious Branwell’s About on the front lawn.

The Museum is open from 10.00 am to 5.30 pm and all activities are free upon admission.

Schedule:

Tuesdays - 11.30am - Guided Walk
12.30 pm - Branwell’s About
1.30 pm - Tabby’s Tour
2.30 pm - Guided Walk
3.30 pm - Branwell’s About


Wednesdays - Hands on History – Dress up, write with quill pens and take part in activities whilst handling a collection of artefacts exploring history and life in the Parsonage

Wed 8 August - Jane Eyre, the well dressed Governess

Thursdays - 11.00 am - 1.00 pm & 2.00pm - 4.00 pm
Arts and Crafts for all the family

Diane Kay

For general information please contact the Brontë Parsonage Museum on
+44 1535 642323 or visit www.bronte.info

Un incendio destruyó totalmente un teatro en Cordóba

Everybody connected with Cumbres Borrascos (Wuthering Heights), a rock opera which was to have premiered in Cordóba, Argentina, is feeling devastated at the moment, because the theatre burned down just before the first performance. Thanks to our friends at Bronte Blog for telling us about this.


You can read the whole story (in Spanish) in La Nacion at www.lanacion.com.ar/entretenimientos/nota.asp?nota_id=921336


You can watch a street interview with the director Hernán Espinosa on the production's blog at http://eldiariodecumbres.blogspot.com/


I am sure the company will appreciate messages of support on this - click on Comentarios


Below, after the fire:

Jewel Joan

Paul Daniggelis from El Paso, Texas, sends this news clipping and message:

Joan Quarm, long time Brontë Society member, 87 years of age, still working, still making the news, still going strong. What a Jewel in the Crown!!!

Click on it to enlarge.

Brontë birthplace IS sold

So who is he? According to a spokesman for Eddisons, which conducted the auction yesterday, a large property investor who comes regularly, a man in his late 30s or early 40s who lives in London, has bought the place on a whim. Apparently, he does not know what he is going to do with it, but he says that he is not going to adapt it for buy-to-let.

The Brontë Society is in no position to take it on. The local paper, the Telegraph and Argus, is polling online readers on whether Bradford Council should buy it and run it as a tourist attraction. So far, a substantial majority thinks it should. But then, Bradford Council tends to take Haworth and the Parsonage for granted, doing very little: the old toilets run by Bradford in the village are inadequate and dirty and the famous setts (cobbles) on Main Street are poorly looked after.

Birthplace not sold

There were insufficient bids for Lot 53 today at the auction held in Leeds United's Banqueting Suite at Elland Road. Therefore 'No Sale' was declared for the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton. The guide price had been reduced from £200,000 to £180,000 previously.

Secret selves of the Brontës

A series of striking new paintings by artist Victoria Brookland will be exhibited shortly at the Parsonage, which has been developing a reputation for bold projects with visual artists, most recently Turner-prize nominee Cornelia Parker, as part of its much praised contemporary arts programme.

Secret Self, the new exhibition, features fourteen works by the Leicester based artist, who has used dresses in the museum’s collection as her inspiration, transforming them into powerful evocations of the Brontës’ enduring mystery.

What I found most moving and unsettling about the dresses was the way they evoked thoughts of melancholy and absence, of a great depth of silence and yearning. It seemed to suggest the unspoken aspects of womens’ lives - feelings too acute to be written, voices not heard. Not just the Brontës’ voices - but all womens’. I was struck by the realisation that despite being the most examined and analysed women writers in history the Brontës still retained absolutely their mystery, the secret of their deepest selves died with them - albeit with a wealth of tantalising clues left behind. (Victoria Brookland)

Items of Brontë clothing are amongst the most powerful and popular exhibits in the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and these paintings use images of dresses from the museum’s collection to powerfully evoke the mystery surrounding the Brontës’ unrevealed lives. They accentuate how much there is that we do not know about the Brontës, that we cannot define or contain them. (Andrew McCarthy, Deputy Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum)

The exhibition is part of a programme of events that has recently included a visit to Haworth by the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, an event at the National Portrait Gallery with artist Cornelia Parker and an exhibition of giant photographs produced through a collaboration between local photographic artist, Simon Warner, and a group of visually impaired youngsters from Bradford.

The Secret Self exhibition opens on Sunday 1 July and runs to Sunday 30 September. Admission is included in the normal museum admission charge.

Brontë event in Milan

Franca Gollini Tiezzi writes:

An enthusiastic group of members of the Italian section of the Brontë Society gathered at the British Council in Milan on 26 May 2007 to meet Angela Crow, who introduced her latest book Miss Branwell’s companion.

It was a great honour to have Angela with us and to be introduced to her work, which was presented for the first time to an audience. Her talk was very interesting and let us know more about Maria Branwell, the Brontes’ mother, a clever and sensitive woman.

At the end of the lecture Angela signed copies of her book and then we had a lovely English tea party offered by the British Council.

Thank you, dear Angela, for your clever, involving talk and for your friendship. We hope you will come back to Italy soon!

Youngest member?

Paul Daniggelis writes:

Rachel Angela Daniggelis, 8 weeks old, has confided in me her desire to become an Angrian when she comes of age (4 years).

Until then, her Brontë library consists of this new volume* beautifully written and illustrated by Mary Haig, Region 10, US Brontë Society Representative. It is a gift to Miss Daniggelis from US Brontë Society Representative Theresa Connors, to whom we give our thanks.

*now available at the Parsonage shop

June Weekend - 4

Helen MacEwan writes -

Coming back to reality (and the office) after a weekend in Haworth, I think I know something of what the Brontë siblings must have felt on returning to their teaching duties after a holiday at the Parsonage, exchanging literary enthusiasms on moorland walks!

It is of course not just the organised events, good as they are, that make the Brontë Society's June AGM weekends so memorable and bring members back year after year. It is the combination of the setting - Haworth and the rolling moors around, with long summer days to walk on them - and the opportunity to meet lots of other members. It may not be the best weekend of the year for communing in solitude with the spirits of Charlotte or Emily, but no-one who welcomes the chance to talk over Brontë passions with like-minded enthusiasts on café terraces in Main Street, in the lounge bar of the Old White Lion or while striding over the moors, should miss the June AGM.

Brontë Society members are such a varied lot, coming from such a range of ages, nationalities, occupations and backgrounds. Some grew up in the area, others run overseas branches of the Society at the other side of the world, in America or Australia. Some were brought to the Parsonage by creative projects requiring research (I met a choreographer who has created a ballet about the Brontës and a playwright who's written a play about them). Each member has his or her specific interest or story to tell. There's the lady who has a Brontë room in her house, and the member who's amassed a collection of around 500 Brontë-related books over the years. I spoke to couples who had met through the Society and people who'd formed some of their best friendships with other members.

The 2007 AGM weekend followed the usual pattern. By Friday evening the Haworth Bed and Breakfasts were bursting at the seams. The meat of the weekend was on Saturday, with a morning lecture, a garden tea party, the AGM itself, and a discussion on "Brontë lives" by the biographers Juliet Barker, Lyndall Gordon, Rebecca Fraser and Edward Chitham (biographer of Anne). Barker, Gordon and Fraser told the audience why they had believed that new lives of the Brontës were necessary. They had all wanted to demolish myths and stereotypes created by previous biographers, starting with Mrs Gaskell. Juliet Barker, who had approached her subjects as a historian rather than an English literature expert and chosen to write about the whole family instead of an individual member of it, had in particular set out to correct the stereotypes of Patrick, Branwell and of course Haworth itself.

The programme on Sunday was lighter: readings in the morning and an afternoon walk on the moors, followed by a film. Interestingly for Selina Busch and myself, as representatives of the Brussels group, the readings this year included a substantial Belgian component: one of Emily's Belgian essays and William Crimsworth's first impressions of Belgium in The Professor.

The 2008 AGM will be held over the weekend of 7 - 8 June.

Below, tea at Ashmount -

June Weekend 3

Thanks, Selina, for this picture of the four members of the biographers panel on the Saturday evening. From the left we have Lyndal Gordon, Edward Chitham, Justine Picardie, Rebecca Fraser and Juliet Barker.

June Weekend 2

Selina Busch writes:

For those who weren’t there, here are my recollections of the Brontë Society AGM I attended last weekend.

I had been looking forward to it so very much, not having been there last year; I have attended several AGM events in previous years and come to know and love so many friendly people. It was mainly because of the people I wanted to go back to Haworth, and to my beloved England.

When the bus from Keighley slowly approached the Haworth valley, and I saw the village appear on the horizon, I knew I would soon be at my favourite place; my ‘home from home’.

I felt terribly excited and happy to be back again, having last seen it two years ago; but at the same time, it was all so familiar, it seemed I had seen the pleasant rolling hills and walked the cobbled Main Street only the day before…

Friday kicked off at 2.00 pm with an interesting and entertaining talk by Victoria Glendinning, called Writers and their Houses. She discussed how the research of biographers and the curiosity of us readers makes us want to know all about the private lives, including the homes, of our favourite writers. Since the unromantic reality frequently fails to satisfy our curiosity and preconceptions, we hope to get closer to the creative origin of the fictional world of the writer by visiting their homes, now often turned into museums or owned by the National Trust. She dwelt in particular on the special atmosphere of the Brontë Parsonage, how small it is, and on Haworth.

In the evening, the AGM weekend saw its first Book Auction. A private collection, by Brontë society member Arthur B. Walker who died last year, was being auctioned and anyone who was interested could bid for books. My M. Heger, Brian Speak, with whom I did readings from Villette when he came over to Brussels in April, bought a lot of items; he told me he collects Brontë books. I only bought two, but I’m very pleased with my purchases. (Emily Brontë, by Winifred Gerin and The Brontës and their Background: Romance and Reality, by Tom Winnifrith)

The following day saw the usual Saturday programme of a lecture, church service, tea at Ashmount and the AGM. The lecture this year was given by Scottish professor Douglas Gifford, and was called: Border cousins: James Hogg and Emily Brontë.

James Hogg made his reputation in 1824 with his popular novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (a gothic novel about religious mania with a psychopathic hero). Gifford explored the thesis that Emily, who would surely have read his work, took inspiration from characters of folklore, such as the ‘Brownie’, for the creation of Heathcliff.

This year is the 150th anniversary of Mrs. Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë, and during the annual service in the Parish Church, we were treated to an excellent address by Patsy Stoneman about the enormous impact of this ‘novel-like’ biography, and some readings of the book by Jean Bull. Afterwards we had a pleasant afternoon tea at Ashmount, made even more agreeable by the lovely weather we had been blessed with all weekend, and the setting of the beautiful garden. Time passed by very quickly, as it always does on this busy day, and we had to rush off to the AGM, which started at 4.30. It was, on the whole, business as usual, but some eyebrows were raised with regard to the Society's continuing financial deficit and the new development plans, with seemed to cause concern to some members.

I had been looking forward all day to the evening programme, which I anticipated would be the highlight of the weekend. At 7.30 we were gathering in the West Lane Baptist church once again (all the comfy chairs were quickly occupied!) for a panel discussion chaired by Justine Picardie, featuring some big names in the Brontë biography world: Lyndall Gordon, Edward Chitham, Rebecca Fraser and Juliet Barker, no less, were all present at the table.

These great biographers, whose works I have read, discussed their first recollection of reading Mrs. Gaskell’s Life. We heard what new grounds, left untouched by Mrs. Gaskell, they wanted to explore, and what impact this important biography had and continues to have on subsequent biographers. The question time after the discussion ended with the very good question “What would have happened if Mrs Gaskell had NOT written the Life, and who did the panel think might have written the first biography of Charlotte Brontë?” They all had their own interesting and daring ideas, which set us thinking in our turn. The whole evening had been full of exhilarating and thought-provoking ideas and views. As far as I was concerned the talk could have been allowed to go on even longer. Open forum discussions have proved to be very popular in recent years, and this was no exception. There can’t be enough of this kind of events, where individual members have the opportunity to voice their own thoughts about the Brontës.

Afterwards, I somewhat nervously approach Juliet Barker, introduced myself and told her about our new Brussels group. She said it sounded like a very good idea. I suggested she look at our website and the report on our group in the BS Annual Report....

Readings also are one of my favourite events, as the original work still speaks volumes, and on Sunday morning Angela Crow hosted readings from the Brontës, read by Ian and Catherine Emberson, Robert Barnard, Helen Newman, Richard Wilcocks and Alexandra Lesley, who helped to transport us to another world.

Sadly, this was the last event I was able to attend; I was unable to join the others on one of the walks organised in the afternoon since I had to catch my plane back to the Netherlands.

It had been a whirlwind of emotions for me, full of discussions, readings, talking to friends, listening to people, looking, exploring, thinking…

Pure exhaustion, once back home, seemed like a very fair price to pay after such a brilliant weekend!

* more on the June Weekend soon...

James Hogg (The Ettrick Shepherd) below -

Another auction

Ann Dinsdale from the Parsonage is looking carefully at the Christies catalogue for the auction in London on July 3. One of the items is a letter from Charlotte Brontë. The recent book auction in Haworth is now well and truly eclipsed.

Albin Schram appears to have been a secret collector of mythical proportions. Perhaps Emily’s lost novel will one day be found in the attic (or laundry room) of someone like him.

A conscripted Wehrmacht soldier, he escaped from a Russian POW camp in Königsberg, East Prussia, just after the end of World War Two, walked home to Vienna to join his family, became a banker, then settled down in Switzerland.

His collection also includes a letter from Napoleon to Josephine, a letter of condolence from John Donne to Lady Kingsmill the day after the death of her husband dated 1624 and one from John Calvin about a friend’s suicide dated 1545. The charming, white-haired Herr Schram was known to auctioneers simply as ‘Henry” and was famous for his stubborn bidding style.

The full story can be found at the Telegraph site - www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/04/nlets04.xml and on Bronte Blog - bronteblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/letter-by-charlotte-bront-found-in.html and on Swiss Info - www.swissinfo.org/eng/front/detail/Filing_cabinet_in_Lausanne_opens_its_secrets.html?siteSect=105&sid=7892336&cKey=1180974178000

Below – Albin Schram

June Weekend - 1

I used to go to furniture auctions, where most of the buyers and sellers were known to the auctioneer and it was dangerous to scratch your nose, because you might end up with a worm-eaten table you didn't need. The auction last Friday evening was different.

All of the Brontë-related volumes came from the library of the late Arthur D Walker, all of them had his label (with a catalogue reference) on the inside cover, and all the money raised went to the Brontë Society. Each person present was issued with a laminated piece of paper with a number on it, to be raised when a bid was made.

Most of the books went for between ten and twenty pounds - a little bit too much for some of them (who cares - all for a good cause), and some were bargains. Others, worth hundreds, were beyond the reach of anybody present - like the second edition print of Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë.

Of course, most of those present had a fair number of the titles at home. There was a slightly embarrassing pause when a copy of Rebecca Fraser's Charlotte Brontë came up, because at first nobody made a bid, and its author was sitting at the back. Eventually she called out an offer for ten pounds, and there was laughter. It went for twenty.

What did I buy? I was outbid for a couple of items which would have plugged gaps or replaced what I have lent out and never had returned, but I ended up with Companion to the Brontës (Barbara and Gareth Lloyd Evans), Charlotte Brontë The Evolution of Genius (Winifred Gérin) and The Brontë Sisters (Ernest Dimnet)

Earlier in the day I had listened to a lecture on writer's homes by Victoria Glendinning (pictured below) - brilliantly entertaining, with insights into her working methods. It is absolutely necessary for a biographer to travel, to soak up atmospheres and appreciate ambiances, to walk slowly around houses, to poke around in garden sheds. She was particularly eloquent about Monk's House in Rodmell, East Sussex, home of Virginia and Leonard Woolf for many years. For much of their stay it did not have gas or electricity, and a little stream ran through it from front door to back door during wet weather. It was very isolated from the metropolis, and Leonard had to go to Lewes for basic necessities like coffee.

George Bernard Shaw's house in the Hertfordshire village of Ayot St Lawrence, near Welwyn, she described as a no-nonsense rectory, the interior plain "which is fitting for such a cerebral man". Jonathan Swift's house in Dublin she described as particularly full of atmosphere, hardly changed inside since his day, but in a different landscape because all the narrow streets and old courtyards which used to surround it have disappeared. She could imagine the "hyperactive" writer running up and down the wooden stairs until he was completely exhausted.

She wondered about the necessity of some of the rearrangements and reconstructions which have been undertaken in many famous writers' houses - the National Trust has finally stemmed the flow of water through Monk's House, for example - and brought the audience back to the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

From Simon Warner

Dear Richard,

I thought it would be interesting for your bloggers to read something about the Cornelia Parker talk at the National Portrait Gallery:

There was a turnout of over 100 art-lovers for Cornelia Parker's talk at the National Portrait Gallery on 26 April. Her presentation was specifically about Brontëan Abstracts, the exhibition produced for the Parsonage last autumn. The curator of talks introduced Andrew McCarthy who gave a spirited introduction to the Parsonage and the Contemporary Arts Programme that Cornelia's project kicked off.

Following an illustrated presentation by the artist herself, she was joined by writer Deborah Levy for a conversation about the inspiration behind the work and the methods she used to pursue different aspects of Brontë mythology.

Cornelia was especially eloquent about her unfulfilled ambition to implant strands of the Brontë Sisters' hair into Nelson's (the Duke of Brontë's) hair on Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. She felt this was an art intervention whose time has perhaps not yet come. (See this blog's archive to find Cornelia's full account of this)

I was struck overall by how much work she put in to Brontëan Abstracts - not just the electron microscope investigations, but the close-up photographs of the Jane Eyre manuscript, the Plymouth interview with Phyllis Cheney which I filmed for her, and the psychics' visit to the Parsonage. There were other enquiries too that were not followed up for the exhibition, such as the forensic tests offered by West Yorkshire Police on items of Brontë linen.

It was obvious from the talk that Cornelia Parker sets great store by her Brontë work, and will ensure that it is shown more widely. This can do nothing but good for the reputation and attraction of the Parsonage Museum. The project also shows the wealth of possibilities open to other artists as the Contemporary Arts Programme moves forward.

Simon Warner

Collecting Place Images

You can go to the special weblog set up for the Collecting Place project at www.thecollectingplace.blogspot.com to see progress reports, pictures and comments. You can even offer your own contributions by emailing photos@simonwarner.co.uk

Here are some further images anyway....

The Collecting Place

"The Brontës," says the Parsonage's Deputy Director Andrew McCarthy in the foreword to the handsome Brontë Society publication which accompanies The Collecting Place, "were all intensely interested in the visual arts. As children, their imaginations were shaped not only by the written word but also by visual images."

He goes on to mention Edward and William Finden's engravings from Byron's works, the miniature woodcuts of Thomas Bewick and the apocalyptic landscapes of John Martin, all of which influenced the Brontës and helped shape the people and places that feature in their early writings.

Simon Warner, the lens-based artist (he doesn't really mind being called a photographer) whose pictures can be found in so many illustrated books and calendars with a Brontë or a Yorkshire connection, undermines all clichés..... and there are plenty when it comes to the Brontës and Yorkshire. Somehow, most of his images have a subtle freshness about them.

In The Collecting Place, described as 'Literary Landscape through a Camera Obscura', the results of a photographic collaboration between himself and sight-impaired young people from Bradford which is at the Parsonage until 11 June, he gets near to the old magic of photographic image-making, the sort of magic which some long-lost tribe might believe in when it sees images of its own people for the first time and believes their souls to have been captured.

The project lasted for a highly creative six days over Easter. "I think we all felt a sense not just of belonging but of contributing to this wild cultural landscape, adding another chapter to its rich visual and literary history," writes Simon Warner before presenting a full history of the camera obscura (Chinese philosopher Mo-Ti mentioned it in 500BC) and an explanation of the workings which would sound impressive issuing from the mouth of a Physics lecturer.

Simon Warner is represented in Alchemy (2006 - 7), an Arts Council England touring show in which twelve contemporary artists explore the essence of photography. His contribution Lavater - The Shadow of History takes the form of a performed magic lantern lecture with photo-chemical demonstrations.

Creative connections between past and present are at the heart of the Brontë Society's contemporary arts programme. "We aim to undermine familiarity with the Brontës and stimulate new thinking about this remarkable creative family," comments Andrew McCarthy.

This collaboration is undoubtedly remarkable and might be unique. I would like to hear of anything similar. If you can make it to Haworth in the next week or so, get to see it, because you will be impressed.

Soon - a supplementary post containing more images.