Half Term Activities at the Parsonage

Media release from Jenna Holmes:

An exhibition of costumes from the upcoming ITV adaptation of Wuthering Heights, a newly refurbished exhibition focusing on the Brontës’ lives with interactive displays for families, and arts and crafts drop-in workshops are just some of the activities for visitors to the Parsonage  during half term week.

Bafta-winning costume designer Amy Roberts has worked with the museum to display several of the costumes that she designed for ITV’s new adaptation of Wuthering Heights. The drama, which will be broadcast later in 2009, stars Tom Hardy, Sarah Lancashire and Charlotte Riley and was filmed in Yorkshire last year. Visitors will be able to see items worn by Heathcliff, Cathy and Isabella, amongst others, on display in the period rooms of the museum and find out more about how the costumes were created.

The newly renovated major exhibition room in the Parsonage now showcases more of the museum’s collection of precious manuscripts and artefacts than ever before, and its interactive design and bold new graphics also offer fun ways for children to explore the Brontë story.

On Tuesday 17, Wednesday 18, and Thursday 19 February Education Officer Susan Newby will be running drop-in arts and crafts activities for families throughout the day, free on admission to the museum. Visitors to Haworth should look out for special entry coupons that can be found in the cafes and shops in Haworth during half term week, offering special entry prices to the museum from Saturday 14 to Sunday 22 February.

Also currently on display at the museum is a new contemporary arts exhibition by Haworth-based artist Victor Buta. His series of abstract paintings, Alter Ego, is based on the Brontës’ handwriting and signatures and the exhibition also offers new ways to discover the Brontës’ letters and handwriting. Victor Buta will be running an artists' workshop on Saturday 28 February for beginner or experienced artists to create their own Alter Ego paintings. For further information contact Arts Officer Jenna Holmes on 01535 640188.

Transformation at the Parsonage

News Release from Parsonage Director Andrew McCarthy:

The Brontë Parsonage Museum will re-open on 1 February 2009 following a major refurbishment. The museum’s permanent exhibition, focusing on the Brontës’ lives and works, had been in place for over twenty-five years and although it remained popular with visitors, was in need of renewal.

The exhibition room is located in an extension to the original Brontë house, which was added in the 1870s, nearly twenty years after the Brontës’ residency ended with the death of Patrick Brontë in 1861. The new exhibition, developed with Ilkley based designers, Redman, has taken around eighteen months to plan and is set to transform the space.

Panelling obscuring many of the room's historic features, including original windows which give views out across the Parsonage garden and graveyard down to Haworth Church, have been uncovered; new state of the art casing has been introduced which will allow for more of the museum’s collection of precious manuscripts and artefacts to be displayed, some for the first time ever; there are bold new graphics and updated interpretation to guide visitors through the Brontës' lives and writing; interactive displays for families have also been introduced to offer fun ways for children to explore the Brontë story; there will also be a completely new decoration scheme and a final flourish to the new contemporary design will be the Brontës’ own words adorning the walls of the room, with some of the most famous quotes from their great novels.

This is the most significant change to the museum in nearly thirty years and will transform our main exhibition space. The exhibition will still tell the Brontë story, but we have focused more on the Brontës’ writing and also introduced imaginative activities that will appeal to young children and families. The museum’s collection has grown considerably in recent years and this refurbishment will allow us to greatly improve the way we display the collection and also show more of it. In terms of the design, it will bring together the historic and the contemporary, restoring many of the room’s original features whilst also presenting the exhibition in an exciting contemporary way.

The new exhibition, entitled, GENIUS: THE BRONTË STORY will open to the public on Sunday 1 February.

The exhibition will be formally opened by playwright and critic Bonnie Greer at a special media event on Friday 13 February.

For further details contact the museum on 01535 642323/ bronte@bronte.org.uk/ www.bronte.info


____________________________________________________________________________

Notes to Editors:

Brontë Parsonage Museum

Please see the Brontë website for further details at http://www.bronte.info or contact Brontë Parsonage Museum, Church Street, Haworth, Keighley BD22 8DR T: 01535 642323, F: 01535 647131

Opening Times

The Museum is open every day of the year except 24-27 December 2009 and 4 to 31 January 2010 inclusive:

10.00 am - 5.30 pm (April to September) 11.00 am - 5.00 pm (October to March)

For admission prices and further information see www.bronte.info

A unique resource

A news release from Andrew McCarthy – Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum:

The Brontë Parsonage Museum has just been awarded full accreditation status from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. The accreditation scheme award demonstrates that the museum has achieved defined national standards relating to governance, visitor services and collections management.

The museum houses the world’s largest collection of Brontë material including letters, manuscripts, furniture, clothing, personal artefacts and artworks. There are over 7000 items in the collection which is a unique resource for academics from around the world. The treasures of the collection are displayed within the Parsonage which also draws general visitors and lovers of the Brontës’ books to Haworth in tens of thousands every year.

We are delighted to have been granted full accreditation. The Brontës are of course intimately associated with Haworth and Yorkshire, but the Parsonage museum has a collection which is nationally and internationally important and we should all celebrate that fact. The museum’s collection has continued to grow in recent years and through our education and arts programmes we’ve offered all kinds of exciting new ways for visitors to experience the museum and find out about the Brontës.

The museum is offering free admission to children every weekend in December and in January will close for a major refurbishment which will see the installation of a new exhibition focusing on the Brontës’ lives. The exhibition will include many new acquisitions to the collection and also fun interactives for families.

Christmas at the Parsonage

A news release from Jenna Holmes:

For those who feel the modern Christmas is just too commercial, the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth is offering a taste of Christmas past over the next few weeks. The Parsonage rooms have been decorated in traditional holly and ivy and with children under 16 able to enter the museum completely free of charge every Saturday and Sunday in December, the museum is hoping to encourage families to come and experience the special festive feel of the Parsonage at this special time of year.

On Saturday 13 December, there’ll be some added festive spice with Branwell Brontë’s Christmas Cracker, which involves Branwell visiting the museum, with mulled wine and mince pies on offer. Branwell will be performing his own hilarious version of the Brontë story at 11.30am, 12.30pm, 1.30pm and 2.30pm. There’ll also be a special children’s Christmas treasure hunt.

The truth is that Christmas for the Brontës was very different because it was before the Victorians got their hands on it. It was a religious festival without a lot of the paraphernalia which has come along since. 

We think the Brontë Christmas would have been much more civilized and if people are fed up with the modern commercial holiday, they should rediscover a simpler Christmas; come and get away from it all here at the museum. They can always get their Christmas gifts in the museum shop anyway, which has an excellent range of festive presents.

Andrew McCarthy – Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum

As well as festive decorations, Branwell, and Christmas gifts, visitors to the museum in December will be able to take part in an exciting new musical project. The Fragmented Orchestra takes place at 24 public sites across the UK, including the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and launches on Friday 12th December. Visitors will be invited to become both player and audience of a vast interactive musical composition extending across the UK.

December is also the last chance to see the museum’s special exhibition for 2008, Emily Brontë: No Coward Soul, which has attracted visitors from around the world. The exhibition is the first time ever that such an extensive range of manuscripts, letters, art works and personal artefacts relating to Emily Brontë has been displayed. The exhibition, which earlier in the year included high profile loans from the British Library and the National Portrait Gallery, will only run to the end of the year.

Further information from;
Andrew McCarthy, Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum
01535 640194/ andrew.mccarthy@bronte.org.uk

Footnote:

It's time again to make mention of Dickens's A Christmas Carol........

Charles Dickens first published his world-famous ghost story in 1843, under the title A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.

A phenomenal six thousand copies were sold in the week following its publication. Dickens has probably had more influence on the way that we celebrate Christmas today than any single individual in human history except one.

Can he be blamed for the many millions of tons of seasonal decorations shipped in from China, though? That is, if they are still being shipped in during the current recession........perhaps we should be thinking of Tiny Tim as well as the Original Parsonage Christmas. End of sermon.

Below, the man who invented Christmas-as-we-know-it-today

‘Life is Compost’

IS reports on Diane Setterfield's recent visit to Haworth:

'Life is Compost' - The Thirteenth Tale

Perhaps it was quite courageous that this former French teacher, turned superstar author, from Harrogate, informed her audience, in the Baptist chapel in Haworth - within sight of the literary shrine - that it had not been the Brontës who had influenced her to write The Thirteenth Tale. It was from a very different kind of writer - the writer of psychological thrillers, Patricia Highsmith, a writer who herself very much preferred her own personal life to remain private - that she gained inspiration. After reading avidly the stories about 'the incredible Mr Ripley’- whom Mrs Setterfield described as an amazing character- living a double life- with those around him thinking he was an honourable, successful, conventional business man.

However Mr Ripley himself is the only one who knows the truth because nobody else is allowed in on the real man. So it was with a feeling of disappointment she realised that, with the death of Mr Ripley, there would be no more stories and the world would never know the truth- which left her with lots of questions in her mind. There is little consolation in death but perhaps one consolation is the consolation of being remembered but here again, if one is leading a double life, there is difficulty. Mr Ripley was human- was he tempted at the end to tell the truth? Surely after committing the perfect murders- so perfect nobody knew the perpetrator- you may be forgiven for thinking that he might need someone to know- need to proclaim to the world ‘ It was me!’

So Mrs Setterfield thought that she might be the one to put the record straight- might be the one to give Mr Ripley the somewhat dubious credit he deserved. She had no wish to pick up the mantle of Highsmith but was left with a ‘pressure cooker’ of desire. Walking home across the Stray, in Harrogate, a voice came to her, a voice with a bullying, hectoring tone and, as if in the grip of some unknown force, she raced home and began writing- thus The Thirteenth Tale was born. She went on to describe her book’s equivalent of Mr Ripley- the famously reclusive Vida Winter who decides, for the first time, after a lifetime of lies and tall stories, to tell the truth about her life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea - herself somewhat reclusive- a person who likes to remain on the margins of life. Both women desire not to be known but come together to tell Miss Winter’s story.

Mrs Setterfield described , to a captivated audience, that she thought of life as compost and, whilst she emphasised that the Winter character was in no way autobiographical, the idea for her characters came from her dreams, her conversations, books she had read and people she had met and she had drawn from this ‘compost’ to write the book. However, if left long enough, all the individual things that go in to make a compost heap will disappear and will become one rich mulch- the imagination. Some stuff does not decompose straight away and so it is, in our own minds, with dreams. Like eggshells that are instantly recognisable for quite a while, which keep surfacing through all the other stuff, dreams can stay with a person or can keep turning up unexpectedly. Mrs Setterfield’s ‘eggshell’ was the dream of a library on fire with two people fighting in the flames. Certain things in a compost heap never disappear - an avocado stone stays there permanently and the author’s ‘avocado stone’ was a story related to her by one of her French students, who, being told, at the age of eighteen, that he was born a twin and that his brother had died when he was three days old, said ‘So that’s it’- he had always known there was ‘something’ but had not known what that ‘something’ was.

The whole compost heap, including the eggshells and the stones, all went into the writing of this book- which has comparisons to the Brontës and references to Jane Eyre - and which has landed one of the biggest first book deals ever and was actually published a year after first being sent to agents. I am sure everyone who listened so intently to Mrs Setterfield speaking at Haworth, if they have not done so already, will soon be reading what sounds to be a very intriguing story and then, will eagerly await the publication of, perhaps, ‘The Fourteenth Tale!’

Mourning Ring

Mourning Ring by Ian M Emberson was published on October 1st 2008, and is a small collection of poems relating to the Brontës – their lives, writings and the landscapes associated with them. It is an expanded version of a previous publication Three Brontë Poems, and is lavishly illustrated by the author, with a picture on each page. The composer Robin Terry is working on a song-cycle based on the poems, and it is hoped that this will have its first performance in Haworth next year.

The basic details are as follows:

Mourning Ring:Brontë related poems
by Ian M Emberson,
Angria Press, 2008, 20 pp. £3.00
ISBN 978 0 9521693 6 9

It is available from the Gift Shop, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Church Street, Haworth, Keighley, West Yorkshire. UK. BD22 8DR – telephone (01535) 642323; fax (01535) 647131; e-mail sales@bronte.org.uk

or direct from the publishers:

Angria Press, 1 Highcroft Road, Todmorden. UK. OL14 5LZ; telephone (01706) 812716; e-mail ianemberson@aol.com.
Website www.ianemberson.co.uk

BBC update on clampers

Click here to watch yesterday's report on BBC Look North. See local MP Ann Cryer voicing her concerns and Betty Boothroyd voicing her anger. See also Ted Evans, owner of the Changegate Goldmine, telling us that it's just something he has to do.......

Maggie O’Farrell in Haworth

Jenna Holmes announces:

Novelist Maggie O’Farrell will be speaking about and reading from her latest novel The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox and discussing the influence of the Brontës on her writing, at the Old Schoolroom, Haworth on Wednesday 12 November at 3.30pm.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox tells the story of a woman edited out of her family history, exploring themes of sanity and madness, and parallels have been drawn with Jane Eyre.

Maggie O’Farrell was born in Northern Ireland in 1972, and grew up in Wales and Scotland. Her debut novel, After You’d Gone, was published to international acclaim, and won a Betty Trask Award, while her third, The Distance Between Us, won the 2005 Somerset Maugham Award.

Her visit to Haworth is part of the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s contemporary arts programme.

Admission is £5.00. For further details and bookings contact the Brontë Parsonage Museum, 01535 640188/ jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk


Below, Maggie O'Farrell:

Maddalena De Leo reports:

A MUSICAL MEETING AT CASA VERDI IN THE NAME OF THE BRONTËS

A very interesting meeting of the Italian section of the Brontë Society was held in the centre of Milan on Saturday 11th October at 4 p.m. in Casa Verdi, the rest home for retired musicians built at the beginning of the XXth century by Giuseppe Verdi himself. The author of Traviata and Rigoletto left all his musical rights and wealth to this institution and also lies buried there in a crypt together with his second wife Giuseppina Strepponi.

In so a suggestive place it was a must to choose ‘The Brontës and Music’ as a theme for the meeting and after gathering in the magnificent red saloon on the first floor, the Italian BS members: Mrs. Franca Gollini, who introduced the Brontë Society, Mrs. Raffaella Pazzaia, who organized the meeting, Maddalena De Leo, Giuseppina Verga,Paolo Mencarelli, Daria Innocenti and all other people present could enjoy a short talk by Professor Maddalena De Leo right about the Brontës and their relation with music soon followed by a wonderful concerto by the ‘Gondal Trio’ (Paolo Mencarelli – cello, Maddalena Main – violin, Emanuele Ardica - piano) who played some compositions by Beethoven and Mendelssohn Bartholdy, namely Trio op. 70 ‘Gli Spettri’ and Trio op. 66.

The atmosphere conveyed by that brilliant music was magic and the three musicians played it in a very clever and involving way. As usual the meeting ended enthusiastically with a little party held in an elegant room nearby where all at Casa Verdi could taste the exquisite chocolate cakes home-made by some of our Italian BS members.


Below, Giuseppe Verdi and members of the Italian Section:

Brontës and Music in Milan

Maddalena De Leo reports:

A MUSICAL MEETING AT CASA VERDI IN THE NAME OF THE BRONTËS

A very interesting meeting of the Italian section of the Brontë Society was held in the centre of Milan on Saturday 11th October at 4 p.m. in Casa Verdi, the rest home for retired musicians built at the beginning of the XXth century by Giuseppe Verdi himself. The author of Traviata and Rigoletto left all his musical rights and wealth to this institution and also lies buried there in a crypt together with his second wife Giuseppina Strepponi.

In so a suggestive place it was a must to choose ‘The Brontës and Music’ as a theme for the meeting and after gathering in the magnificent red saloon on the first floor, the Italian BS members: Mrs. Franca Gollini, who introduced the Brontë Society, Mrs. Raffaella Pazzaia, who organized the meeting, Maddalena De Leo, Giuseppina Verga,Paolo Mencarelli, Daria Innocenti and all other people present could enjoy a short talk by Professor Maddalena De Leo right about the Brontës and their relation with music soon followed by a wonderful concerto by the ‘Gondal Trio’ (Paolo Mencarelli – cello, Maddalena Main – violin, Emanuele Ardica - piano) who played some compositions by Beethoven and Mendelssohn Bartholdy, namely Trio op. 70 ‘Gli Spettri’ and Trio op. 66.

The atmosphere conveyed by that brilliant music was magic and the three musicians played it in a very clever and involving way. As usual the meeting ended enthusiastically with a little party held in an elegant room nearby where all at Casa Verdi could taste the exquisite chocolate cakes home-made by some of our Italian BS members.

Below, Giuseppe Verdi and members of the Italian Section:

Another clamping outrage

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Haworth was in the news again yesterday, for the wrong reasons: the admirable Baroness Betty Boothroyd was on BBC Look North, and she was justifiably outraged, because the clampers had been at it again, with her as the victim. If only Carstoppers came around as an occasional or seasonal affliction, like the flu, but they are there all the time!

By 'there', we mean the Changegate Car Park, of course. Visitors to Haworth do not know that there are alternatives run by Bradford City Council, so they enter the clampers' domain and suffer. There are so many stories and anecdotes on this matter, that a collection of them would make a fair sized book. I remember, in particular, the couple from Sweden who were caught out for some trivial mistake and forced to hand over a tidy sum to enable them to drive away. They swore they would never come back.

This is the story according to today's Bradford Telegraph and Argus:

The Telegraph & Argus revealed yesterday the ticket had time remaining on it but had fallen face down so the women had to pay a £75 fine. Signs state all tickets must be displayed face up.

Carstoppers has been criticised for its strict policy before.

Speaking to the T&A yesterday, Baroness Boothroyd, 78, said: “I think it was outrageous. I thought we would be told, ‘Girls, do not do it again, put it the right way up and make sure it is.’ There was no kindliness at all.

“I have been driving for more than 50 years and never had such an experience. People are up in arms about what is happening. Us Yorkshire Tykes do not take things lying down.

“It is not fair if shops in Haworth suffer because of such actions. I do not know what can be done as it is not really a political matter.

“The Council should take some action and put a dirty big notice up saying people should not park there, and explain why.

“It is difficult parking around there. The Council should find a little space and introduce a shuttle service, like park and ride on a smaller scale.”

Mrs Megahy said last night an appeal against the fine to car park owner Ted Evans was in the post: “I have appealed but I do not expect to receive anything.”

Mr Evans said on Monday: “It’s pay and display and they didn’t display.”

It's a great pity that some people actually avoid Haworth because of this nonsense! Anyway, my very best wishes and sympathies go to Betty Boothroyd.

It permeates our consciousness

On Saturday 18 October, exactly a year after organising its first talk, the Brussels Brontë Group once again brought the Brontës to a Brussels audience. The talk hosted by us last year was on the theme of Charlotte's anguished letters to M. Heger. A journalist in a Brussels "What's On" which announced the event, getting a little carried away himself, invited people to "close their eyes and let themselves be swept along by this torrent of passion". This year we again invited our audience to be swept along by a torrent of passion, but with their eyes open not closed, gazing at a screen on which they could watch Heathcliffs and Cathies from various film versions (the 1939 Olivier one, the 1970 one with Timothy Dalton and the 1991 version with Ralph Fiennes) chasing each other over the moors.

The film clips were shown to illustrate a talk by Patsy Stoneman called "What everyone knows about Wuthering Heights: the novel and its film adaptations". She pointed out that many people are not quite sure whether they've read the novel or not, as it permeates our consciousness. Her comparison of scenes in the films with the corresponding passages in the novel revealed how often we, the readers, supply in our imaginations scenes (such as those between the lovers on the moors) not actually described in the novel.

Patsy Stoneman's talk, which was received enthusiastically, was the first in our new venue in a university in central Brussels, Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis. We have for some time been looking for a suitable venue and were delighted when some of the English lecturers at this university who support our events offered us the use of a room which is ideal for our purposes. The staff bent over backwards to make us welcome and help with all the practical aspects of the organisation, and staff and students from the English language department, who had prepared for the talk beforehand, attended the event. In all over 80 people were present.

After the talk we wound up with some music before partaking of the refreshments offered by the university. The music was supplied by a Dutch member of our group, Veronica Metz, who is the lead singer of Anois (click here), a Celtic band which is recording an album of Emily Brontë's poems that she has set to music. With recorded accompaniment, she sang four songs to haunting melodies a little reminiscent of Enya's. Another member, Marina Saegerman, had prepared a display of her calligraphy versions of Emily's poems.

We are looking forward to our next event to be held in the same venue, a Brontë weekend in April when Stevie Davies will be talking to us, also about Emily Brontë. Having hitherto concentrated more on Charlotte because of the influence of Brussels on her we are devoting this year to Emily, who of course also spent time in this city although there is less evidence of it in her work!

Helen MacEwan
Brussels Brontë Group

Kids go free

From the Director:

The Parsonage is offering a special kids go free offer through the October half term holiday. All those under 16 years of age, and accompanied by a full paying adult, can enter the museum completely free of charge. The offer is valid from 27 October to 2 November inclusive.

In addition to the Museum’s usual displays there are a number of other unusual extras for visitors to see. The museum’s special exhibition for 2008, Emily Brontë: No Coward Soul, has attracted visitors from around the world. The exhibition is the first time ever that such an extensive range of manuscripts, letters, art works and personal artefacts relating to Emily Brontë has been displayed. The exhibition, which earlier in the year included high profile loans from the British Library and the National Portrait Gallery, will only run to the end of the year. 

In addition to No Coward Soul, the Museum is also currently exhibiting controversial contemporary art by Swiss artist Annelies Strba. Strba, who has exhibited around the world, was commissioned by the museum to create works for display within the historic rooms of the house, a move which has delighted some visitors and appalled others. Strba’s dream-like digitally manipulated photographs are on display until 31 October.

The Brontë story might seem pretty serious stuff, and it is of course. But there’s a lot about the Brontës’ lives and their creativity that appeals in a very direct way to children. We are hoping to try and make the museum even more appealing to younger visitors, starting with a major redevelopment of our main exhibition space next year. But we also want to encourage more of the families who visit Haworth to come and experience the Parsonage and see the remarkable treasures it houses and we hope this special offer will help them to do so.

Andrew McCarthy
Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum


Further information from 01535 640194/ andrew.mccarthy@bronte.org.uk

Parsonage Website

Jenna Holmes explains:

The Parsonage website is down at the moment due to a problem with the provider. We are making every effort to put it back up - so apologies! It should be available very soon.

Wuthering Heights Music

Alison Mullin sends this press release:

LOS ANGELES, CA 

Mark Ryan (Transformers, The Prestige, Evita, Robin Of Sherwood) announces the launch of Wuthering Heights Music, a musical adaptation based on the novel by Emily Brontë. Beginning today, visitors to  www.WutheringHeightsMusic.com can listen to Ryan's four original songs inspired by the gothic love story: Dark Passion, Women, Heathcliff's Prayer and I love The Wind. The website also features a music video for the song Women, narrated by Ray Winstone (Beowulf, The Departed, Indiana Jones, Sexy Beast). Currently, music downloads for Dark Passion and Women are available free and a four-song EP will soon be available for purchase for $1.99.

Growing up amongst the hauntingly romantic landscapes of Yorkshire, Ryan developed an emotional connection to the story of Wuthering Heights. In 1988 he wrote eighteen original songs inspired by Emily Brontë's novel, but was forced to put the project on hold due to his burgeoning film and television career. Years passed and with the success of Transformers (voice of Bumblebee), he decided it was finally the right time to record the music. 

Twenty years later Ryan comments, "This has been a labor of love and I am so proud to finally launch it. I believe we've created a musical that is as powerful and heartfelt as Bronte's tragic love story and I hope it entertains fans and music lovers alike."

Ryan is proud of the team he has assembled to make his passion project a reality. Credits include Robb Vallier (Spamalot, Gin Blossoms, Peter Murphy), who produced the four songs with Ryan. The vocal ensemble includes Jenn Korbee (Cathy), Jessica Kennan Wynn (Nelly) and Katie Boeck (Isabella), who all appear in the video for Women.

For more information regarding this project visit www.wutheringheightsmusic.com. For all other media inquiries please contact Angela Moore at 310-429-8868 or angela@starfish-pr.com.

Below, Jenn Korbee:

Brontës and Dickinsons

IS writes:

That marvellous Emily Brontë, that gigantic Emily Brontë

Lyndall Gordon is an academic, born in South Africa and now Senior Research Fellow at St Hilda’s College, who is well known for her literary biographies, which include T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, Mary Wollstonecroft and Charlotte Brontë. She spoke to a captivated audience in Haworth, on Thursday 2 October.

Her new book is to be published shortly with the intriguing title of Lives like Loaded Guns. This concentrates on the poet Emily Dickinson by way of the so called ‘Dickinson feud’. The feud explodes over adultery but comes to focus on the poet.

Mrs Gordon came to Haworth to speak of how the lives and characters of the Brontës, most especially Emily, and Emily Dickinson follow a very similar pattern. There are so many similarities between the Brontës and the Dickinsons, for example strong fathers, both imbuing their children with a demand for learning. Although we have Mrs Gaskell to blame for the myth that Patrick was something of a tyrant, all evidence points to his being a loving and concerned father to his little bereaved flock, and Mr Dickinson was apparently captivated by his elder daughter’s wit and indulged her college education. Emily consistently describes her father in a warm manner.

It is fair to say that both girls’ characters were shaped by their father and perhaps influenced by the lack of a maternal figure in their lives. In the case of the Brontës we know that they were too young, when she died, for their mother to have had much influence on them and although Emily Dickinson’s mother died when the poet was fifty two, correspondence suggests that she was cold and aloof and if Emily was in trouble it was to her brother Austin that she would turn.

Other similarities between the two Emilies are that they were devoted siblings, albeit with some rivalry, and both were acutely homesick when away from home and family.
Emily Brontë drooped and suffered when absent from Haworth and the moors - when staying at Roe Head and Law Hill- and similarly Emily Dickinson left college early and, like Emily Brontë, returned home to occupy her time with household duties. This early return could have been a combination of homesickness or a possible rebellion against evangelism - she did not want to be instructed in faith and this may have played a part in her dropping out of college. This sounds all very familiar to the Emily Brontë we know - the Emily who rebelled against her father’s religion - who found ‘God within her breast’. Both girls were individuals who insisted on thinking for themselves - spirited, strange, concentrating on visionary faith.

In her early thirties Emily Dickinson did not leave her home unless it was absolutely necessary and avoided speaking to people face to face. Emily Brontë became more and more withdrawn, tramping the moors with only her dog, Keeper, as companion. Both Emilies have been described as reclusive, but this could be said to be a form of freedom and, as other people have done, they both achieved much even in this state. Florence Nightingale did nothing visible after the Crimea but actually managed to reform the sanitation of India, and Darwin, the invalid - his achievements speak for themselves.

It is thought that the Brontës influenced Emily Dickinson from beginning to end. ‘No Coward Soul Is Mine’ – Emily Brontë’s wonderful poem, was read at her funeral, and the library in the Dickinson’s Amherst home held many Brontë books which had been acquired as published. Dickinson called her guide ‘gigantic Emily Brontë, marvellous Emily Brontë’ but Wendy Powers, in her article ‘Parallel Lives’ says both Emilies lived in ‘an independent world, created out of pure intelligence’.

Lyndall Gordon delivered an informative and enjoyable lecture a few hundred yards away from where Emily Brontë lived and wrote one of the greatest works of literature in the English Language and I am sure the lecture left those who had heard it wanting to learn more about the parallel of these two writers, separated in age by a decade and in location by the Atlantic and thousands of miles, but whose lives ran in parallel courses from childhood to death both trying to put the ‘unsayable’ into language.

Below, Lyndall Gordon

The Thirteenth Tale

Yorkshire-based writer Diane Setterfield will be discussing her phenomenally successful debut novel The Thirteenth Tale at the West Lane Baptist Centre in Haworth on Wednesday 15 October at 2pm. The event will take place as part of the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s new season of Contemporary Arts events.

The Thirteenth Tale reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list and has won numerous awards including the 2007 Yorkshire Book of the Year. A timeless gothic tale about the magic of books and storytelling, the novel makes reference to the works of the Brontës, specifically Jane Eyre, as well as other gothic writers such as Daphne du Maurier and Wilkie Collins.

“The Thirteenth Tale is full of intriguing references to the Brontës and their work, so it will be fascinating to hear Diane Setterfield read from the novel here in Haworth. Listening to such a deliciously gothic story is the perfect way to spend an atmospheric October afternoon!” Jenna Holmes, Arts Officer.

Zoe Brigley: Poet in Residence

A news release from Jenna Holmes:

To mark National Poetry Day, poet Zoë Brigley (pictured below) will be resident in the museum for one day next Saturday October 11, engaging with visitors to create new poems inspired by the Brontës and the Parsonage. Zoë invites visitors to consider the Brontës' secrets and to write their own responses, which she will weave into a long collaborative poem. This will be read at the end of the day along with poems from her most recent poetry project  My Brontë Passion.

Zoë Brigley's first collection of poetry The Secret is published by Bloodaxe Books and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. It has also been longlisted for the 2008 Dylan Thomas Prize. Zoë Brigley works at Northampton University as lecturer in English and Creative Writing. She has won an Eric Gregory Award, an Academi bursary and the English Association Fellows' Prize for Poetry.

Free on admission to the  Parsonage 

Emily in Haworth

From a Parsonage news release:

It's your last opportunity to see the Emily portrait as she bids farewell to Brontë Museum after a three month loan.

The Parsonage will be sad to see the return of the rare and iconic portrait of Emily Brontë painted by her brother Branwell and on loan from the National Portrait Gallery in London.

It has been on display at the museum as part of the 2008 exhibition ‘No Coward Soul’ celebrating the life and work of Emily Brontë, and is due to return to its permanent London location on October 7th 2008.

Only two portraits of Emily Brontë are known to have survived, both painted by her brother Branwell and they are owned by the National Portrait Gallery. Due to the rare nature, poor condition and significance of these pictures, they very seldom leave the capital city. However, this summer the Parsonage has been fortunate enough to have been able to display one of them.

Objects owned by Emily, her manuscripts and her artwork are extremely rare. Unlike her sister Charlotte, she did not achieve literary fame in her own lifetime; therefore objects belonging to her were rarely saved.

We heard about the 2008 Emily exhibition at the museum and decided to make a trip to Haworth from Aberdeen, Scotland. Emily is a particular favourite of mine and when we arrived we were truly moved by her objects on display. To be able to see her artwork, her handwriting and her own gloves made our pilgrimage to Haworth very special indeed. Our trip was made a trip of a lifetime by being able to see the portrait of Emily by her brother Branwell- stunning to look at yet not what we expected at all. We might never see the mysterious portrait again and I am glad we made the effort to travel down to Haworth

(Comment from S. Derwent, Aberdeen, Scotland)

The ‘No Coward Soul’ exhibition runs to the end of the year.

For further information contact:

Ann Dinsdale, Collections Manager, Brontë Parsonage Museum, 01535 640198 – ann.dinsdale@bronte.org.uk
Sarah Laycock, Library & Information Officer, Brontë Parsonage Museum, 01535 640199 – sarah.laycock@bronte.org.uk

Emily in Brussels

Helen MacEwan writes:

Since its inception a couple of years ago, the Brussels Brontë Group (the Belgian and Dutch branch of the Society) has concentrated mainly on Charlotte Brontë's relationship with Brussels, organising an annual weekend of events in honour of her birthday, readings from Villette, walks around places mentioned in both her Brussels novels and talks on the Pensionnat Heger featured in those novels. So we felt it was time we turned our attention to the other Brontë who spent time in Brussels. The year 2008-09 will therefore largely be devoted to Emily.

The year's events will kick off with a talk by Patsy Stoneman on Saturday 18 October called 'What Everyone Knows about Wuthering Heights: the novel and its adaptations',  illustrated with film clips. She will examine the assumption that even people who haven't read Wuthering Heights think they know what it is "about", mostly from films. She will compare some extracts from film adaptations of the novel (e.g. the 1939 film with Laurence Olivier, the 1970 film with Timothy Dalton and the 1991 one with Ralph Fiennes, as well as the Bernard Hermann opera and the 1991 musical) with the corresponding passages from the novel, showing for example that the films give us answers to what in the novel remain questions.

The talk will be held in one of the Brussels Universities, the Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis, which has enthusiastically offered to host our events and some of whose English Literature students will attend the talk.

Our 19th century reading group has included Wuthering Heights on its list for this year to tie in with the talk and with that to be given by Stevie Davies as part of our Brontë weekend on 25-26 April 2009. Stevie Davies will speak about Emily Brontë and the Mother World, exploring themes in Wuthering Heights which she has discussed in Emily Brontë: Heretic and other works.

Brontë Society members from outside the Low Countries are always welcome to join us for our events.

For more details click here.
Contact: helen.macewan@ec.europa.eu

Below, Branwell's portrait of Emily