Annual Weekend - Glimpses

Friday, early evening:

Most of the members have arrived, and the temperature is high. Smiles are on faces, sweat on brows. What are they anticipating? Here's what a few of them said, with their photos below:

Well I'm looking forward to the ghost hunt tomorrow though I know it's not Brontë Society strictly speaking, but the real attraction is the restored piano later this evening. Oh, and I'll be singing, on Sunday evening in the Old White Lion, which should be fun. Jazz of course!      Val Wiseman from London

I am looking forward to hearing the piano being played in the out-of-hours Parsonage atmosphere, and I particularly want to listen to Lucasta Miller because I think she's a very sane voice.    Chris Went from York

We have arrived only recently from Belgium - Brussels actually, and we have not seen inside the Parsonage yet! I would love to see just where they lived and worked. This is my first time in Haworth.    Patricia De Gray

Yes, the first time! So far we have been walking on the moors - we got as far as the Brontë Falls.   Patty Simou

I must listen to the piano in Mr Brontë's Study, of course, which promises to be wonderful, and this weekend I'll be taking photos as usual, perhaps with this Leica, and enjoying Brontë Society company.   Brian Speakman from Dagenham

I'll be walking on the moors a lot because this is my home away from home: my soul is here.  Judith Watkins from Toronto

I'm going to walk around Haworth on Sunday because there are so many things I still don't know after all these years.  Stephen Loftus from Birmingham

I am thinking of what was announced this afternoon by Andrew Macarthy - the appeal. This is for three Charlotte Brontë letters which are coming up for auction in New York on 17 June. One of them is very important, and we're looking at between seventy and a hundred thousand dollars.   Ann Dinsdale from the Parsonage.

To be continued...

Wearer Unknown

An exhibition of paintings, Wearer Unknown, by artist Victoria Brookland has opened at the  Parsonage as part of the museum’s contemporary arts programme. The series of new works have been inspired by the dresses in the Parsonage collection, and each is hand-drawn in ink and watercolour.

It is the second time that Victoria Brookland has exhibited her work at the Parsonage. Her first exhibition, Secret Self, in 2007, explored the contradictions between the constricting dresses that the Brontës wore – with their corsets and crinolines – and the brilliance of their limitless inner imaginations. This is a theme that Victoria has returned to and has developed further in her latest series, Wearer Unknown.

“The items of Brontë clothing in the collection are amongst the most striking and popular exhibits here at the museum and in these paintings Victoria Brookland uses the dress as a symbol to question our over-familiarity with the Brontës. Her work is incredibly powerful and beautiful, and prompts us to think about the sisters’ lives in new ways”.

Jenna Holmes, Arts Officer

All of the paintings in the exhibition are for sale. Victoria Brookland will be talking about her work at an event in Haworth on Friday 4 June at 3.30pm. The event will take place at the West Lane Baptist Centre and tickets are £5 on the door. She will be in conversation with Jane Sellars,  Curator of Art at the Mercer Art Gallery in Harrogate.

The exhibition runs until Sunday 18 July 2010.

Gearing up for the big weekend

From Director Andrew Macarthy:

The Brontë Parsonage Museum is gearing up for a busy week of activities in the forthcoming half-term holiday which will culminate with the Brontë Society’s AGM Weekend.

On Bank Holiday Monday the Parsonage  will be inviting children to find out more about the toys that the Brontës might have played with as children and try their hand at making some old fashioned action toys of their own. The ‘Toytastic’ activity is free with the normal admission charge to the museum and is running on a drop-in basis with children welcome to join in the fun and make a toy anytime between 10.30am to 4.00pm.

On Wednesday 2 June short talks and guided walks focusing on the Brontës and the fascinating history of Haworth will be taking place throughout the day. Again these will be free for both adults and children.

Friday 4 June is a ‘kids go free’ day at the museum, with children up to the age of 16 able to come into the museum completely free of charge. Friday also sees a new exhibition of paintings open at the museum. The art works are based on Brontë dresses and have been produced by artist Victoria Brookland who will be talking about her work at the West Lane Baptist Centre at 3.30pm - admission £5 or free to day ticket holders to the museum.

On Saturday 5 June, local children’s author, Robert Swindells will read from and talk about his Branwell Brontë inspired book, Follow a Shadow (10.00am at the West Lane Baptist Centre) and the Brontë scholar Lyndall Gordon will lecture on the influence of the Brontës on the nineteenth-century American poet Emily Dickinson (11.00am, also at the Baptist Centre).  Later that evening, two influential literary scholars, Lucasta Miller and Elaine Showalter, will be in Haworth to discuss the influence of the Brontës on womens’ writing generally. The event, which also takes place at the Baptist Centre at 8.00pm, is a rare opportunity to hear the US based critic Showalter. Tickets are £10.

On Sunday 6 June renowned graphologist Diane Simpson will discuss her fascinating research into the Brontës’ handwriting and what it reveals about Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne. This event takes place at the Baptist Centre at 3.00pm and tickets are £7.

Throughout the week, from 31 May to Friday 4 June, 2 for 1 vouchers will be available at various shops and tea rooms in Haworth enabling two people to enter the museum for the price of one.

There are lots of other events taking place over the weekend which are open to members of the Brontë Society. For information on how to join the Society or any of the events listed please contact Peter Morrison 01535 640195/ peter.morrison@bronte.org.uk  or Andrew McCarthy 01535 640194

Brontë piano to be heard again

For the first time in over 160 years the Brontë family’s cabinet piano is to be heard again at their former home in Haworth. This historic occasion will take place at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in June following months of complex conservation work, which were made possible through the generosity of Florida member Virginia Esson. The piano was originally made by John Green of Soho Square.
It is not known for certain when the Brontës acquired their piano. Branwell Brontë developed a talent for both piano and church organ and it was possibly at his instigation that the instrument was acquired. Emily was described as playing ‘with precision and brilliancy’, and during her time as a student in Brussels, her ability warranted the services of the best available professor of music. Anne preferred to sing, though she was able to accompany herself on the piano. The family exception was Charlotte, whose poor eyesight proved an impediment to sight reading.

The piano has an interesting history: it was lent to Mr Grant, the curate of Oxenhope by Patrick Brontë after his children’s deaths, and then sold at an auction of Brontë items in 1861. It then passed through numerous hands before being put up for sale at Sothebys in 1916 as part of the collection of J.H. Dixon. Dixon’s wife was not satisfied with the price offered and withdrew the piano from the sale, presenting it instead to the Brontë Museum in memory of her husband.

The piano was valued by many of these former owners as a relic of the remarkable Brontë family. Over the years little interest has been taken in it as a musical instrument and it was no longer in playable condition. Recently the piano has undergone a lengthy and complex restoration process carried out by a specialist conservator and made possible by the generosity of an American Brontë Society member. Many of the internal workings were either damaged or missing and the restoration was further complicated by the piano’s rarity and the lack of similar instruments available for comparison.

Cabinet pianos were popular in the 1830s and 1840s but today are rather unusual when compared to the more valuable pianos such as the Grand.

The piano will be back on display at the museum from Thursday 3 June. It will be played on the evening of Friday 4 June 2010, at a special event for Brontë Society members. Music has been carefully selected from the archive at the museum and will be played by Maya Irgalina from the Royal Northern College of Music. Further events are now being planned to allow the public to hear the piano played on a regular basis.


Contacts & Further Information:   
Ann Dinsdale (Collections Manager) – 01535 640198 – a.dinsdale@bronte.org.uk
     
Andrew McCarthy (Director) – 01535 640194 – andrew.mccarthy @bronte.org.uk



Below - the piano before restoration:

Brontë Sisters Power Dolls

Thanks to Paul Danigellis for sending this, from the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/10/bronte-sisters-action-fig_n_569985.html with his comment "it had to happen sooner or later!"

The spoof commercial can be seen directly on YouTube HERE.

York Conference Videos

Thanks to Maddalena De Leo, some of the lectures given at the Brontë Society's York Conference last year are now on YouTube. Try this one by Dudley Green.

Ghost Hunt at the Black Bull

Imelda and David Marsden write:
On the Saturday of the annual June weekend (5th) there will be a ghost hunt at the Black Bull, Haworth's most famous public house, which stands in a little cobbled square at the top of Main Street near to the church steps. It will start at 11pm. The pub was, of course, frequented by Patrick Branwell Brontë. He drank there until his death in 1848 at the age of thirty-one. The Black Bull still houses Branwell's Chair, where he sat during his many visits.

The Black Bull is believed to be haunted and was featured in the Most Haunted television series. A psychic events company (Ghostparanormal) is to present the event,with a full investigation of the building and the adjoining land. The tickets (at £25) cover food, the use of equipment for investigating the paranormal, and much more. This sounds like it will be a entertaining and interesting evening, because at least a couple of the rooms are said to be haunted.

This event has been organised by the pub and the events company. Tickets are available from the Black Bull - 01535 462249 or from Mark -  01422 241049.

Behind the Scenes

The Brontë Parsonage will be opening its doors for a series of very special ‘behind the scenes’ tours on the 18th, 19th and 26th May, 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. 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 museum; which houses the world’s largest collection of Brontë manuscripts, letters and artefacts; is only able to display around 10% 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 museum’s 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

Numbers for the tours will be strictly limited and so early booking is strongly recommended. Bookings will be taken on a first come, first served basis and can be made for 18th, 19th or 26th May, 7.00pm. Tickets are £14 each. To book, please contact Sonia Boocock, Brontë Parsonage Museum, 01535 640192/
sonia.boocock@bronte.org.uk

Brontës in Europe

 


Click on the article to enlarge


Helen McEwan writes:
The weekly staff newspaper of the European Commission (where I work as a translator) did an interview with me about our Brussels branch (see above). Many of our members work at the EU institutions here. The newspaper has a circulation of 56,000, so it seems like a good way of promoting interest in the Brontës in Europe.

Charlotte Brontë's Corset

An exhibition of poems by writer in residence Katrina Naomi has gone on display at the Parsonage until 31 May. The poems are the result of Katrina’s time spent exploring in the archives, working with visitors and observing the daily life of the museum. The exhibition takes the form of a series of text installations within the historic rooms of the Parsonage.

The exhibition coincides with the publication of a new collection of Katrina’s Brontë poems, Charlotte Brontë’s Corset, which is on sale in the museum shop.

Katrina’s poems are fresh and surprising and examine the Brontës’ possessions for clues about their lives; the sisters’ stockings, Patrick Brontë’s feather quill and Branwell’s drinking chair for example. But Katrina is also fascinated by the museum and many of her poems explore life behind the scenes of the Parsonage museum. We have displayed Katrina’s poems alongside the objects that inspired them and we hope that they invite visitors to think about the collections in new ways too.  (Jenna Holmes, Arts Officer)

The writer’s residency took place as part of the museum’s Contemporary Arts Programme, which with the support of Arts Council England has been running a series of events showcasing and celebrating women’s writing. As part of her residency, Katrina delivered a special creative writing project with the Together Women’s Project in Bradford.

Katrina will be reading a selection of her Brontë poems at the first Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing which will take place at the museum in September.


Her first full collection The Girl with the Cactus Handshake was recently published by Templar Poetry, priced at £9.99. 

Lisa Appignanesi – Mad, Bad & Sad

Novelist, writer and president of English PEN, Lisa Appignanesi will be visiting Haworth to speak about her book Mad, Bad & Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800. The event will take place on Wednesday 28 April at 2pm, at the West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth and forms part of the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s contemporary arts programme.

Mad, Bad & Sad explores the ways in which women’s mental disorders and states of mind have been understood since the 1800s, from the depression suffered by Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath to the mental anguish and addictions of iconic beauties Zelda Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe. The book also explores Charlotte Brontë’s use of madness in Jane Eyre, with its famous portrayal of Bertha Mason, the ‘madwoman in the attic’, drawing on Victorian ideas of madness.

The book has been shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, the Warwick and the MIND prizes and has won the Medical Journalist’s Award.

Lisa Appignanesi was born in Łódź, Poland (as Elżbieta Borenztejn) and grew up in France and Montreal, where she studied at McGill University and worked as Features Editor for The McGill Daily. A novelist, writer and broadcaster, she is former deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, chair of the Freud Museum and president of English PEN. 

Admission will be three pounds on the door and there is no need to book in advance. For further information contact the Parsonage's Arts Officer: jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188.

Mad, Bad and Sad Women and the Mind Doctors. By Lisa Appignanesi. 535 pages. $29.95, W. W. Norton & Company; £20.00, Virago Press Ltd.

Easter at the Parsonage

News release from the Director, Andrew Macarthy:

The newly refurbished Brontë Parsonage Museum is hoping for a busy Easter break this year. The museum has had a brisk start to the year following a major refurbishment funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. There are various new displays featuring several newly acquired treasures including Emily Brontë’s artists box and an early Charlotte Brontë poetry manuscript as well as items not previously displayed; amongst which are some of the Brontës' stockings!

There are also new items relating to Haworth Church and day to day life in the village in the nineteenth century that have been donated by locals following a recent appeal, and an exhibition of contemporary paintings based on Emily Brontë’s poems by local artist Jo Brown.

In addition to the new displays there will also be an Easter quiz for children to enjoy as they explore the Parsonage and a special Easter trail with a host of clues that will take families on a mysterious journey around the Parsonage grounds and Haworth Churchyard. Those able to crack the code will win a prize!

And for those looking for a bargain day out over Easter, special vouchers have been distributed around the shops and cafes on Haworth Main Street giving two people admission to the museum for the price of one. These will be available from Thursday 1 April.

A trip to Haworth offers a great day out over Easter. There’s so much to enjoy in and around the village and it’s a great time to see the museum. A lot of work has been done over the winter to improve our displays and give visitors the chance to see more wonderful Brontë treasures than ever before. And with the two-for-one vouchers available to pick up in the shops and cafes it all makes for an enjoyable but not costly day out.

Brontës on Belgian stamps

Helen MacEwan writes from Brussels:

The Belgian post office has issued a beautiful set of stamps on the subject of "a literary walk through Brussels" with pictures of famous 19th century writers who stayed in the city.

The writers are Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, the Dutch writer Eduard Douwes Dekker and - Charlotte and Emily Brontë!

The Brontës stayed in Brussels in 1842-3, while the writers on the other stamps visited the city in the 1850s-1870s.

Charlotte Brontë was the only one of these writers who drew significantly on her Brussels experience in her writings.

Shocking though the Brontës' works may have been to some Victorian readers, Charlotte and Emily are in incongruous company in this set of stamps. Their convent-like life in a girls' boarding school in Brussels could not have been more different from the colourful and often squalid existence of the French writers who accompany them!

The Republican Victor Hugo came to Brussels as a political refugee, fleeing Paris for Brussels after Napoleon III's coup d'état, and stayed in Grand Place with his family – his mistress accompanied them and also lodged in Grand Place. Baudelaire, whose volume of poetry Les Fleurs du Mal had caused a scandal, came to Brussels to escape from his creditors. His plans of making money by giving lectures in Belgium came to nothing. He is remembered for eccentricities such as keeping a pet bat in his room and feeding it on bread and milk.

Verlaine and Rimbaud were reunited in Brussels in 1873 after one of the many rifts in their stormy relationship but were soon quarrelling again. Verlaine bought a revolver and shot Rimbaud, wounding him slightly, and Rimbaud reported him to the police. Although he later withdrew the charge of attempted murder, Verlaine was sentenced and spent two years in prison in Belgium.

The Dutch writer in the set, Dekker, who wrote under the alias of "Multatuli" (Latin "I have suffered much"), was also a controversial figure whose writings shocked his contemporaries. After leaving his job as an administrator in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), he spent his time in Brussels writing his novel Max Havelaar, an indictment of Dutch colonial rule

This very attractive set of stamps was designed by Jan De Maesschalck and costs €5.90.

Visit the Brussels Brontë Group by clicking HERE.

Mrs Gaskell's Bicentenary

Helen MacEwan writes from Brussels:

Readers of the Brontë Parsonage Blog may be interested in a recent report by Sue Corbett in The Times on the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Elizabeth Gaskell which mentions our talk in Brussels.

The article begins:

It is time to move on from those corpse-strewn specials of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford shown on television at Christmas. For fans of the increasingly popular Victorian novelist, the mood of 2010 is distinctly cheerier, this being the year they celebrate their heroine’s bicentenary.

The author of Cranford, North and South and Wives and Daughters (all of them titles enthusiastically dramatised by the BBC in recent years), Mrs Gaskell was born in London on September 29, 1810, and on September 25 this year she will be honoured in the city of her birth when her name is added to a stained-glass memorial window in Poets’ Corner. For much of the rest of the year, however, the focus of commemoration will be on her adopted home city of Manchester (or “Drumble” as she calls it in Cranford).

For the rest of the article click HERE.

The Sunbeam and the Storm

An exhibition of new work by Yorkshire-based artist Jo Brown will open at the Parsonage on Friday 5 March 2010.


The exhibition, The Sunbeam and the Storm, will take place as part of the museum’s contemporary arts programme and will feature eight new abstract paintings by Jo Brown in direct response to the poems of Emily Brontë.


Jo Brown’s paintings are abstract and intuitive, and for this exhibition she has used colour, layers and mark-making to create a personal response to Emily's poetry - in particular focusing on Emily’s use of weather to express emotion. All of the titles in the exhibition are small quotations taken from the poems.


Jo's inspiration has often been partly drawn from poetry. She discovered the poems of Emily Brontë relatively recently after attending an arts event in Haworth, and her imagination was caught. The poems seemed to Jo heartfelt and moving, and an insight into the mind of the solitary Emily.


All of the paintings in the exhibition are for sale. The exhibition runs until Tuesday 4 May 2010.

Jo Brown was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and studied in Yorkshire, at Bretton Hall College then Sheffield Hallam University, gaining a BA (Hons) in Fine Art in 1995. She has been a studio artist at Dean Clough, Halifax since 1995 and has exhibited regularly at municipal and commercial galleries in England, Scotland and the USA. As well as the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Jo has upcoming exhibitions at Cupola Contemporary Art Gallery, Sheffield; Gossipgate Gallery, Alston, Cumbria; 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire and a solo show at Whitfield Fine Art, Mayfair, London (September 2010).

 

Blue Ice Curdling by Jo Brown

Live in BD20, 21 or 22?

News release:


The Brontë Parsonage Museum has recently completed a project with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund to improve the presentation of the historic rooms of the Parsonage. To celebrate, admission to the museum will be free to local residents of BD20, 21 & 22 on Saturday 20 February . Locals are asked to bring a utility bill or other official proof of address to gain admission.


The museum is reopening following a major programme of work to improve its displays, which include a number of rare and important new acquisitions and items never previously displayed. Amongst these are items as diverse as Emily Brontë’s artist box, purchased at Sothebys in December, and a pair of Charlotte Brontë’s stockings.


The museum is keen for local people to come along and see the changes made, since many contributed ideas to the development project through a visitor survey and a series of open evenings last year. The museum is open 11.00am to 5.00pm  (last admission is 4.30pm).


We hope that people in and around Haworth will come and see the work that’s been done, which we feel has greatly improved the museum. There are some wonderful items on display this year, including things donated by local people, and these give an insight not only into the lives of the Brontës, but also life generally in nineteenth-century Haworth.


Andrew McCarthy
Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum
 

Volunteers needed

A message from Andrew Macarthy:
Would you be interested in finding out more about the Brontë Parsonage Museum and its remarkable collection? … discovering what goes on behind the scenes at the museum? … learning new skills and meeting writers, artists and visitors to Haworth and the museum from around the world?

The Brontë Parsonage Museum will be launching a volunteer programme shortly and is looking for volunteers to work as Museum stewards at the Parsonage. Those with some free time are being invited to put themselves forward as volunteer stewards, to work hours during the day, between Monday and Friday. Full training will be given.

As well as offering enjoyable, interesting and useful experience, volunteers will also receive various benefits including free admission to Brontë Society events. This initiative is part of a Heritage Lottery funded project which has involved various improvements being made to the historic rooms of the Parsonage, but also a range of activity to try and involve local people in the work of the museum.

The Parsonage is a fascinating place to work and volunteer stewards will have the chance to find out at close quarters, more about their local heritage and about the museum’s collection, which is constantly developing. Working directly with visitors to the museum and the chance to meet visiting authors and artists will I’m sure make this a very rewarding opportunity.

Andrew McCarthy

Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum

To find out more about volunteering at the museum contact Sonia Boocock, Administration Officer, 01535 640192 sonia.boocock@bronte.org.uk

Heritage Lottery Fund

2009 saw HLF celebrate its 15th anniversary. Using money raised through the National Lottery, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) sustains and transforms a wide range of heritage for present and future generations to take part in, learn from and enjoy. From museums, parks and historic places to archaeology, natural environment and cultural traditions, we invest in every part of our diverse heritage. HLF has supported 33,900 projects, allocating £4.4billion across the UK, including £341million to projects in Yorkshire and the Humber alone.

Emily Brontë and Parmenides

Maddalena De Leo writes:

On 7^th February an interesting meeting in English about Parmenides was held in Ascea-Velia, Italy, just the place where this ancient Greek philosopher was born and from which Eleatic School thought spread. The event was organized by Parmenideum (www. Parmenideum.com), an association whose purpose is the increasing of knowledge of the Eleatic School of Philosophy and, not least, of all its contemporary ramifications in intellectual life, science, and culture.

There were some lectures in the morning and a discussion workshop with Parmenideum’s founder, Mr Habeeb Marouf (from London) as a chairman. A concert was also held in the evening with Belgian cello player Mr Nicolas Deletaille and multimedia music composed by Mr René Mogensen. During the meeting our BS member Maddalena De Leo read the following considerations which drew the audience’s interest and attention to our beloved Brontë theme:

A SHORT NOTE linking an aspect of Parmenides thought to Emily Brontë’s poetic.

   As a long time scholar of Emily Brontë, the famous English author who lived in the mid-nineteenth century, I found in one of her poems a useful hint to today’s discussion about Parmenides Being/Not Being principle.

   I refer to the last two stanzas in the famous poem No coward soul is mine, probably written in 1845 and seemingly one of the last in her production but surely Emily Brontë’s crowning poetic peak and the consummation of her thought.

Though Earth and moon were gone

And suns and universes ceased to be

And Thou wert left alone

Every Existence would exist in Thee.

There is no room for Death

Nor atom that his might could render void

Since Thou art Being and Breath

And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

The Brontës' biographer May Sinclair was the first and maybe the only critic to underline for us in her work The Three Brontës (1912) that these stanzas can be considered as a direct link to ‘one of the most ancient of all metaphysical poems, the poem of Parmenides on being’ so referring to Parmenides De Natura, 28 B8, vv. 19-25:

[Greek: pos d' an epeit apoloito pelon, pos d' an ke genoito;

  ei ge genoit, ouk est', oud ei pote mellei esesthai.

         *       *       *       *       *

  tos, genesis men apesbestai kai apiotos olethros.

  oude diaireton estin, epei pan estin homoion

  oude ti pae keneon....

                         ....eon gar eonti pelazei.]

   Surely Emily Brontë never heard of Parmenides in her remote Yorkshire village but her deism in this poem is conveyed towards an entity whose existence is the Being versus all the rest that is in any case a Not Being and we understand this in her last verse in particular ‘What thou art may never be destroyed’ where the author’s convinction is asserted as an absolute truth just following Parmenides path.

                                                                              

                                                                                

Reference texts:

1.     1 Brontë Emily, Poesie, opera completa, edited by Anna Luisa Zazo, Oscar Classici Mondadori, 1997

2.     2 Sinclair May, The Three Brontës, 1912

The Radical at Red House

In the pictures - Red House and 'Mary Taylor' at the piano.

David and Imelda Marsden write:

A interesting exhibition - Mary Taylor - An Independent Yorkshire Woman - is on now at the Red House Museum in Gomersal and not to be missed. It finishes on 18 April.

Mary Taylor was Charlotte Brontë's schoolfriend, and an inspiration. Charlotte visited and stayed at Red House, the family home of the Taylors and depicted the family in her novel Shirley.There are various items in the exhibition relating to Charlotte.

Mary Taylor was a woman who lived a unusually independent and adventurous life for a woman of her time, and was a pioneering feminist in the nineteenth century. She taught boys English in Germany, emigrated to New Zealand and started a business, then, after making a good living, returned to Gomersal.

She was the leader on mountaineering expeditions for women in Europe, and wrote magazine articles and a novel Miss Miles : A Tale of Yorkshire Life Sixty Years Ago. The exhibition gives the visitor a real insight into Yorkshire history, and gave us some new facts we did not know about. Well done to the Curator and staff at Red House for an informative and interesting exhibition.

And well done to the Parsonage Museum for sucessfully acquiring items at the two recent auctions. We are looking forward to viewing them.

To read about Mary Taylor in Wellington, New Zealand, click THE CUBA STREET MEMORIES PROJECT.

Reopening 1 February

The Parsonage is preparing to reopen on Monday 1 February following a redevelopment project which has been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The project began with a series of events aimed at encouraging local people in and around Haworth to find out more about the museum and its collections and contribute their ideas on how its presentations might be improved. This included a free local residents’ day and several open evenings for representatives of local community groups and local residents. The open evenings included guided tours of the museum and library, and an opportunity to see items from the museum’s collection relating to the history of Haworth and its nineteenth-century community.

The work that has been done in the museum following this public consultation includes new interpretation, which will help tell visitors the Brontës’ story and the story of their home. There will also be new object casing and displays around the house, which will include some remarkable new acquisitions to the museum’s collection including Emily Brontë’s mahogany artist’s box and her geometry set recently bought at auction in London. The box contains ceramic mixing dishes, remnants of paint, quill nibs, a paint tray, sealing wax with miniature envelopes and a glass bottle. The museum has also purchased a special miniature poetry manuscript by Charlotte Brontë. The two microscopic poems written by Charlotte in 1829 are signed “U. T” (“us two”) which suggests that they were jointly produced by another Bronte sibling, possibly Branwell. Neither of these items have been on public display before.

The museum also appealed to local people to get in touch if they believed they had items that may once have been owned by the Brontë family. As a result several intriguing items came to light which will also feature in the new displays. These Include a hymn sheet from Haworth church dating from the Brontë period and three bound volumes of the Family Economist once owned by Tabitha Brown, former Brontë domestic assistant and sister to Martha Brown – former Brontë servant.

We’re delighted with the improvements to the Parsonage and sure that these will enhance the experience of visiting. The new casing and displays are allowing us to show more of the treasures of the museum’s collection and more of the collection that relates to the Haworth community in which the Brontës lived. It’s wonderful to be able to exhibit new items which have come to us through the generosity of local people. We’ve also tried to create the new displays in such a way as to make the Parsonage feel even more like a domestic home and so we hope people will come along and see the new look and enjoy some of the wonderful new displays.

Andrew McCarthy
Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum