Lyndall Gordon on Emily Dickinson

Heidi Büchner writes: 

It was with the maximum interest that I was privileged to listen at the West Lane Baptist Church to Lyndall Gordon from St Hilda's College in Oxford on the Saturday of the Brontë Society's annual weekend in June, because she was speaking of her recent work on one of the greatest American poets Emily Dickinson, who can be profitably observed in parallel with the other Emily -  Brontë. In a space which is like a small theatre, she spoke of mystery and secrecy, at a time when the illness epilepsy was 'unmentionable' in families, like so many other items in the nineteenth century, but she was certain that Emily Dickinson was not the helpless creature who rejected the idea of living that popular myth maintains. Epilepsy, in fact, was considered as in the same box as syphilis, and related to insanity and female hysteria. The famous men who were afflicted were considered differently, to give examples Julius Caesar and the Prophet Mohammed.

Her retiring was a pose, and in real life she was energetically opinionated and a little sharp. The pose was so successful that the citizens of Amherst actually referred to her as 'the Myth'. She lived her life according to what she wanted. She was not an ordinary New England puritan. Even as a young student at Holyoke College she stood up to the authoritarian pressures from the principal, Mary Lyon, who wanted a strict and rigid acceptance of her view of Christianity, refusing to be 'saved'.

Emily was attracted to a scientific outlook, and Lyndall Gordon quoted:

"Faith" is a fine invention

When gentlemen can see -

But microscopes are prudent

In an emergency

She wanted to be clear and truthful, and rejected social chatter and formal piety, responding to The Soul's Superior instants.

Sickness appears in many places, especially when she was in her thirties, with mention of convulsions: I dropped down, and down. She might not have had a severe form, just suffering from a mild petit mal, but the epilepsy was in her family, so it could have been a genetic matter. Did cups and plates slip from her hands because of it or for another reason?

Lyndall Gordon knows she does not have final pieces of the evidence, but it was a reasonable gamble to claim the theory. She treated the questioning members of the audience with a friendly spirit, because she is not the sort of academic one is unable to approach.

Follow a Shadow

The glimpses continue, and will not necessarily appear in chronological order - and readers may have to wait for the reportage...



Robert Swindells was in conversation with Sally McDonald, Chair of Membership, on Saturday morning. He has twice won the Children's Book Award, as well as the Carnegie Medal for his novel Stone Cold. He was at the annual weekend to read from and to speak about Follow a Shadow, which was first published in 1989 and which has just been issued again by Five Leaves Publications.


He tried to retire recently, he told us, but it didn't work: he just sloped around the house for a couple of weeks before returning to writing, though he is touchy about 'returning to the circuit'. This means he is not sure whether he could stand the adulation of a myriad secondary school English teachers, who have over the years found that reading from his novels is just the thing "for a class of fourteen year-olds on a Wednesday afternoon" in the words of Sally McDonald, who met classes of fourteen year-olds in need of motivation when she was a secondary school teacher.


Follow a Shadow is about young Tim, who is studying Jane Eyre at school and who is taken to the Parsonage on a group visit. He bears a remarkable resemblance to Branwell, he discovers. In the novel, Swindells speculates on what Branwell did in London in 1835, when he was eighteen, when he was supposed to have sought admittance to the Royal Academy Schools as a student. No record exists in the Royal Academy archives of his ever having shown his specimen drawings there, and according to Juliet Barker, he didn't actually make the trip at all. She hadn't written that when Swindells was writing though, so we should fantasise that he did...


The audience fell about laughing when he read extracts. This stuff still works! It would work for modern secondary school students too, if English teachers were allowed to wander from the officially prescribed path and simply inculcate a love of reading and literature. 


ISBN 9 781905 512867

Annual Weekend - more glimpses

 Richard Wilcocks writes:

It was nearly ten o'clock, a warm dusk, when the turn of my group came for a very special performance. Hushed voices, the usual rooks arguing outside in the tops of graveyard trees, the clock in the church tower striking. We stood inside and outside Mr Brontë's study, taking turns, moving quickly between the piano solos and the songs. There sat Maya Irgalina, looking quite like Emily in the drawing, hair in a bun, and there stood Catherine McDonald, beaming at their guests.

Maya Irgalina had arrived in Haworth in the afternoon, having just completed a final examination - a Rachmaninov piece - at the Royal Northern College of Music where she is studying for a Postgraduate Diploma. Since winning first prize in the Pro-Piano Romania international piano competition (Bucharest 2003), she has performed in Belarus (her country of origin), Russia, Poland, Italy, France and Estonia as both soloist and accompanist. Catherine McDonald was once an Angrian with the Brontë Society, and now has an MA in Playwriting from the University of Birmingham. She is currently studying classical singing.

All the music was taken from the Brontës' music books which are now in the Library. Photocopies were used. The first item was Sonata in E flat op. 7 by Muzio Clementi, at the time of the Brontës often known as 'the father of the pianoforte', and it was just right, but possibly too difficult for Emily. Did she struggle with it? Maya didn't appear to, and we got the same professional sweet smile and bow after that as we did after the other items - Beethoven waltzes in F minor and in E flat major, and his Grand Waltz in A minor, then Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith. Catherine sang with great commitment and a fine sense of the dramatic - Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon (which had great significance for Charlotte, Ann and Branwell, Charlotte using it as a narrative device in Shirley),  The Old Oak Tree and  My Mother Bids Me Bind My Hair.

Mahogany, ebony, iron, silk, ivory, skill, charm, beautiful sonority in combination... a wonderful and unforgettable experience.

Annual Weekend - more glimpses

Friday evening, the musical evening - later:

Parsonage Director Andrew Macarthy gave praise where it was due, to the people without whom the restoration of the piano would not have happened, and the first was American member Virginia Esson, "who had the dream of hearing it played and then did something about it". It was largely because of her great generosity that the work took place. Then there was the brilliant and remarkably modest Ken Forrest, who had devoted three years to the instrument, both in the Parsonage and in his workshop. Virginia Esson stepped forward to stand beside a slideshow, receive flowers and speak about how she was moved by the experience of hearing the instrument played, and then Council member Virginia Rushton spoke.

She took the audience briefly through the musical context, drawing on her extensive knowledge of the period. Branwell had begun taking music seriously in 1831, painstakingly writing out tunes, and the following year Charlotte had effectively given up playing. Patrick Brontë was passionately fond of oratorio, which in 1834 had led him into conflict with some of the members of the choir, but excerpts from Handel's Messiah played by the celebrated organist John Greenwood at the inauguration concert for the new organ at St Michael's Church, Haworth had made a big impact on the whole family - especially Branwell. Charlotte had written about this in My Angria and the Angrians. Sheet music had been bought, and you didn't do that lightly, with no intention of using it, because it was very expensive. Several chorus pieces and solos from Messiah are in the Parsonage library. Lessons with increasing levels of difficulty had taken place, conducted by the organist at Keighley Parish Church, Mr A S Sunderland.

On the screen was   John Green   Music Agent  33 Soho Square  London. "We don't know much about him," Ken Forrest said. "We are not sure if he made it or not, because it is likely that cabinet pianos were bought in, possibly from a firm called Black. We're not sure whether it was bought new or whether it was second-hand. There was quite a market in used pianos at the time.

Rapid advances in piano technology caused people to want to keep up to date, to get hold of the latest models. A typical price for a piano at the time was ninety guineas, but they were often sold at a discount. How did Patrick afford it when he never earned more than two hundred pounds a year? This one is top of the range as well, with brass mouldings. Had there been some kind of trade-in?"

He had searched for clues in many places, because when he had first examined it, he had seen "a kind of grey blanket", with many items missing (for example the dampers and the damper levers) or "disposed of". The adjective he used for the inside was "manky", and it was the right one, because the pictures on the screen showed what appeared to be an irreparable ornament, an artefact grossly neglected for many years and subjected to sporadic and insensitive attempts by unknown and cack-handed persons to get it to do something apart from just sit there against a wall.

Ken Forrest is very far from cack-handed: he had visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in his search for clues, information on how things should be, but had found very little. "The rail which held the bottom levers was still there, along with some strips of felt, but we were hampered by the soot from a century of coal fires, and I had to wash my hands every time something was cleaned. The more I looked at it, the more I took things to bits. Few if any people know how cabinet pianos worked. Because of the lack of clues, I had to rebuild the action from scratch. I replaced the leather over the hammers, using chamois. Felt was used only in later years, so would not have been right."

We saw the before and after pictures, and gasped appropriately. Ken Forrest should be world famous for this! Now we wanted to hear it!

He was presented with a beautiful box, which he opened. Inside was this scale model.

References to Emily and Anne's abilities on the piano:

'...later on there was the addition of a Piano. Emily played with precision and brilliancy when she did play - which was not often if others than the family circle were within hearing. Anne played also but she preferred sweet harmonies - she sang a little - her voice was weak but very sweet in tone.'   (From Ellen Nussey's Reminiscences of Charlotte Brontë)

'The ability with which [Emily] took up music was amazing, the style, the touch and the expression was that of a Professor absorbed heart and soul in his theme.'  (Ellen Nussey, quoted in Clement Shorter's Charlotte Brontë and her Circle.]

'Miss Emily was learning the piano, receiving lessons from the best professor in Belgium, and she herself already had little pupils.' (M. Heger in a letter to Patrick Brontë, November 1842)

To be continued...

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