Parsonage Ceilidh

This is the poster for the fundraising ceilidh on 17 March. It is being organised by the Parsonage staff. Please come if you can. If you can't, please remember to raise your glass of whatever you fancy to the Brontës and all their ancestors on the Irish side.

Inspired - a reminder

We've told you about this before. Here it is again in slightly more detail. On Wednesday 7 March 2007 at 7.30pm in the West Lane Baptist Centre in Haworth, a panel discussion entitled Inspired - The Brontës' Influence will take place.

The Brontës’ influence on writers has persisted through to the present day and this event will bring together a number of established authors who have acknowledged a debt to the Brontës. A panel discussion will be led by Patsy Stoneman and will include;

Stevie Davies: Novelist, literary critic, biographer and historian. Her first novel Boy Blue (1987) won the Fawcett Society Book Prize and Closing the Book (1994) was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Her fifth novel, Four Dreamers and Emily was published in 1996 followed by The Web of Belonging (1997) which was adapted for television by Alan Plater. Her most recent novel Kith and Kin was longlisted for the Orange Prize 2004 and The Eyrie will be published in February 2007. Stevie Davies is Director of Creative Writing at University of Wales, Swansea.

Patricia Duncker: Patricia Duncker’s first novel Hallucinating Foucault (1996), won the Dillons First Fiction Award and the McKitterick Prize. She is the author of two further novels, James Miranda Barry (1999) and The Deadly Space Between (2002) and two collections of short fiction, Monsieur Shoushana’s Lemon Trees (1997) and Seven Tales of Sex and Death (2003). Her most recent novel is Miss Webster and Chérifiss. She is Professor of Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) at the University of East Anglia.

Michele Roberts: Michele Roberts is the author of twelve highly praised novels including The Mistressclass (2003) and Reader, I Married Him (2005). She has also published short stories, poetry and essays. She was shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize and won the WH Smith Literary Award in 1993. Michele Roberts is a former judge of the Booker Prize and is a regular book reviewer and broadcaster. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.

Patsy Stoneman: Patsy Stoneman is an Emeritus Reader of the University of Hull. She has published widely on the Brontë novels, including the introduction to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Wuthering Heights and essays in both the Oxford and Cambridge companions to the Brontës. Her major monograph is Brontë Transformations: the Cultural Dissemination of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. She has recently completed an illustrated edition of eight hitherto unknown Victorian stage plays based on Jane Eyre scheduled to appear in 2007.


Tickets for this event are £6.50 and should be booked in advance. For further details and bookings please contact the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, 01535 640194/ andrew.mccarthy@bronte.org.uk

John Brown's house

Visiting Haworth? Need a place to stay? The Brontë Spirit blog - www.brontespirit.blogspot.com - has an item which might be of interest to you: John Brown's House, aka The Sexton's House aka Haworth Church Cottage, can now be booked.

Visit the blogsite to find out more.

A poem for Valentine's Day

Visitors' Book

Up to Haworth for the early spring –
As was our brief custom – to see
The snowdrops pester out the winter grief
Of the Parsonage and retrace songlines
In the slab bleak churchyard. A half-starved
Plath, you’d drawn all this in, drinking
Greedily an unworded recognition,
With the thirst of the thwarted, the held-back
And terraced; like the time in El Prado
When I found you weeping before Goya
Unable to say why. I pay my fiver
And go inside. A circus family, really,
In their freakishness; with their tiny
Feet and tiny books. A puff of wind
Could blow them down permanently
And did. You said you felt at home
Here, though you couldn’t say how.
On a table in the hallway, I see it now
And cannot resist the urge of recollection,
Leafing back through the neutral years
Until, sure enough, there they are
Witnessed by a motley decade
Of subsequent strangers: our signatures
In the Visitors Book. The giddy roll
Of my stomach at seeing your hand
Once more, the blinking out of reason
Then the slow, haunted smile to a spring-melt
Of memory. ‘MM’ and ‘MM’: the rapid
Pulse of a small creature short of breath.
You told me on the night of our first
Coupling that I’d be pushed away and
You were as good as your word. But
Before the madness and separation,
Before the Wide Sargasso Sea of your
Dark history opened up between us
An unbridgeable gap, we strode the wild moors
As right and wrong as any lovers.
Later, in the guesthouse, the landlord
Leads me to the same Room 7,
The chipper undertaker of blind ironies.
Our ghosts, aroused, turn to greet me:
A naked threesome splayed and open,
Lashed to the bed of unlinear time
In the room where you were last joyful,
In the space where last we were beautiful.

Martin Malone

A memento for Charles Lemon

A number of tributes to the late Charles Lemon MBE (see blog archive for January) have been made by those who knew him. A display which includes some of them, together with selected photographs, will be put up for Brontë Society members who attend the annual June Weekend in Haworth which begins on Friday 1 June. This one was sent by Maddalena de Leo in Italy:
Charles Lemon – a personal memento


I’ve just heard of Mr Charles Lemon’s death and although I never knew him in person, I would like to bear a personal witness of this wise man whose kindness and culture were evident even through paper.


In Autumn 1980 as a young student at university, my greatest dream was to have an article of mine published in Brontë Society Transactions, as the current Brontë Studies journal was then called. I had been a BS member since 1975 but nobody at Haworth knew me besides Mr Norman Raistrick, the Parsonage custodian, to whom every year I sent money by letter to renew my subscription. Being already interested in Charlotte’s Juvenilia and having read by chance the short tale Albion and Marina – at that time there was no popular edition of her early writings, let alone in Italy – I enthusiastically wrote a short article in English on the topic with my impressions and promptly sent it by mail to the editor, Mr Charles Lemon.


From that day, even if I was an unknown young student, I eagerly waited for an answer from him and surprisingly, after some time it came. In the letter Mr Lemon, who then lived in Bognor Regis, told me he needed to ‘refresh’ his ideas on Albion and Marina to be able to judge my writing so he kindly asked me to wait for a few weeks.


Meanwhile, the southern area of Italy where I then lived was hit by a terrible earthquake on 23 November and all changed around me - what a sad period! Also, John Lennon was shot in New York some twenty days later ….


Mr Lemon’s opinion came, as promised, with his moving concern on that Italian earthquake and I still keep his letter among my most treasured papers, hand-revised by him in many parts and with his own signature at the end. It contained a veiled refusal for the publication of my article but, I dare say, with a so kind and articulated discussion on Albion and Marina that it seemed to me better than an appreciation!




Maddalena De Leo
11th January 2007






















Here’s the complete text of Mr Charles Lemon’s letter:

24 Burnham Avenue
Bognor Regis, West Sussex

19 December 1980

Dear Maddalena De Leo,

Since writing to you on 20th November I have been able to obtain a copy of ‘Albion and Marina’, but before writing on that subject I must express the hope that you have come safely through the dreadful earthquake which recently afflicted your part of Italy.

Having re-read ‘Albion and Marina’ I have been able to appreciate your comments which are both observant and well expressed. It is remarkable what a wealth of knowledge the young Brontës amassed through the teaching received at home (before they went out to school) and through the access they were permitted to the periodicals and newspapers at the Parsonage.

You have drawn attention to the way in which Charlotte in this little piece foreshadows some of the events in her novels – in particular the remarkable message from Rochester to Jane Eyre which travelled simultaneously across so many miles. Some Brontë scholars as you probably know argue that all the materials used in the Brontë novels are to be found in the Juvenilia.

The present story is, as you say, a fragment of Angria, an episode of relative tranquillity – abounding in human tension but at the same time without extremes of violence. This is an interesting point because you will see in this year’s Transactions a poem by Charlotte, hitherto unpublished, written on the back of a letter from Roe Head. The letter was written in 1832 but the poem was probably written when Charlotte was engaged on that part of the story when Zamorna was conquering the country.

The Byronic influence is clear but ‘Albion and Marina’ has other points of interest which would not be apparent to those unfamiliar to England. In particular attention can be drawn to Charlotte’s remarkable achievement, at the age of 14, in describing the country in the south of England, when she had scarcely ever left the limits of her remote village in Yorkshire. The result may not be entirely accurate but it reads very well! One is also entertained by the rapid transformation of the Duke of Strathelleraye’s residence from a ‘magnificent villa’ to a palace and then to a castle, all within the space of a few pages.

The difference of rank between the Duke and Sir Alured Angus is probably exaggerated by Charlotte. Both are gentlemen of title and the physician to a Duke is clearly someone highly placed in his profession who would have a number of equally important patients. His daughter therefore would have some claim to a place in society and her outstanding beauty would support such a claim.

I hope you will enjoy reading Transactions. With best wishes for the New Year,

Yours sincerely,

Charles Lemon

Meeting in Milan

In Italy and reading this? Why not meet some of our Italian members on 24 February? You would be more than welcome!

Inspired - The Brontës' Influence

On Wednesday 7 March at 7.30pm, a panel discusssion will take place at the West Lane Baptist Centre in Haworth which will include Stevie Davies, Patricia Duncker and Michele Roberts. In the chair will be Patsy Stoneman.

All of these authors will acknowledge a debt to the Brontës. Tickets are £6.50. They are available from andrew.mccarthy@bronte.org.uk, phone 01535 640194.

Below - Patricia Duncker, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.

Visit to the Foundling Hospital

The painting is Moses Brought Before Pharaoh’s Daughter by William Hogarth, which is in the care of the Foundling Museum in Brunswick Square, London. This will be visited by Brontë Society members (and non-members, so consider yourself invited) on Sunday 4 February.

Meet at 12 noon outside Russell Square Tube Station - which is on the Piccadilly Line. Admission to the Museum is £5.

Ann Simmonds pointed out the reference to the Foundling Hospital in Stephen Whitehead's book The Brontës' Haworth -

James Grenwood employed sixty hands at Bridgehouse in 1833, half of them under sixteen and some as young as ten. This was an advance on conditions thirty years earlier, when james Greenwood's cousin John at Vale Mill, half a mile downstream from Bridgehouse, was employing orphaned girls from as young as five, assigned to him from the Foundling Hospital in London.

Another London event for Society members and anyone else who wants to join in - Tea and Chat at the Barbican on Sunday 11 March. Meet at 12 noon at the Waterside Café for tea and Brontë chat about Jane Eyre.

Coming soon

The Parsonage is closed to the public at the moment, as usual at this time of year, but there is plenty going on. In the picture, Librarian Ann Dinsdale and Curator Polly Salter are seen dealing with one of many seasonal tasks.


On Thursday 1 February, a new, special exhibition will open to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Mrs Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Brontë. The exhibition, which is free on admission to the museum, has the same title.

Charles Lemon MBE 1914 - 2007

The following is from a recent news release sent to the local and national press:

The Brontë Society has sent its condolences to the family of Charles Lemon MBE, who died on the morning of 4 January. His funeral is at St Anne’s Catholic church in Keighley at 12pm on Friday 12 January.

Charles Lemon joined the Brontë Society in 1936 after having cycled to Haworth (from London) the previous year. He was a very active member, elected to the Society’s council several times and serving as chairman. He was the editor of Transactions (the Society’s academic journal) from 1964 – 1983 and served on the editorial board of Brontë Studies, the journal which replaced it, until the day he died.

As Bibliographical Secretary (a post which no longer exists) he frequently attended auctions on behalf of the Parsonage, helping in the purchasing of letters and other Brontë memorabilia.

His publications include :

A Leaf from an Unopened Volume by Charlotte Brontë (1986) (new transcription, edited by Charles Lemon)

A Centenary History of the Brontë Society

Early Visitors to Haworth (1996)

Classics of Brontë Scholarship (1999) (selected and introduced by Charles Lemon)

In the foreword to A Centenary History of the Brontë Society, the famous historian and past President of the Brontë Society Asa Briggs (born in Keighley in 1921) wrote, “The Brontë Society has a long and fascinating history and no one is better suited to write it than Charles Lemon, who has played an active part in the story.”

Current Chairman of the Brontë Society Richard Wilcocks commented, “ With the death of Charles Lemon we have lost an extraordinary member.

“Through his efforts and imagination he set an example for us all. He is one of the reasons the Brontë Society has survived and flourished since its founding in 1893, longer than most other literary societies.”

Previous Chairman Bob Barnard said, “He was a gentle, scholarly man, enormously well-read, who came over the years to represent all that is best in the Society”.

When he spoke to younger members of his family he remembered that as a young child in London he was held by his mother during bombing raids - by Zeppelins. He also recalled the return of his father from the Great War: he had been fighting in France and in Italy.

He attended Davidson Road Junior School, which a few years earlier (1908 - 1911) had boasted D H Lawrence on its staff. Later, at Selhurst Grammar, where he first discovered Jane Eyre, he particulary loved History, Latin and English, and would undoubtedly have had a distinguished university career had his parents' finances permitted - but he left to take a job at the age of sixteen.

A full obituary will appear in the next issue of Brontë Society Gazette.