Planet Century 19

Unwell. ― Painted at 2 Corfus ― till 3.

Called on Julia Goldsmid & Mrs. Naylor ―& walked with them to Kastrades, ― & then, (Straham A.D.C. joining us, ―) to the Casino.

Miss G. walks but little: so we returned by 5.30.

Afterwards, I went again to Kastrades & got home by 6.20.

Dined.

Penned out till 10.20. Kalama drawings.

Χριστὸς is ill again ― & G. has gone to his mothers. I think Χριστὸς will die.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

After being performed in Tokyo and Houston, the revised version of Gordon & Caird's Jane Eyre (or Jane Eyre 2.0 as it is sometimes called) opens this weekend in Atlanta:

Jane Eyre. The Musical

Music & Lyrics by Paul Gordon
Book & Additonal Lyrics by John Caird
Legacy Theatre, Atlanta

January 27th - February 19th, 2012
With: 

Katie Mitchell, Stephen Mitchell Brown, Jill Bergeron, Anna Bridgeman, Amy Bridges, Erin Burnett, Alexandra Duncan, Ben Isabel, Erin Lamb, Ed Richardson, Preston Watson, Amanda Wilborn and Hannah Wilkinson.

Romance. Secrets. Haunting. These are the words that might come to mind while taking a walk through the ethereal English moors of the 5-time Tony nominated Broadway musical, Jane Eyre. This musical adaptation of the 19th century novel by Charlotte Brontë features the work of composer lyricist Paul Gordon (Emma) and book-writer/lyricist John Caird (Les Miserables; Children of Eden), whom have granted the Legacy the regional premier of their new version of the show. This is one you will not want to miss. 

Broadway World adds:

Mr. Gordon states that “Jane Eyre 2.0 is a leaner and more concise version of the show that played.Broadway in 2001. We have tuned the story and made the production more acceptable for regional theaters around the country to produce. We are very proud of the improvements and changes we have made and hope that audiences will enjoy Charlotte Brontë's moving story of love and forgiveness.” (...)
This version boasts a reduced orchestra from the original New York production as well as new and rewritten music and lyrics. The book has been cut extensively throughout in order to bring focus to the emotional love story between Jane and Rochester. The cast has been reduced to thirteen, with most actors doubling or tripling roles.

The Secret by Fernand Khnopff

Painting of the Day Archive

The Publisher’s Weekly blog PWxyz ranked The 5 Books that Inspire the Most Tattoos, finding Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in the top 5. Their online research seems to be thorough, even if the methods aren’t scientific: “We spent an untold number of hours combing the Internet’s two most extensive literary tattoo sites: Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos and The Word Made Flesh, then cross-checking the most frequently occurring tattoos with Google searches and Google image searches, all to get to the bottom of what books inspire the most tattoos and why.” Lewis Carroll’s book was beat out only by… Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, only because of the popularity of the phrase “So it goes.” So it goes.

2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Evidence:  hip “Who in the world am I”, twinkle twinkle feet,shoulder caterpillar, hip “take care”, ankle cheshire, back nonsense,leg dodo, forearm “we’re all mad here”, shoulder cheshire, feet rabbit and hatter.

Alice has inspired the most varied collection of tattoos of any book. Its wide cast of characters, quotes and images are all represented: the Cheshire Cat, the Dodo, the White Rabbit, and the Caterpillar all have fans out there. Out of the quotes, “We’re all mad here” was the most commonly occurring. Credit Alice‘s popularity among the tattooed to the fully-realized world Carroll created, and for tone specific to its story. More than any other book on this list, you’d be likely to get an Alice tattoo because it simply looks great and is hyper-intricate. Tim, who has an image of the Cheshire Cat on his shoulder blade, said on Contrariwise: “The Cheshire Cat is the only creature in Wonderland who uses logic. Though his words often seem mocking and bizarre, his process is always logical. To me the Cheshire Cat symbolizes the fragility of the border between genius and insanity.”

 

First of all, we have set up an online petition to try and save Red House from being closed down and sold. Please do take a moment to sign it here.

A couple of headlines today have made us think that we had gone back in time to 1913 when Charlotte's letters to Constantin Heger were first published. The Telegraph writes 'Charlotte Brontë's lost love letters revealed':

The letters were sent by the Jane Eyre novelist to Professor Constantin Heger, an older man with a wife and children.
Heger tore them up in shock, but they were retrieved from a rubbish bin by his wife who sewed them back together and preserved them.
One, composed in French, reads: "If my master withdraws his friendship from me entirely, I shall be absolutely without hope."
Another, with a postscript written in English, reads: "I must say one word to you in English - I wish I would write to you more cheerful letters, for when I read this over, I find it to be somewhat gloomy - but forgive me my dear master - do not be irritated at my sadness - according to the words of the Bible: 'Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaketh', and truly I find it difficult to be cheerful so long as I think I shall never see you more." [...]
By the time Heger was shown the letters by his daughter on his death bed, Bronte had died age 38 and was a recognised writer. The family decided to keep the correspondence, but the writer's love for Heger was tactfully omited from a biography written by her friend, Elizabeth Gaskell.
Rachel Floss, of the British Library, said: "Having been burnt, sold, cut up and destroyed, it is remarkable that these letters have survived.
"Seeing the torn-up letters with the careful stitches holding them together is remarkably evocative and moving. You get a really vivid sense that they have a story to tell."
Love Letters: 2000 Years of Romance, is published by the British Library and features correspondence from Oscar Wilde, Henry VIII, Rupert Brooke and Lord Nelson.

And the Daily Mail: 'Charlotte Brontë’s lost love letters to married professor were preserved by his wife'

It was a tale of unrequited love that could have been plucked straight from one of her novels.
Charlotte Brontë’s infatuation with her Belgian professor might never have come to light if it were not for the salvaging of her secret love letters.
The papers, written in 1844 when the author was 28, were torn up in shock by the older man, who was married and had children. But perversely, they were later found by his wife in a rubbish bin and sewn back together – possibly to preserve evidence of an indiscretion.
Three of the letters, addressed to Professor Constantin Heger, were composed entirely in French, one saying: ‘If my master withdraws his friendship from me entirely, I shall be absolutely without hope.’
One further letter had a postscript written in English, which is now to be published by the British Library in an anthology of love letters written by historical figures.
It reads: ‘I must say one word to you in English – I wish I would write to you more cheerful letters, for when I read this over, I find it to be somewhat gloomy – but forgive me my dear master – do not be irritated at my sadness – according to the words of the Bible: “Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaketh” and truly I find it difficult to be cheerful so long as I think I shall never see you more.’ [...]
The letters still have the marks where their horrified recipient tore them up or tried to burn them.
Even after his wife had rescued them, Professor Heger tried to dispose of them again when his daughter showed them to him as he lay on his death bed in 1896.
But by this time, Miss Brontë – who had died aged 38 in 1855 – was already seen as an important writer and it was decided they should be preserved.  [...]
After Brontë’s death, her friend Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her biography, attempting to bury the story of unrequited love to preserve her honour. The young woman’s reputation would have been ruined had it been well-known that she pursued a man so aggressively.
Love Letters: 2000 Years of Romance, is the first ever anthology to reproduce original love letters in each of the writers’ own hand. (Eleanor Harding)

Just a remark here: the letters were once 'lost' (not exactly lost, just privately owned by the Hegers) but have been in the British Library and widely known since 1913. And anyway we thought the book had been released back in November.

Another book, The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey, continues gathering reviews and being deemed Jane Eyre-inspired. Macleans looks at the connection:

In 1958, at the age of 10, Gemma Hardy is the unwanted ward of her late uncle’s wife. She is sent off to boarding school, where she earns her keep by cooking and cleaning and where she must fend off the abuse of other students. Clever and hard-working, Gemma is not quite 18 when she goes to work as the au pair of an unruly little girl who lives with her uncle, the mysterious Mr. Sinclair, in the Orkneys in Scotland. Despite the differences between Gemma and Sinclair—he is more than twice her age, educated and of means—a strong connection sparks between them. Then Gemma discovers a secret from his past which she cannot abide.
Sound familiar? It should—the story is based quite closely on Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë’s tale of the feisty, wise-beyond-her-years orphan, still widely read more than 150 years after publication. So why reinvent one of the great classics of English literature? Part of Jane Eyre’s brilliance lies in its portrayal of children as both sophisticated and vulnerable emotionally—they “can feel,” Brontë wrote, “but they cannot analyze their feelings.” Livesey’s adaptation brings those feelings into closer relief, granting readers greater intimacy with the beloved character.
While Gemma, like Jane, is remarkably resilient, she is not immune to the confusion and contradictions that live in all young people. When her aunt puts on a rare show of tenderness, Gemma unwittingly melts—“It was so long since anyone had touched me with a semblance of affection.” When her cry for help lands a teacher in trouble, she atones with fervour. Desperate to discover her roots, she betrays a couple to whom she has become close. And on the romance front—this is, above all, a love story—Gemma is idealistic but also red-blooded. Livesey does not shy away from the inherent discomfort in the story’s liaison between a teenager and much-older man, but Jane Eyre fans will not be disappointed—not one ounce of passion is sacrificed. (Dafna Izenberg)

The Christian Science Monitor comments on it as well:

Lonely and having lost her mother, nine-year-old Margot Livesy “fell in love” with “Jane Eyre.” Now, the award-winning Scottish writer transports Charlotte Brontë's classic to 1950s and '60s Scotland in her new novel, The Flight of Gemma Hardy.
While living some 140 years in the future, fierce, justice-demanding Gemma will be instantly recognizable to Brontë's readers. (In this case, she comes with an affinity for birds and an Icelandic back story, having been brought to Scotland by her vicar uncle after her parents die.) The first chapters hew closely to the original: the selfish aunt, the spoiled cousins, the horrible boarding school – check, check, check.
Like Brontë, Livesy attended a Lowood-like establishment, where she “prayed nightly for the school to burn down.” [...]
But if the Orkneys are a satisfying stand-in for Thornfield Hall, occasionally grumpy banker Hugh Sinclair is no Mr. Rochester. Their love affair feels perfunctory – almost a whim on his part. And while a rich 41-year-old male being attracted to a penniless 18-year-old isn't exactly improbable, it's not the stuff that epic romances are made of. It's also really tough to come up with an obstacle to true love that can top a madwoman in the attic. Reader, I didn't want her to marry him.
In a contrast with “Jane Eyre,” where a reader can't wait to get back to Thornfield, the last third of “The Flight of Gemma Hardy” gets even stronger. Livesy deviates a bit more from Brontë's playbook as Gemma makes a place for herself in the world. And while Jane never sat for her O levels, you just know she would have aced them. (Yvonne Zipp)

Hispanic Business reports that Michael Thomas Ford is releasing a new Zombie Austen novel next month:

In Jane Vows Vengeance by Michael Thomas Ford (Ballantine, Feb. 28), our erstwhile gothic gal needs to let her fiancé know that she's not just dead, but undead. She also needs to get away from Lord Byron and Charlotte Brontë -- and who could blame her?

The Star carries a story about three literary sisters... which are not the Brontë sisters:

Sheffield-born siblings Danuta Reah and Penny Grubb are both acclaimed crime authors - with their older sister Sue Knight a published poet - and they each focus on the dark world of crime in their novels.
Now the family are being described as a contemporary version of the ultimate literary dynasty - Yorkshire’s Bronte sisters – as Danuta and Penny prepare for their first joint book signing in Sheffield.
Danuta, of Endcliffe Vale Road, Endcliffe, said: “I wouldn’t want to compare myself with Charlotte Bronte or one of her sisters, these are classic writers, but in a way we’re doing a similar thing.
“Crime fiction looks at darkness in society, the awful things people do to each other, that reaches out to a wide audience like the Brontës did.”
Like the Brontes, the family love the wild moors of their home county and are all talented, with younger brother John Kot an astrophysicist.
Penny, 56, who now lives near Hull, said: “It is a flattering comparison. When we were little we used to play games and write reams. Unfortunately, unlike the Brontë family we didn’t keep that.”

HitFix's In Contention thinks Jane Eyre 2011 deserved a Best Cinematography Oscar nomination:

On balance, it's a sightly enough group of films, though I can't help wishing the branch had shown a little more ingenuity in their choices: this would have been a lovely place to recognize some visually astonishing arthouse items too modest or too tricky to get a foothold in major categories: "Jane Eyre," "Melancholia," "Meek's Cutoff"... take your pick. (Guy Lodge)

The Philadelphia Inquirer also thinks that Jane Eyre deserved more:

Oh well, in the eyes of Oscar, it's the year of the domestic. "Albert Nobbs," "The Help." Which makes it even harder to explain why "Jane Eyre" was overlooked. (Gary Thompson)

A couple of reviews of the film Albert Nobbs mention Mia Wasikowska's Jane. The Sacramento Bee says,

Wasikowska is its lyrical heart. The actress was excellent going through her own stages of repression and rebirth as Jane Eyre earlier this year. . . (Betsy Sharkey)

And according to Times Union,

and Wasikowska proves that the deer in the headlights thing she did in "Jane Eyre" was a performance, not a mannerism. (Mick LaSalle)

The Jerusalem Post has an article on the British Film Festival (February 4-12 at Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv venues).

The opening movie is Andrea Arnold’s new version of Wuthering Heights. It’s a reworking of the beloved Emily Brontë classic, which is meant to shock its audiences as the original book scandalized readers.
Heathcliff is not a Gypsy but a runaway slave from the Caribbean, who uses profanity and fights back when he is called by a racial slur.
Viewers who remember earlier screen versions, notably the Merle Oberon- Laurence Olivier 1939 film directed by William Wyler, should be warned – this isn’t your grandmother’s Wuthering Heights. Arnold is known for her gritty, realistic films Fish Tank and Red Road. (Hannah Brown)

The film The Grey is reviewed by Toro Magazine:

And while we may wish to applaud the filmmaker’s attempt to add some social relevance and substance to an otherwise traditional yarn about the tenacity of the human spirit, there is little to gain by grinding down the action to give each death scene a soulful soliloquy more in keeping with the writings of Emily Brontë than those of Jack London. (Thom Ernst)

The Telegraph and Argus makes a pun on Bradford City's football player Andy Haworth:

With a name like Haworth, City’s “other” on-loan winger should fit in fine in West Yorkshire.
Andy Haworth would certainly love to hit the ‘Wuthering Heights’ as he looks to put a frustrating time at Bury behind him. (Simon Parker)

The Indiana Statesman recommends Wuthering Heights. And Liz Lochhead Scotland's poet laureate would seem inclined to agree with that, judging by this interview in The Herald:

What is your favourite book? Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro, because I'd felt she was being valedictory in her previous one, The View from Castle Rock, but, no, there it was, yet another collection of dazzling short stories, as great as ever. Oh, and Wuthering Heights. Of course.

The New York Times suggests Wuthering Heights: Restless Souls.

The Huffington Post wonders whether you can be addicted to love:

From Romeo and Juliet (underage bride, double suicide) to Wuthering Heights (animal torture, violent death) and Jane Eyre (insane hidden wife, arson), every great love story had two things in common: A healthy dose of suffering and a body count. (Catherine Townsend)

This blogger's favourite novel is Jane Eyre and Pop/Media Explosion looks into what is to be learned about friendship from Jane Eyre. Al borde de un ataque de cine (in Spanish) and Close Caption (in Turkish) review the 2011 film adaptation. Livros e vagalumes is giving away a copy of Wuthering Heights in Portuguese while Queenie and the Dew posts pictures of a 1950s edition of the novel. Subtle Melodrama reviews The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. And Laura's Reviews posts about The Brontës: A Beginner's Guide by Steve Eddy.

We’ve heard the term, “Behind the green baize doors”, but what exactly does it mean? You hear this reference most often in regard to servants and in old books. Baize was a sturdy green cloth attached to a swing door.  The insulating fabric prevented noises from disturbing the individuals on either side: The ‘Green Baize [...]

Calm ― gray ― fine.

Accounts.

Worked at 3 Corfûs.

At 2.30 came the Trieste boat, with a glass ― I saw Miss J. Goldsmid & her party.

But the Vessel was declared in Quarantine by some Ionian bother, & it was 4 before they got out.

Called at their Hotel & saw Julia Goldsmid.

Walked from 5 to 6.30 ― by Kastrades, & to sea, home. ―

Dined.

Penned out till 10.30.

XX8

Dreadful night, from a rat gnawing a hole through from the drain into my bedroom. ill.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Alice in Wonderland is increasingly popular as a wedding theme on reality television and in life (one “credit crunch” bride has even described it as recession-defying). As ever, some couples go further than others. This week many blogs have been reposting these pictures of newlyweds Erin and Matt – a couple with a vision, to be sure. You can see many more pictures at BitRebels.

 

The Theater Artemis production of Wuthering Heights opens in New York:

Wuthering Heights: Restless Souls
Theater Artemis
’s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
The New Victory Theatre, New York, US
January 27 7 pm
January 28 2 pm ; 7 pm
January 29 3pm

Co-produced by Theater Antigone of Kortrijk, Belgium

Edgar and Heathcliff have always been Catherine's whole world, and the battle between her heart and her head consumes her. "Choose, choose, and make peace with your choice," her housemaid Nelly urges her in this fearless stage adaptation of Emily Brontë's sweeping love story. Played on a spare set evoking the wild and mysterious nature of the moors, this contemporary production exposes the timeless nature and inescapable power of the classic novel. "From adolescence to old age: there is not a story that is as famous and universal as that of love that will tear people apart. And this is where the strength of this performance lies, in its appeal across generations." – De Morgen (Belgium)

"Wuthering Heights is drama that grabs onto you and never lets go." – Het Parool - Joukje Akveld

NEW VIC EXTRAS
Zoem! New Dutch Theater Special Exhibit
(Informative display about Dutch productions)

SIGN-INTERPRETED PERFORMANCE
Sun, Jan 29 at 3pm

POST-SHOW TALK-BACK
Sun, Jan 29 at 3pm

FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY
New Vic Studio: Family Workshops
Sat, Jan 28 at 4:30pm

First of all, we would like to bring to your attention a very important post published by the Brontë Parsonage Blog:

Last week, Kirklees Council made public its budget proposals.
In addition to the recently publicised reduction in the opening times of Museums and Galleries across Kirklees, the proposals now include the complete closure of Red House Museum in Gomersal. If these proposals are passed, Red House would be closed in September and the buildings sold - not necessarily as a museum.
Red House was built in 1660 and was the home of the Taylor Family until 1920.  It has important Brontë connections and is now furnished as a home in the 1830s when Charlotte Brontë was a frequent visitor.  Red House, the Taylor family and the Spen Valley area were all featured in Charlotte Brontë's novel Shirley.
Also on site are the recreated 1830s gardens, the restored Barn which illustrates the numerous Brontë connections in the area and the renovated Cartsheds which houses the 'Spen Valley Stories' gallery.
Last year the site received almost 30,000 visitors and was recently awarded its second Sandford Award for the quality of its heritage educational services for schools.  The site is an important asset for Kirklees and local businesses as a tourist destination which attracts visitors from all over the world to the area.
Unlike Council Services which can be cut and reinstated in better economic times, if the proposal to close and sell the site were passed an extremely important part of Spen Valley's heritage would be lost forever. Kirkless Council Impact Statement.
Richard Wilcocks writes:
So the Communities and Leisure Service department of Kirklees Council is recommending that the Red House Museum in Gomersal should be closed down in less than nine months. Just like that! Once again, a local authority is calculating that a short-term capital gain and a removal of dedicated museum staff is going to make up for the loss of one of Kirklees’s few tourist attractions, which is much more than a museum and a learning centre. It could be put on a list of national treasures. It is important not only for those dismissed in the official impact statement as ‘Brontë enthusiasts’ (note that these come after the local businesses in the sentence) but for anyone who believes that the most fitting memorial to Mary Taylor, a highly significant historical figure, not only because of her lifelong friendship with Charlotte Brontë, is the museum situated in her house. Perhaps that should be national memorial – let’s move beyond the parochial.
I well remember a book launch of about a decade ago, held in the Red House grounds: Joan Bellamy, who was at the time a member of Brontë Society Council, had just published More Precious than Rubies, a title which has Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Brontë, Strong Minded Woman underneath it. All present were complimentary about Red House, its exhibitions and the expertise to be found within its red-brick walls, and they were not just being polite. It was described as a great aid for those concerned with education – and if proof is needed that the place is still a great aid, look online at this document. Explaining her title, Joan said that it could easily apply to the museum as well, which she greatly admired.
Now the treasure could be sold off – apparently, one quick-off-the-mark developer has already suggested that the seventeenth century building could be converted into very desirable flats, and that a chic little bistro could be put into it as well.
The Council Cabinet are to meet on 7th February.  There is to be no public consultation but they are inviting 'public dialogue'.  The whole set of proposals – including overviews of the council spending and the approach of each directorate – is available on the Council website .
Comments can be made on the website, via a local Councillor or by e-mail to consultation@kirklees.gov.uk
Brontë Society Chair Sally McDonald is busy writing letters about this, and plenty of other people (no, you don’t have to be a Society member) are using their keyboards to send emails. You as well? Letters to newspaper editors, protests to local MPs, messages to local radio and television – you could affect the outcome. The list below is not exhaustive, so please include your own contacts. You don’t have to be resident in Kirklees. Or England.
BBC Look North – christa.ackroyd@bbc.co.uk
Calendar – ITV Yorkshire – calendar@itv.com
Radio Leeds – layla.painter@bbc.co.uk
Yorkshire Post – yp.newsdesk@ypn.co.uk
Yorkshire Evening Post – eped@ypn.co.uk
Huddersfield Daily Examiner – editor@examiner.co.uk
Batley & Birstall News – batleyeditorial@ywng.co.uk
News Editor of Spenborough Guardian – Margaret.heward@ywng.co.uk
Mirfield Reporter – dewsburyeditorial@ywng.co.uk
News Team at Morley Observer – Erica.madelin@ypn.co.uk

Please do as Richard suggests: write letters/emails protesting against it and have anyone in the least interested in preserving history do so as well, be they Brontëites or not. It's not just that they are closing down (and selling!!) one precious museum, it's the fact that once they start doing that you never know when they will stop.

Anyway, onto lighter matters. More reactions to the Jane Eyre Oscar nominations (or lack thereof).

The California Literary Review:

Costume Design I just want Jane Eyre to win, partly because the costumes were excellent and partly because it was shamefully overlooked in the Art Direction category. Its prospects would have been grim up against Harry Potter, but even so… (Brett Harrison Davinger)

StarNews Online's Bookmarks:

Even Charlotte Brontë could walk on the runway, were she still with us. The 2011 version of “Jane Eyre,” starring Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska, is in the running for a Best Costume Oscar. (Ben Steelman)

Nicole Kidman joins Meryl Streep in prasing Mia Wasikowska's Jane. From her Official Website:

I just worked with Mia Wasikowska and she is so so talented. Her performance is Jane Eyre is gorgeous. Xo Nic

Reuters quotes from Andrea Arnold's description of her own take on Wuthering Heights:

Andrea Arnold, the delightfully British director of what she called “the cover band version” of "Wuthering Heights." (Jeremy Walker)

Inquirer Lifestyle has an article on 'a foodie's literary adventures':

“A Brontë Kitchen” by Victoria Wright is probably what one can buy at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Yorkshire, England, but I found it in a used book shop. The Parsonage is where the famous literary sisters—Charlotte, Emily and Anne—lived and wrote their novels, using the moors around their home as their bleak setting. It is in the kitchen where they gathered to write and help out their cook as she prepared their meals.
The recipes, however, were gathered from old cookery books of the time. Of course I had to look for Yorkshire pudding and there it was. The procedure asked the cook to “beat the batter with a wooden spoon until your arm aches” and revealed the secret to a good pudding—“a dash of cold water… will turn to steam and make the pudding rise.” (The Bluecoat Press, 1996) (Micky Fenix)

The Irish Echo interviews a Brontëite, the historian Christine Kinealy:

Name three books that are memorable in terms of your reading pleasure.
“Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë (1847) –  I love the Brontë sisters’ writings. This is a dark, yet smoldering, example of it. “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde  (1891) – at his quotable best, but so much more than that. “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” by Robert Tressell (1914) –  almost 100 years later, the political message remains pertinent. (Peter McDermott)

This columnist from KSL is quite the Brontë enthusiast too:

In my adult life, like meeting good friends, I’ve known the joy of reading. “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Jane Eyre” and “The Man Who Listens to Horses.” (Teri Harman)

MSN India looks at the work of Shilpa Gupta:

Gupta, based in Mumbai, is busy preparing for a solo exhibition at the Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, where she plans to showcase a work titled 'Bell-jar'. This consists of a library of stainless steel books by authors who have written under pseudonyms to either hide their gender as women, like George Elliot and the Brontë sisters, or their religious identity, like Ali and Mino. "It reflects on the idea of hidden authorship and the kind of discrimination that stems from it," says Gupta whose work focuses on the marginal and discriminated sections of society. Her interactive videos, websites, photographs, sound and public performances subversively probe ideas such as desire, religion, and notions of security on the street and on the imagined border. (Georgina Maddox)

The Brooklyn Paper looks at a forthcoming game show on NPR where

Host comedian Ophira Eisenberg tests eager beavers with games such as “Better than Bieber” (contestants fill in the blanks for Justin’s songs) and “Replacement Math” (the total number of Brontë sisters plus the Marx Brothers). (Kate Briquelet)

Which is, of course, quite a tricky question as the actual total number of Brontë sisters would be five but we think in this case they mean only the famous writers, so it's three.

Town Topics mentions the Cathy and Heathcliff image of Dorothy and William Wordsworth created by Frances Wilson in her 2008 biography The Ballad of Dorothy Wilson.

KO Video thinks that this outfit seen on Evanescence's video for My Heart is Broken is

a formal outfit befitting a scene from Wuthering Heights (Mike Petryczkowycz)

Yeah...well... not really.

Les Soeurs Brontë discusses (in French) the film Devotion. Flickr user Inukshuk's images shares a work in progress called Cathy's Path. Wuthering Heights 2011 is reviewed by Media Gulch and Vintagerockchick while Jane Eyre 2011 is the subject on Inside the Secret Window (in Portuguese) and Saucy Salad. Atelier di una lettrice compulsiva (in Italian) writes about the original novel. My Beads...My Art...My Life has put together a Jane Eyre-inspired outfit. Finally, Laura's Reviews interviews Syrie James, author of The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë.

The Plague by Arnold Böcklin

Painting of the Day Archive

The Sisters Three - Das Leben Der Schwestern Brontë
Idea/Concept: Daniela Dett and Nora Dirisamer
With Daniela Dett, Nora Dirisamer and Katharina Bigus
Director: Joachim Rathke
Music: Willy Hackl
Stage: Renate Schuler
Linzer Posthof
January 26, 28, 30, 31 20:00 h

Wer kennt sie nicht, die Romane der Schwestern Brontë: "Sturmhöhe", "Jane Eyre" und "Agnes Grey" gehören mit zu den wichtigsten Werken der englischen Literatur. Doch es sind nicht nur ihre Bücher und Gedichte, die uns heute noch faszinieren. Das von Leid und Schicksalsschlägen geprägte Leben dieser drei Frauen selbst ist zum Mythos geworden. Anne (Nora Dirisamer), sanft und unerschrocken, Emily (Daniela Dett), das Naturkind, empfindsam und erbarmungslos und Charlotte (Katharina Bigus), die unter ihrer grauseidenen Schicklichkeit ein stürmisches Herz verbarg - drei Genies, die in Kunst, Sprache und Gedankenwelten Zuflucht suchten, zuhause im Graubereich zwischen Realität und Phantasie.
Wie könnte es gewesen sein? Hören wir hinein in die Einsamkeit des bedrückenden Pfarrhauses in Haworth, erträumen uns ein raues Moor Nordenglands, erleben das Korsett des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts, das Frauen gesellschaftliche und private Entfaltungsmöglichkeiten abschnürte. Setzen uns der unerbittlichen Stille aus, die nur vom Läuten der Totenglocken und vom Klang des schneidenden Westwinds unterbrochen wurde. Tauchen wir ab. Nähern uns an. Erfühlen.
Erleben Sie eine sinnliche Reise und tauchen sie ein in die Welt der Brontës!

Nachrichten publishes an article about the production.

If possible ― more perfectly fine.

Medicine. At home ―: ― called at the Maude’s till at 1. Went to Sir C. Sargents, & with him to the Exhibition ― & then to the Viro road.

Home by 6.

Dinner εις τὸ Παλάτιον.¹

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

1. At the Palace (NB).

January 1812. We are still in the first year of the Regency and here is what the ladies were wearing in January.

Lady’s Monthly Museum
Cabinet of Fashion

A plain muslin dress, made high to fit the bosom with a plaited ruff; the front of the dress confined with coral clasps; earrings and necklace to correspond. Hungarian mantle, with double capes, trimmed with white swansdown, and fixed at the throat with cord and tassels. A small eastern turban, the same colour as the mantle, with white feathers; buff gloves and shoes.


I really like the modesty of this first gown. It has an elegance about it that appeals to me. And the ruff is very Elizabethan/Tudor. Note the hairstyle. She is sporting one, which always appeals to me, the long tress or curl coming over one shoulder.

The second figure is:

A riding dress of fine Georgian cloth, of a green colour, ornamented with frogs militarie in front and finished at the pocket holes with the same. Hat of green velvet, trimmed with white fur. Buff boots and gloves.

Pocket holes, an interesting way to describe them. I always like the idea of military styled riding dresses for ladies, but this view shows the train to perfection. This would ensure the lady's legs are well covered once she is sideways on the horse. I don't know what Georgian cloth is, do you?

So here we see what the ladies were wearing as we approach the end of the first year of the Regency.

Until next time, Happy Rambles

A Midsummer Night's Dream by Gustave Doré

Painting of the Day Archive

Let's start with the reactions to the Oscar nominations. First of all, reactions to Michael O'Connor's costume design nomination:

The Contra Costa Times quotes Michael O'Connor as having said,

"I'm absolutely thrilled and delighted to be nominated for my work on 'Jane Eyre.' "

Clothes on Film naturally looks at the nominations in depth, comparing them with other awards nominations such as the BAFTAs or the Costume Designers Guild (Michael O'Connor's work in Jane Eyre is nominated in the Period Film category):

Michael O’Connor for his bleak, deep and meaningful version of Jane Eyre. (Chris Laverty)

HitFix's In Contention:

Best Costume DesignThis is the one category where I was most confident in my predictions: “The Artist,” “The Help,” “Hugo,” “Jane Eyre,” “My Week with Marilyn.” Oops! I’m thrilled Mark Bridges pulled off his first nomination for “The Artist” and that Michael O’Connor earned his second nomination for “Jane Eyre.” It is also delightful, if unsurprising, to see Sandy Powell back in the race for her rich threads on “Hugo.” However, “My Week with Marilyn” and “The Help” were omitted in favor of “Anonymous” and “W.E.”  Three films -- “Anonymous,” “Jane Eyre” and “W.E.” -- were not nominated in any other categories. I say good on this branch for looking past the quality of the films in coming to their nominations?
As far as the race for the win is concerned, it seems to me as though the three solo nominees don’t have much of a shot against the two Best Picture frontrunners. Powell’s work is more obviously showy but Bridges’s intricate threads were cited by the BFCA and I think his film will ultimately triumph in the big category. So this could go either way. (Gerard Kennedy)

WIBW:

The past is again present in the Best Costume Design category, from an England Elizabethan ("Anonymous"), Edwardian ("W.E."), and Romantic ("Jane Eyre"), to 1920s Paris ("Hugo") and Hollywood ("The Artist").

And now for the so-called Oscar snubs:

The Philadelphia Inquirer sums it up:

Michael Fassbender had a great year, but came away empty, and his co-star in "Jane Eyre," Mia Wasikowska, was neglected. (Gary Thompson)

My Fox Phoenix:

4. Michael Fassbender for Best Actor in "Shame"
Easily the year's most daring performance and possibly the most intense. His portrayal of a sex addict in New York City combined both the savage and the subtle, a feat which few other actors could pull off. Fassbender had a banner year in 2011 for his additional work in " X-Men: First Class," "Jane Eyre" and "A Dangerous Method." The Los Angeles Film Critics and the Golden Globes saw fit to recognize him - it's truly a shame that the Academy didn't.

The Canberra Times:

Despite an endorsement from Hollywood legend Meryl Streep at the Golden Globe awards recently, Canberra-born Mia Wasikowska failed to pick up a nomination for her starring role in Jane Eyre. Wasikowska was also commended by top US critics for her performance in the new adaptation of the classic Charlotte Brontë novel. (Garry Maddox)

As far as we can see, no one has yet mentioned Dario Marianelli's wonderful soundtrack being left out. Quite a snub, that one too.

Anyway, onto the other recent Brontë film (and also snubbed at film awards like the BAFTAs). Television Without Pity's The Moviefile saw Wuthering Heights 2011 at Sundance:

The wise move would have been to just go home, but because the movie was Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights -- which I've been eager to see since its premiere at Toronto last year -- I sucked up my courage and gripped my seat as the bus drove through the blinding snow, slipping and sliding on the icy roads. We arrived at the theater moments before the movie started and Arnold was on hand to thank us for braving the storm. And may I just say that Wuthering Heights was absolutely worth the trek. A full review can wait for its release later this year courtesy of the good folks at Oscilloscope, but this is the kind of bold adaptation of a classic 19th century novel that I wish the recent Jane Eyre film had been. It's raw and emotional and vibrant in a way that too few period productions are. I can't wait to experience it again, preferably when I'm not exhausted after a day full of movies and junk food. (Ethan Alter)

Female First reviews the DVD (to be released in March) and gives it 5 stars out of 6.

The Yorkshire Post has an article on tourists from abroad coming to walk in Brontë country:

Brontë enthusiasts from as far away as Australia are preparing to make a pilgrimage to West Yorkshire to take in the countryside which inspired the novels.
The literary tourists are being encouraged to make the trip by Bradford businesswoman Helen Broadhead, a historian and Brontë expert.
Ms Broadhead leads Brontë fans on walks to buildings and places that were significant in the lives of the sisters.
After relaunching her website, www.helensheritagewalks.co.uk, she has seen a rise in interest from across the globe.
“I have already received several inquiries from Brontë enthusiasts in the USA and Australia about my guided Brontë walks around Haworth and venues, such as Oakwell Hall, Red House Museum – now, sadly, threatened with closure – and Shibden Hall in Calderdale.
“All these venues have Brontë connections: Oakwell Hall and Red House were used by Charlotte Brontë as models for her houses in Shirley, and it is widely accepted by Brontë scholars that, in her writing of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë was influenced by the stories and houses she came across during her time at Law Hill School in Southowram, near Shibden Hall.
“It seems that international tourists are not put off by the winter weather. This week I took two Korean ladies, a mother and daughter from New York, on a first ‘Taste of the Moors’ walk.
“The weather had taken a turn for the worse but they felt that the wind and rain only added to the atmosphere.
“The older lady said that her heart started to beat with excitement as she came onto the moors on Penistone Hill.
“Her favourite of the Brontës’ novels was Wuthering Heights, a favourite with many Korean females, her daughter said.”
Ms Broadhead said Haworth needed improved transport links to capitalise on international tourism.

MSNBC actually thinks these walks are a thing of the past:

Fifty years ago, the media’s archetypal American abroad—say, a fedora-topped Jimmy Stewart squiring Doris Day through Marrakesh—inspired adventurous viewers to go and see Morocco for themselves. In this, they were much like the 19th-century English tourists who visited the sites of Brontë novels—distant precursors of the newer, stranger breed that scholars call “media tourists.” (Chris Norris)

Speaking of Brontë walks, The Telegraph and Argus reports on the Stanbury Splash race,

The course, which involves over 1,300ft of climbing, is one of a classic series of races on the Bronte Moors above Haworth organised by Dave and Eileen Woodhead. (Colin Davidson)

More from the Yorkshire Post, as it carries a funny anecdote concerning Gary Verity, Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive:

SOMETIMES it’s hard being in the public eye.
Gary Verity, the chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, has had plenty to celebrate recently.
His team walked away with a world travel award earlier this month, so it’s hardly surprising that his face is becoming well known.
Mr Verity was recently visiting an exclusive club in London, when a woman seemed to recognise him.
Had she perhaps been inspired by his efforts to promote Yorkshire to a global audience? Or perhaps she wanted to say how much she was looking forward to visiting Brontë country?
Sadly, not.
“Aren’t you Hugh Bonneville?” she asked.
Mr Bonneville is, of-course, best known as one of the stars of costume drama Downton Abbey.

Patheos interviews the writer Taylor M. Polites about his forthcoming novel The Rebel Wife:

KAREN: Did you intentionally craft Gus as a more cunning Scarlett O’Hara?
TAYLOR: I wanted Gus to be a great heroine, tragic or heroic, but in the vein of the great women of fiction who always fascinated me.  Scarlett O’Hara was definitely a major player in my pantheon of women heroines.  But there were so many more, Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair, Lizzie Eustace from Trollope’s The Eustace Diamonds, Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, even Cathy from Wuthering Heights, Isabel Archer from The Portrait of a Lady, Lily Bart from The House of Mirth.  These were women who captivated me, moved me, made me cheer or writhe in frustration.  Since The Rebel Wife is set in the South with a female heroine who survived the same upheavals that Scarlett faced, comparisons are inevitable, and I don’t shrink from those either.  Gone With the Wind was such an important book to me when I was growing up.  I hope The Rebel Wife embraces its best parts and challenges its worst.  There are whispers of GWTW throughout the book.  I want Augusta and The Rebel Wife to take their place in the tradition of Southern books and Southern heroines. (Karen Spears Zacharias)

Gather has a recap of Jane by Design: 'The Finger Bowl,' Season 1, Episode 4 where

All that talking brings Jane and Billy to school with Billy not having a chance to lay it out for Jane, and then it's too late. Lulu walks up to Billy and kisses him. Jane is gobsmacked, and not a little angry. She feels betrayed and she and Billy exchange dueling wrong summations of the theme of Wuthering Heights. The English teacher is apparently a bit dense and has no idea what is going in. (K Lee)

The following comes from the Guardian's live feed of the Pakistan vs England crciket match:

39th over: Pakistan 103-3 (Azhar Ali 24, Misbah-ul-Haq 1) Azhar leaves another beauty from Broad that seams back a long way and just bounces over the top of off stump. The next ball brings a huge shout for LBW that is turned down by Bruce Oxenford. I thought it was bat first but replays weren't conclusive either way. That was a fine over from Broad. "I'd like to hear – and (this is the important thing) see – Sir Geoffrey doing a rendition of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights, interpreting the emotional plight of Heathcliff and Cathy through dance as well as song," says Sam Jordison. (Andy Bull)

And yet another unexpected Wuthering Heights reference comes from an article on Kim Kardashian on Heckler Spray.

Basically, that’s a lot of soul-searching over a 72-day marriage. The kind of soul-searching that saw the willfully stupid Kim going to the vapid, finance hungry Kardashian family for advice on what to do. It’s like Wuthering Heights or something. (Mof Gimmers)

Babyology makes quite a blunder when introducing the clothes available at Little Bookwormz:

I won’t pretend otherwise, my favourite design is ‘E is for Emily’ – I never tire of the Cathy and Heathcliff drama and the simple, stylised graphic of Emily Brontë is fabulous.

We are sorry to say, though, that that Emily is clearly not Brontë, but Dickinson.

OpEdNews quotes from Jane Eyre:

Tired of being mean? Tired of being on the receiving end of meanness? The nasty trait produces a lot of unnecessary suffering, both for the person who's being mean (the "hell of your own meanness," a character says in Jane Eyre) and for the recipient of the meanness. Meanness is often a compulsive behavior that's difficult to remedy without deeper insight. (Peter Michaelson)

The Book Jotter posts about Jane Eyre while A Classic Case of Madness needs some help with Adèle's French. La bobina writes in Spanish about the 2011 adaptation. Just Can't Know posts about April Lindner's Jane and Moi, Clara et les mots and J'ai pad d'idée write in French about Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre. Got Good Reads??? and Jesse's Books post about Wuthering Heights while Laura's Reviews writes about the 1939 adaptation.

Finally a reminder from The Telegraph and Argus:

CALENDAR: The Haworth Couldn’t Wear Less calendar is still for sale. It’s not too late to help locals raise money for Haworth Parish Church Restoration Fund and Bronte Spirit, the Bronte School Room development project. All profits will be divided between the two projects. Calendars are £6 each or £10 for a pair of ‘his’ and ‘hers’ and can be purchased from Haworth Main Street shops or visit their their website www.HaworthCalendar.co.uk, or Twitter @HaworthCalendar. (Kath Gower)

if possible ― fairer: perfect calm & sunshine.

Worked at all 4 Corfus ― figures & goats.

Letters from
A. Empson ―
Mrs. Musters
J. Edwards
Ellis Ashton
& Mrs. Bell.

At 5 ― went to Ascension.

Dined at 6.45.

Penned out ― but not much; as there were 2 papers, the Westminster, & 2 vols. of Turner’s life¹ ― all come to day ― to read.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

1. Probably Walter Thornbury’s The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. 2 vols. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1862.

It’s rare that I purchase a Jane Austen sequel. Generally, publishers will send books for review or I’ll pick up a copy at the library. When Death Comes to Pemberley was announced I did not hesitate to purchase a copy for my Kindle. P.D. James, the book’s author, is a highly regarded mystery writer with [...]

Two alerts for today, January 25:

In Saint Paul, Minnesota. At the University of St Thomas:

The campus community is invited to join this month’s book club discussion hosted by theLuann Dummer Center for Women.
The club will discuss Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 25, in Room 103, O’Shaughnessy Educational Center.
Even if you have somehow escaped reading this classic, you are still welcome to join in the conversation. Bring your lunch or a beverage. (St. Thomas Bulletin)

In Knoxville, TN:

Brontë Society: Discussion of Mary Taylor; Charlotte Brontë's confidant and life-long friend. 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 25, Panera Bread 4855 Kingston Pike. Info: 865-681-7261. (Knoxville News)

The Oscar nominations are finally being announced today, but we still have a few last-minute guesses, predictions and hopes. EDIT after nominations announcement: according to the nominees list released by the Academy, Jane Eyre 2011 is only nominated for Costume Design (by Michael O'Connor). (And Michael Fassbender has been completely left out of the picture, even if he was a big favourite for his many films!). Picture Source: Frocktalk.

The Sydney Morning Herald is not very hopeful:

Mia Wasikowska was praised in Meryl Streep's acceptance speech at the Golden Globes but seems unlikely to be recognised for her performance in Jane Eyre. (Garry Maddox)

Streep's shout-out to Wasikowska during The Iron Lady star's Golden Globes speech might have swung some votes the younger actress' way had Oscar voting not closed the Friday before. (And, yes, we know, Streep name-checked Wasikowska's other noteworthy 2011 movie, Jane Eyre, but same difference—the pub came too late, unless, that is, Streep was lobbying for the Aussie behind-the-scenes. And, by the by, if Streep was talking up Wasikowska to her Academy friends, then we take back everything we said about Theron in the Best Actress race, and we hereby give that slot to Wasikowska. How's that for conviction?) (Joal Ryan)

Alt Film Guide thinks that all of Michael Fasbender's stunning performances will be condensed in Shame:

Also, Academy members who enjoyed watching Fassbender in Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class, David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method, or Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre may choose to vote for him in Shame, as — barring an upset of Dennis Hopper-ish proportions — that's Fassbender's only viable Oscar ticket. (Andre Soares)

The Wuthering Heights 2011 screening at Sundance is discussed by Austin Movie Blog:

Saturday saw the U.S. premiere of Andrea Arnold’s “Wuthering Heights.” Anyone who has seen Arnold’s “Red Road” or “Fish Tank” will recognize her unique style in this invigorating take on the classic novel. By shooting the film in a square 4:3 aspect ratio rather than the usual widescreen approach, Arnold eschews the usual David Lean approach to literary adaptation, choosing to focus our attention on the beautifully expressive faces of her non-professional actors rather than the blustery vistas of the English landscape. This film joins Cary Fukunaga’s recent “Jane Eyre” as encouraging examples of what can be done with too often told tales. (Stephen Jannise)

Speaking of films. This is what Syrie James, author of The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë, says in an interview on USA Today's Happy Ever After:

Joyce: Before becoming a novelist, you had a successful career writing screenplays for major television networks and studios. Anything we might have heard of? Did you adapt any screenplays from books? Would you consider adapting Forbidden?Syrie: In my years as a screenwriter, I sold 19 scripts to TV and film. Most were TV episodes (such as Starman) and TV movies, including Once in a Lifetime, starring Lindsay Wagner and Barry Bostwick, which I adapted from a novel by Danielle Steel. It originally ran on NBC, and often reruns on the Lifetime Network. I have adapted my Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë novels for the screen, and hope they'll get produced one day. [...]
Joyce: You're a huge fan of Charlotte Brontë. If you had to choose the best film adaptation of Jane Eyre, which one would it be? If you were writing Jane Eyre the screenplay, what aspect would your film have that would be different from the other film adaptations?Syrie: My favorite Jane Eyre adaptation is the 2006 BBC miniseries directed by Susanna White and starring Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens. The script was wonderful, the stars had great chemistry, and the entire production was beautifully filmed. I think it's the only version that properly shows the passion between Jane and Rochester. I'll have to go back and watch it again, but as I recall, my main complaint in that version was that Jane's time spent at Lowood School as a child was too brief. It's an important part of the novel, because it sets up Jane's character — and it was a direct reflection of Charlotte Brontë's personal experience at a similar, horrible school, where two of her sisters died. I admired the structure of the 2011 version from Focus Films, because they found a way, using flashbacks, to effectively tell a long and detailed story in only two hours. However, it ended too abruptly. One of the most romantic parts is when Jane comes back to Rochester at the end, to find him wounded and grieving. There's some wonderful, playful, romantic dialogue in the book there that I'd include if I was doing an adaptation. (Joyce Lamb)

The Times shares a couple of tips on education and reading. For Year 8:

You might be doing your child a disservice by handing down your well-thumbed classics: don’t be sniffy about repackaging aimed at children — for example, Jane Eyre with an introduction by Jacqueline Wilson.

And for Year 9:

Stress that “classics” now were page-turners from the start (Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Jane Eyre, anything by Jules Verne). 

The New Zealand Herald looks at writing and pseudonyms while the Daily Mail reports that Charlotte has been voted 'America's favourite baby name'.

Ajax and Cassandra by Solomon Joseph Solomon

Painting of the Day Archive

Call for Papers - Deadline Extended to 16th March

Locating Revolution: Place, Voice, Community 1780–1820

Aberystwyth 9–12 July 2012

A conference jointly hosted by the Wales and the French Revolution Project at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies; the Centre for Romantic Studies, Aberystwyth University; and the Department of English, Swansea University.

This conference explores the relation between geography (considered as place, landscape, cartography and real and imagined space) and change during the period of the revolutionary wars. In what local, localised forms did the European upheavals of the age manifest themselves? How were social, religious and political loyalties conditioned by particular landscapes and environments? What were the coordinates of loyalism and opposition in particular rural, regional, urban and metropolitan communities? The conference seeks to place ‘history’ in specific locations, mapping connections across Europe, the Atlantic, and the wider world. It also sets out to consider the dramatic material forms that Romanticism, revolution and reaction took at this time. Delegates are invited to consider a range of cultural productions, material objects and literary forms with a view to revealing how the multiform phenomenon we term ‘Romanticism’ was experienced on the ground and in precise cultural locations.

Abstracts for 25-minute papers, and suggestions for panels, should be sent by 16th March 2012 to Angharad Elias (a.elias@wales.ac.uk). Panels on the following are particularly welcome:

• local/regional/national/European identities

• readings of ‘place’ and ‘space’

• cartographies of loyalism and opposition

• four Nations criticism: refining the ‘British’ response

• neglected /silenced voices

• oral traditions

More information available at: http://frenchrevolution.wales.ac.uk

Author C.M. Rubin (The Real Alice in Wonderland) has a new blog post at The Huffington Post about Sir William Blake Richmond’s 1864 painting of the Liddell sisters, now on display at the Tate Liverpool’s Alice in Wonderland exhibit (which closes January 29th – hurry!)

In the summer of 1864, Alice Liddell (Lewis Carroll’s inspiration for Alice in Wonderland) and her two sisters, Lorina (who inspired the Lory) and Edith (who inspired the Eaglet), posed for up to 10 hours a day while the distinguished English artist, Sir William Blake Richmond, created one of his most famous paintings, called The Sisters. The painting of the three Liddell sisters set against the background of the Great Orme, Llandudno’s famous mountain, is one of the highlights of the Tate Liverpool’s Alice in Wonderland exhibition. Sir William Blake Richmond painted the portraits of the most prominent people of the day. The Sisters, well received by the art critics of the day, was regarded by Richmond as a milestone in his career. Sir William had this to say about Alice Liddell:

“Little Alice, to whose pretty face and lovely coloring no reproduction can do justice, is seen on the right in profile, peering at the big volume on her sister’s lap.” [continue reading...]

Very lovely ― calm & bright all day.

Worked savagely at small Corfû all day.

Invitations to dinner, from Luards, Maude ― &c. &c. ―

Short walk at 5½ ― to 6½.

Dined at Luards’ ― pleasant enough: a clever & nice lad.

Home by 11.40.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Morning (Le Matin) by Henri Fantin-Latour

Painting of the Day Archive

Yesterday’s Cul de Sac for you amusement. Courtesy of GoComics.

The Sydney Morning Herald thinks that Mia Wasikowska is one of 'Australia's top chances for Oscar nominations' although it is considered a 'long shot'.

If there is a major surprise when the Academy Award nominations are announced early Wednesday morning (AEDT) Australian actress Mia Wasikowska could be the reason.
A few weeks ago the best actress Oscar prospects for the Canberra-born 22-year-old's critically-acclaimed, but quickly forgotten, starring role in Jane Eyre were as healthy as the Costa Concordia cruise ship.
The tide recently turned.
One of Wasikowska's champions, ironically, is the woman most likely to win the best actress Oscar, Meryl Streep.
The US star used a portion of her acceptance speech after winning the Golden Globe last week to remind the world about Wasikowska's performance as Jane Eyre in the new adaptation of the classic Charlotte Bronte novel.
"How about Mia Wasikowska in Jane Eyre?" Streep, a short-priced favourite to win the third Oscar of her career for playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, asked the A-list crowd at the Globes that included many Academy-voting members.
Wasikowska remains at long-shot odds of 100/1 and would have to squeeze out one of the five actresses who appear set to receive nominations: Streep; Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn); Viola Davis (The Help); Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs); and Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin). [...]
Wasikowska is Australia's only chance at picking up an acting nominee. . .

Examiner's Kevin Thomas thinks Jane Eyre might be nominated in the following categories: Best Musical Score and Best Costume Design. And according to him the film would also be a runner-up for Best Art Direction. While The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Feinberg only sees it nominated for Best Costume Design although he reckons it should be a contender for Best Musical Score.

And this is how The Daily Beast describes Michael Fassbender's Rochester:

the moody, sideburned Rochester in Jane Eyre (David Ansen)

The Celebrity Cafe takes a look at Michael Fassbender's filmography.

Jane EyreThe classic tale of Jane Eyre has been told over and over again in countless TV and movies. Sometimes it appears that Jane Eyre is a fixture of literature and dramatic arts. Casting Fassbender in this latest edition and adaptation was somewhat controversial. The role of Mr. Rochester has been played by so many actors and it has been believed that Fassbender was too handsome. Despite the criticism the film was able to create a Rochester who had so much broody moods that you forget how handsome his face is. Even in the scene where Fassbender asks Jane if she found handsome you don’t think about what he looks like. This is a good example of why Fassbender's is one of those actors who does not rely on his looks even though he totally could. (Jackie Morrison)

The Huffington Post briefly discusses Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights:

I saw three very impressive films at Sundance yesterday and was reminded why I'm here. The first, Wuthering Heights, helmed by the formidably talented and charming director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank), was tough and as much of an inundation on the viewers as the blizzard outside. It is a challenging and unapologetic film to say the least, but does everything Indie cinema should in leaving you thinking about it for hours and possibly days. (Liliana Greenfield-Sanders)

Another writer for The Huffington Post is not so thrilled though:

5:10 p.m. My second movie at Sundance is Wuthering Heights, which caused me to have fond memories of my first Sundance movie, Elena. Wuthering Heights is pretty. Wuthering Heights is a really long movie and it feels even longer. There should be a term for this, like the wind chill or heat index: "Wuthering Heights has a running time of 128 minutes, but the length index is going to make it feel more like 140 for all you folks out there." (Mike Ryan)

In the meantime, Variety brings up memories of Wuthering Heights 1939:

The great Sir Laurence Olivier complained in his memoir that his producer, Samuel Goldwyn, was constantly nattering at him over his performance in "Wuthering Heights' and that he rarely heard from his director. (Peter Bart)

The New Hampshire Sentinel Source wonders what to do with the books when you are 'getting rid of stuff'. Here's a problem common to book lovers in general and Brontëites in particular:

 I found, as I picked up book after book, that my own history was embedded in the pages. Which edition of “Jane Eyre” would I keep? The pretty one, or the one I had first devoured? The pretty one went in the box. (Sarah Spykman)

This Salon writer doesn't seem to share the love for Jane Eyre, at least not for the main character:

The stress was mounting. One evening, after patiently listening to my jealous wheedling, he left for a reading alone. I pitched “Anna Karenina” at the door, then passed the rest of the night with a bottle of Malbec and one of my very favorites: “Wide Sargasso Sea.” Ever read that one? The heroine gets so crazy over the loss of her husband’s love she sets herself on fire, along with Thornfield Hall, the home of the much less endearing Jane Eyre. (Katie Crouch)

TheIndependent.com has apparently found the reason why people don't enjoy reading Jane Eyre (don't they really?):

There's a reason that people don't generally like reading classic novels like "Jane Eyre" or "The Grapes of Wrath." It's because they've been beaten to death in classrooms across the nation, so that reading them has become a chore, not something to be enjoyed.
As Mark Twain said, "Classic: A book which people praise and don't read." (Olivia Exstrum)

The Sydney Morning Herald paraphrases from Jane Eyre:

Between me and my children there is, to paraphrase Rochester in Jane Eyre, a string: knotted in my chest to another string in their little ribs. Too far apart, for too many days, and it may snap - leaving me ''bleeding inwardly,'' as Rochester puts it. Standard parental love, really. (Damon Young)

It is a while since we last saw a sports chronicle mentioning the Brontës. Well, the Denver Post certainly makes up for the long time:

Alistair Cooke should have been the TV host. Herman Melville could have written the scripts. Think football's version of "Wuthering Heights" and "The Count of Monte Cristo" back to back.
The AFC and NFC championship games Sunday were masterpiece theater. (Woody Paige)

So how was the book? posts about Agnes Grey. And Flickr user JL La Rouge shares a picture of Top Withins.

The Brussels Brontë Blog has a post on an 1855 Jane Eyre play co-written by Alphonse Royer and Victor Lefèvre. Romantique Innocence By Nailah D'arcy writes about the novel and La Piccola Ricamatrice (in Italian) is stitching something inspired by Jane Eyre (to be revealed soon, we hope). Inspired Ground thinks Jane Eyre 2011 has one of the best movie locations of last year and A Girl and a Gun: A Cinematic Blog gives the film 3 1/2 stars.

Finally, BookieMonster is giving away three copies of Jane Eyre 2011.

We all laugh about knowing Luddites, people who just can't handle new technology. But the actual Luddites were no joke.

As machinery was introduced into the woolen trade in England 200 years ago, weavers who had been producing cloth in their cottages for generations saw a very real threat to their way of life. Improvised armies set out by night and began smashing the new machines.

By the winter of 1811-1812 nighttime raids to destroy "shearing frames" became widespread in some regions of England. Taking their name from a local legend, a boy named Ned Ludd who had broken a machine, the rebellious machine smashers called themselves Luddites.

The Luddite raids turned violent, and eventually Parliament made "frame breaking" a capital offense. The British Army was sent out to suppress the mayhem.

Ultimately, the men smashing textile machinery with hammers couldn't win. Spies and informers infiltrated the movement, trials were held, and a number of Luddites wound up at the end of a rope.

Read the full article: The Luddites

Illustration: the mythical General Ludd/Getty Images

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Fine ― warm ― cloudy at times.

Having to go to see the “Exhibitions,” did not begin oilwork. ― Placed a small Florence, & a large Jánina on canvass ― & squared a long Corfû.

Col. Maude sate from 11.30, to 1.30 ― a good-natured fellow ― but I grow weary of interruption.

Then Craven wrote ― asking me to go up to night.

At 2.30 ― went out & saw the Exhibition ― a necessary duty ― & pleasing enough in itself ― but, inasmuch as it brought me in contact with Le Mesuriers, Valsamachis, Woolffs, Capt. Clifford & others ― a bore.

Came home at 3 ―& squared the Corfu ― G. not in till 5.30.

Dined, & penned out Delvino till 11.

Bad night ― indigestion.

X7

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Continuing  snippets of the news two hundred years ago to celebrate and 200th anniversary of the beginning of the Regency era.

1811

• May 22: - several peoplewere  killed by a house falling at Seven Dials.  

• This was in one of the poorest and most notorious regions of London in the Parish of St Giles where one also found the worst of the rookeries.  A dangerous place for any Regency buck or miss to wander at any time of the day, but even worse for those that lived there. 
• Near to Covent Garden, it was called Seven Dials because of the way the streets and alleys come together in one intersection which originally had a sundial in the centre. The first plan in 1690  was for six  streets, but the developer Thomas Neale who planned this to be a smart end of town with large fronted shops, added a seventh in the final plans in order to increase his income from rents.  It never achieved its potential. After his death, the houses were subdivided and quickly became slums, renowned for  gin shops. At times, the area threatened to descend into the undesirable depravity of the St Giles "Rookery" to the north, but it was predominantly a working neighbourhood, with woodcarvers, straw-hat manufacturers, pork butchers, watch repairers, booksellers, pubs and breweries.
• At one point each of the seven apexes facing the Monument housed a pub, their cellars and vaults connected in the basement providing handy escape routes should the need arise.These days it is very different. It has boutique style shops and a new sense of community. Over 25% of its buildings are "listed" (protected) and many date back to the 1690's. Clearly not the one that fell on these poor people.

• June14: -The proceedings of the House of Commons state the number of French prisoners in England to be near 50,000.
• Aug. 21: - A comet made its appearance above the horizon. The Great Comet of 1811.  It is estimated that this comet comes around once every three thousand plus years, so I won't be around to see it the next time. The drawing is by William Henry Smyth in 1811.
• Sep.11: - Discovery made at the Queen's house that her majesty's court dress had been stolen. Really, how bad is that?
• November unrest: -- Bands of men appear wearing masks and armed with muskets, pistols and hatchets and break into the small hosiery workshops scattered thoughout country villages. Hammermen carrying hung heavy iron sledgehammers smashed open the doors of the workshops and beat at the wide stocking frames until they are destroyed. E.g. Nov 4 6 frames broken at the village of Bulwell on November 4, a dozen at Kimberley a few nights later. November 13 70 frames smashed in a single attack at Sutton-in-Ashfield. Claimed allegiance to “General Ludd”. Magistrates cannot police the rural jurisdictions. A military force, a squadron of dragoons, the Mansfield Volunteers, two troops of Yeomanry were ineffective.

That is it for now, I hope you enjoyed this peek of life in the first year of the Regency. Until next time Happy Rambles.

The recent release of the comic book Mythoi Book II: Where the Circle Begins (Art by Jed Soriano & Brian Soriano. Written by James Ninness) is a good excuse to mention that this comic series contains an explicit Wuthering Heights reference. Quoting from the wikipedia:

MYTHOI is a sixty-issue American comic book limited series by writer/creator James Ninness. It was published in 2010 by the Semantink Publishing. Single issues of MYTHOI are released digitally with trades collecting every six issues printed as the issues are completed.
The story follows the journey of five figures from different mythologies as they attempt to save the world from an ominous foe. The group consists "Vito", a child vampire, "Taros", son of the Greek god Ares, "Yuki", a yūrei, "Wiglaf", son of the Cain and heir to Beowulf, and "Touch", a cybernetic assassin from the future. As the five heroes are brought together under varying circumstance, they must learn to work and live together despite their differences. Each character possesses a different set of skills, specific to their root mythology and eventual destiny. 

The Panels on Pages review gives us clues of another (familiar) character:

The recipe for Mythoi is simple but ingenious – take the supporting characters from ancient lore and put them in the sandbox of the modern world. The result is something like Ultimates meets Fables, where the son of Ares (yes, Greek god of war, Ares) is brought in to investigate an attack on the President by a pack of werewolves led by Heathcliff (of Wuthering Heights, not the one who ran afoul of the junkyard cats) under the employ of – no, that would be telling. The point is, it’s a fantastic cacophony of fantastic characters brought together by fate in the form of writer James Michael Ninness. The story takes some fun twists and turns as it unfolds, and by the end of Book II, the scene is fairly well set for these characters and their future together.  (Jason Kerouac)

The author, James Ninness, says in this interview on Has Boobs, Reads Comics:

For a special story added to the TPB, Ninness and his Editor Benjamin Glibert knew they needed something a little different. “For Heathcliff and Catherine I wanted to do something more in the vein of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It felt write for the setting of the story and the design lends itself well the comic book form,” he said. (Nerdy Bird)

An Offering to Venus by John William Godward

Painting of the Day Archive

This free kids’ game was added last week at the so-called bestonlinekidsgames.com. We were hoping for an action-packed hunting game on open oceans and strange islands or a shoot-em-up video game in the style of Deer Hunter. (Actually, when you think about it, The Hunting of the Snark has many scenarios that would translate excellently into a video game. Anyone care to join the Beaver hunting the Jubjub in an increasingly narrow valley?) However, this game from Hairy Games seems to be mostly a fork poking at pictures of Snark characters and getting its prongs bent. “The Hunting of the Snark is combination of mazes, jigsaw and hidden objects puzzles games. This game is crated [sic] of famous story of mysterious creature, Snark who lived in a lonely island and the quest of some brave explorers to find it, by Lewis Caroll [sic sic sic].” The game was designed by Long Leaf’s Friends, and the pretty cool art is by B. Rybacki.

This Sunday, PBS will air on most stations an hour presentation of  Secrets of the Manor House, a documentary narrated by Samuel West, that explains how society was transformed in the years leading up to World War One. Expert historians, such as Lawrence James and Dr. Elisabeth Kehoe, discuss what life was like in these [...]

An article on life in the Inner Circle in 1898, from the Windsor Magazine. Nice to see mention of the spring-operated station-indicators and weighing-machines (see pics below):

UNDERGROUND LONDON: A CHAT ABOUT ITS RAILWAYS.
By G. E. MITTON AND WILFRID KLICKMANN.
Illustrated by A. J. FINBERG.

HEAVY sulphurous smell, an atmosphere like a yellow fog in London, an orderly succession of earsplitting bangs, and the wave .of a green flag. This sounds like a description of a battle where artillery has been brought into play, but it is merely the scene of an underground station on the District Railway.

    London is being still further riddled with railways : the electric, cutting right through the heart of the City and West-End, and the Brompton and Piccadilly —a diagonal line for the convenience of Clubland —are in immediate prospect. Whether these will affect the dividends of the existing companies remains to be seen. If the atmosphere is freer and the motion quicker, probably they will. Man will give up much to save his precious time; he will consent to be half suffocated for ten minutes, and temporarily deafened for the sake of half an hour. Yet the most ardent admirer of the railways cannot say it is joy to travel them. They are convenient, they save time, but that anyone should choose to live down in these stygian regions must pass comprehension. There are worse jobs. Perhaps the men who go round with scavenging carts have as much dirt a to their daily allowance as a driver on the Underground; but that men can be found to undertake this task is another mystery.

    I went tour on a tour of inspection in the underground regions to ascertain the views of the men themselves on the question, and was agreeably surprised to find that instead of a mournful round of endurance, they seem quite satisfied and enjoy their work.
    I commenced my raid in search of a man off duty. A friendly porter, impressed into the service, unearthed an engine-driver from a coaling-shed at the end of the platform and brought him to me. He was an honest  looking fellow, delightfully grimy ; one felt one had got hold of the real article. I should not have liked him half so well if he had been cleaned up for the occasion. We sat and chatted together on one of the ample seats of the platform, and had the satisfaction of feeling that we were affording a gratis entertainment for the passengers in the constant succession of trains which every few minutes ran banging into the platform before us.
    My man needed very little pumping ; the porter had evidently given him a tip that he was expected to talk, for it came out spontaneously.
    "I've been on duty now five-and-twenty years. We begin by being a fireman, ye know, and that's at about eighteen or nineteen, and ye get on to be a driver. We get eight shillings a day. That's not bad pay, but then there's no pension ; ever such a little would be a help. Ye see we're on the same footing as policemen and other public servants, the responsibility is on us ; we've got to stand our own ground same as the captain of a ship, and it's wearing that is. We ought to have a bit to look forward to. I'm not an old man yet "—and I smiled as I met his cheery glance and vowed him in the prime of life.
    "But tell me," I continued, " something about your everyday life. We above ground think it bad enough to run along these dismal tunnels from one station to another, but to be all day on duty --" 

    "Well, now, 'tisn't half as bad as ye make out," he said confidentially. "Ye get used to it, and think naught of it. And then it's arranged so's we aren't all day and every day on the Inner Circle ; one day maybe we're off to Putney or Richmond, and another to Ealing. Then one day a fortnight we have a day off, and then there's sheds; that takes up four hours, cleaning your boilers and such like ; there's only one day the week we go round and round the circle."
    "And how many times round then?"
    "It varies ; maybe five or six or seven."
    Seven times round the Underground swallowing an atmosphere too thick to breathe! the grinding of the brakes echoing 182 times at the stations! The slow dropping of water on the brain would be an infinitely preferable madness. I hastened to inquire if there was any break or dinner-hour off.
    "Oh no ; we get it when we can, answered, without deeming it any hardship that part of his daily diet should be augmented by smuts!
    "On days you run round the circle you come back to where you started from at the end, I suppose?"
    "Ay ; sign off where we signed on, that's it. Difficult to arrange where we're to go? Ay, I suppose it is, but we have naught do with that. We goes by the time-table. Hours? 4.30 in the morning to 2.15 in the afternoon. No, it's not the work I mind ; ye soon gets used to that. I'd as soon do it as anything. You've to keep awake, of course.  I haven't ever had a collision, but I've saved three, and that's something! You'd like to hear of that? "
    I assented.
    "Well, the first was near Baker Street, where I nearly ran into a ballast train, and the next was some Great Western coal trucks near Earl's Court, only the third was a tunnel accident—I overtook a train."
    "I thought that wasn't possible."
    "They say it ain't," he remarked smiling. "But I'm speaking of a long while back, and I suppose it ain't possible nowadays. It was in a tunnel, and I saw the tail-lights ahead, so I clapped on the brakes, showed a red light and blew my whistle. No harm done; but if I hadn't a-been looking out I'd have crushed up against it and had them trucks a-top of my engine, and then it would have been marked up against me same as if it had been my fault. I've been a teetotaler the is twelve years," he remarked with sudden and startling irrelevance; perhaps he thought I suspected him of only seeing red lights which had no material existence.
    "Find that answer? " I asked.
    "Ay; and that's my train coming into the station now, or I'd have told you more."
    I let him go, but doubted his ability to tell me more. To an imaginative mind the dark tunnels of the Underground seem full weird horrors, but to the prosaic man, whose aim is daily bread, they dwindle into everyday facts devoid of fear.
    The next link in the chain was again my friendly porter, who gave me some intermediate notions of his own position. The porters' hours vary from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. one day and 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. the next. The work consists chiefly of odd jobs, lamp cleaning — at which each takes his turn — coupling engines and shutting train doors; not much luggage about to bother a man. He is liable to be shifted about from station station, but may remain stationary (no pun intended) for a considerable time. His wages come to one pound one week and twenty-two shillings the next, the larger amount including a Sunday's work.
    Not many tips are there on the Underground or chances of increasing his income by secondary methods. But then there is the glorious prospect of the dizzy height of a guard's position looming before the humble porter. The man to whom I talked seemed impatient of dallying, and the reason was apparent when a strongly built official drew near to us.
   

"Yon's the inspector," said the porter with indicative motion. "He'll tell you a deal more than I can. I've only been on this job a short while, and he's been here this long while."
    I took the hint, and sauntered up to the man. He was a fine specimen of the product of discipline, combined with a habit of authority—a man on whose probity and respectability one would not be greatly disinclined to stake one's reputation.
    At first he seemed a little chary of my questions, but finding that I was not devoid of a sense of humour, he broke the ice by a good laugh, and we were on the best of terms. He had been inspector for some seven-and-twenty years, of which the last nineteen had been spent on the boards where he now stood. He had a fund of information and anecdote, and asserted readily that he could write a book of his reminiscences.
    The inspector himself has hours similar to those of the porters, varying from the earlier time ending at three one week, to the later beginning at that hour the next. He began his career in one of the railway signal-boxes, and is now responsible for the whole conduct of the station, exclusive of the booking-office.
    "Complaints?" he echoed, in answer to a suggestion of mine. " I should think there were. They'll complain of anything. But it's best to take it all in good part."
    "Chiefly?" I asked.
    "Chiefly? Why, missing trains, and so on ; and then they'll lay the blame on us, or the board man will have put up the wrong train in the indicator. He can't always tell, you know, which one is coming, though he knows which one ought to come, and if another runs in before it—why, the general public will never think of looking on the train to see for themselves, but will get in, and when they find they're wrong I'll hear about it. But as for questions -- you'd think they had nothing else to do! Old ladies are the worst " — with a smile; and he proceeded to mimic an imaginary conversation.
    "Which is the train for King's Cross?"
    "It'll come to this platform, ma'am."
    "When will it come?"
    "It'll be the next one in, in five minutes."
    "Which way will it come?"
    "This way."
    "And how many stations are there between here and King's Cross?"
    He looked at me and laughed. "That's it," he said—"over and over again. I generally tell them—it's best in the end. Then," he continued after a minute, "there are the people who will get out before the train stops. They'll pick themselves up and run, for fear of us summoning them."
    "You don't mind if they don't fall, I suppose?"
    "Oh no ; but we are down on them if they do. We have to keep some check on them or they'd be bringing an action against us for damages, saying that the engine moved on with a jerk, or some other excuse."
    "Have you ever had to give evidence in a case of that sort?"
    "No, but I've often enough had police-court cases arising from the railway, and they're bad enough! I'll tell you one of pickpocketing. A lady got out here in a great state and came to tell me she'd had her purse stolen. I asked her if she'd had anyone pushing up against her in a suspicious manner, and she said yes, an ill-looking fellow a few stations back. Well, as it happened, we were standing up near the steps, and could look the whole length of the platform, and I saw at the far end a fellow dodging about suspiciously on the very platform we were on, and I called her attention to him, and asked if he was anything like the one she had noticed, and she said he was the very man. Well, there stood then—it's done away with now—a sort of collecting-box for the booking-office, with a slit in it like a letterbox, and I saw this fellow brush up against it and drop something in the slit—I could almost fancy I saw something shine as he did it—anyway there wasn't much doubt but he'd hit on what he thought an original plan for getting rid of the purse, which might incriminate him. We marched down to him, and I told him what the lady said. Of course he said she'd made a mistake, and a lot more - I asked her if she would give him in charge. Oh yes, she would, rather ; so I collared my man, and went up for a policeman. There wasn't one about, so I walked him off to the office. On the way he kept asking me to let loose of him, and he'd go quietly. 'Yes,' says I, ' that's likely; but though my muscles are as good as yours, my legs aren't, and once I let you go I'd see you round the next corner.' Well, a detective came around to the station and opened the box, and there sure enough was that very lady's purse. That was an odd thing, wasn't it?"
    I remarked that the man must have been a fool to get out and stand about.
    "But he wouldn't think the lady would have got out at that same station, likely. And he was a good thief too, one that was wanted for other jobs of the same sort—a good one to catch. He got twelve months' hard."
    I inquired if the lady had remembered the inspector's services for good.
    "No," he answered, " but the Company did. I got half-a-sovereign and my expenses when I went to give evidence. I was very well satisfied. Oh, they treat us well enough - over a matter like that."
    At that moment a shrill short whistle sounded.
    "That's for me," said my companion. "I'm keeper of the cloak-room, and I have to go and attend to it ; but I'll come back."
    I sat down on one of the seats meanwhile, and jotted down a few notes of what he had said. It was not a bad place this station—wide and airy enough, and dry. A man might live comfortably at such a job. Life on the Underground is not all dirt and sulphurous atmosphere. In a station of the pattern of Blackfriars or Baker Street one's conceptions of the infernal regions might be greatly enlarged, but here there was nothing offensive.  I remembered how, one dark winter's evening, I had seen a little newsboy hopping about - in the draughty dimness of one of these mentioned above, and had pitied him from the bottom of my heart. Yet on inquiry it turned out that he was not unhappy. It was eagerness to sell that first attracted my attention—he was so evidently a new hand.
    "But you don't make anything by the sale do you?" I asked.
    "Oh no," he answered. " It's all the same us; but if we got a commission I could make --" He paused.
    "You sell a great many papers?"
    "Why, a heap!"
    "How long are you here?"
    "From six in the morning to half-past six at night."
    "That's a long time. What do you think of it all? Rather gloomy sometimes?"
    "I don't know. It's cold at whiles."
    "Better than being at school?"
    "Better than being in the streets "—with warmth.
    "And what do you get for it?"
    "Six shillings a week."
    I added to his income for that week and received the grateful thanks of his bright little face, from which the baby roundness had not altogether departed.
    But this is a digression. The inspector completed his duties upstairs and returned to me again.
    "What do. you think I've been for now?" he asked as he approached. "A lady has lost her umbrella, a valuable one—ivory handle with a gold head. She says she left it at the booking-office, and the clerk says he's never seen it, and I told her if one of our men had come across it he'd have brought it to me. She's going to the lost property office."
    "And where is that?"
    "Moorgate Street for the Metropolitan, and Victoria for the District, then the Hammersmith and City have one at Notting Hill. She'll make inquiries. What else would you like to know?"
    "Collisions," I suggested, by way of giving him a fresh impetus.
    "Well, there aren't many of them. It's worked on the absolute block system. In some parts they have electric interlocking, so that it's impossible for a train to catch up another. We haven't that yet, but it's absolutely safe. I do remember a collision, but that was four-and-twenty years ago, when things weren't so perfect as they are now. I was in the cabin then, and it was by Hammersmith Junction. There's a decline there, and a Great Western engine was dragging a District train—they're not very powerful engines—and the train began to drag back down the decline. The junction had been signalled clear, but the train got across it again, and another ran into it ; no lives were lost, but there was a lot of breakage."
    For about the fifth time during our conversation an Inner Circle train ground slowly to a stop at the platform before us and suggested a fresh line of inquiry.
    "These guards haven't so much to do as on the bigger lines," I said. "No luggage."
    "No, but it's a worrying sort of business stopping every two or three minutes—it keeps them occupied ; they've got packages to sort too, and they'll be continually stopped. Now on an express a man'll get maybe a clear hour to get through in."

    Then I remembered suddenly the comparatively new indicators fixed in some of the District trains, which show the name of the station before arrival. I had always thought it part of the guard's duty to work these, for sometimes the indicator may pass over several flaps before it stops at the right one, and it seemed to me this must be done by human agency. The inspector put me right.
    "No, it's much simpler than that," said he. "There's a flap of wood sticking up between the lines, soon after the train leaves any station, and this strikes a spring on the bottom of each carriage as they pass over, and this sends the indicator round. When some stations belonging to a branch line have to be missed out, there are three or four of these, as many as are wanted, in a row."
    "But it must be exceedingly difficult to arrange."
    "Yes, I suppose so. If they answer we're going to have them on all the District lines." 
    "Soon?"
    "Yes, soon ; but they won't be all round the circle, you know, because the Metropolitan haven't taken to them. "
    "And how can you tell if they answer?"
    "It is part of the guard's duty to report. There have been very few failures so far—hardly any. They come expensive at first, of course, but the advertisements have helped to pay."

II.—THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY SYSTEM. BY WILFRID KLICKMANN.

THE terror of the tunnel is a thing of the past. When London's vast underground organisations are considered, it seems incredible that England's great railways, at the time of their projection, had to face substantial opposition because tunnels were an essential feature. The passage through a tunnel of only a few minutes, it was urged, would be fraught with alarms, discomfitures, and liability to various diseases.
    Events appear to move more quickly and in an increased ratio as the world grows older. To-day the passengers by the Metropolitan Railway are said to number nearly a hundred millions per annum, the majority of whom accept the idea of tunnel travelling with as much equanimity as they buy a newspaper.
    Notwithstanding anathemas variously expressed, the Underground railway of London pursues the dark and noisy tenor of its way with an increased knowledge of its own importance, and a consciousness that it cannot be done without.
    Sometimes it is referred to as "that Underground" with terrible emphasis, but to the constant traveller it is technically known as the Inner Circle. Not all of these, however, know that the circle is formed by the union of two railways, the same lines or "metals " being used by both companies. Practically the southern half of the circle is pal t of the Metropolitan District Railway Company's system, the northern semicircle being owned by the Metropolitan Railway. To be exact : Aldgate to Kensington High Street (via King's Cross) } owned by the Metropolitan Railway; Kensington High Street to South Kensington } owned by the Metropolitan Railway and Metropolitan District Railway; South Kensington to Mansion House } owned by the Metropolitan District Railway; Mansion House to Aldgate }  owned by the Metropolitan Railway and Metropolitan District Railway. 
    The joint-ownership sections are known as the West and East Joint Connections, the lines for these portions having been duplicated.
    To have built this circle other than underground would have involved such an enormous initial outlay in the purchase (only for demolition) of expensive buildings on a succession of sites amongst the most valuable in the world, that not for a single moment could the idea be entertained. As it is, if all the spaces now represented by ventilating shafts were utilised for buildings, no small income would be assured. Not that such an alteration is desirable; on the contrary, were the companies able to add more ventilation, either by additions to the number of existent shafts, or by mechanical fans to create continuous currents of air in the tunnels where the traffic is most congested, the comfort of passengers would be increased.
    The directors are always endeavouring to improve the ventilation, and a cordial relationship subsisted between the Metropolitan Railway and a committee of the Board of Trade appointed early this year to report on this particular subject.
    The day after the Metropolitan Railway Company opened their first section, in 1863, no less than thirty thousand people travelled on the line. The accommodation has materially improved since then, for a picture published in 1862 in, I think, the Illustrated London News disclosed an interesting sight. A goodly contingent of passengers were seated in the old-fashioned open carriages, similar in design to the modern goods truck. These formed part of the trial train, and the view was taken near Portland Road station.
    The first section of the District Railway (South Kensington to Westminster) was opened in 1868. By adding here a little and there a little, way was made in 1884 for the first two trains to journey round the completed circle. A District train travelled on the inner rail while a Metropolitan train ran on the outer rail.
    The fact that there are now twenty-seven stations, distributed over a short distance of thirteen miles, testifies to the great utility, if not absolute need, of the system. Each station is daily the scene of surging crowds of people who are "something in the City," and people who are not, but would like to be - people with parcels, children, burdens and grievances. All have one purpose in common—a desire to leave that particular station at the very earliest opportunity, either by train or by staircase exit.
    No other railway in the world has so many stations proportionate to its short length as the Circle, and for promptitude and regularity in running, the service would be hard to excel. The secret is found principally in the smartness of the guards and platform executive. You must decide before the train comes in whether you travel by it. The man who hesitates is not lost, he merely waits for the next train. Snow, fog and inclement weather offer no hindrance to the Underground, for it simply revels in a fog. If necessary, it could supply one or two of its own on the shortest notice, with no diminution in strength if you take a quantity.
    Much has been done to lessen the evils consequent on the use of steam motive power, such as numerous outlets for the escape of fumes and the employment of engines designed to consume most of their own smoke. Of late years there has been very great improvement ; yet the friendliest of critics would reluctantly admit that a genuine appreciation of the flavour from the Inner Circle tunnel is an acquired taste in more senses than one. In spite of conditions which are decidedly an inconvenience to some, though others by habit disregard them, there is an enormous daily traffic on the Inner Circle, and to meet the demand the companies offer a magnificent leading line in penny fares. In fact, the work of the directors is beyond praise. They have reduced all their fares to such a low tariff that, were it not for unreasonable and extortionate shareholders, the day surely would not be far distant when the public would be asked to travel for nothing.

    Prior to the advent of the penny-in-the-slot machine there could be seen at every Underground railway station weighing-machines of the old original shape—veritable balances, in which one could be weighed and sometimes found wanting. It was a queer race of boys who manipulated the weights—the sort of pigmy you would naturally expect to find underground, and in looks not unlike a deformed undersized brother to Smith's bookstall boy. The species is now extinct, and the delicately-poised, red velvet cushions no longer tempt old gentlemen to weigh themselves in order to secure a comfortable seat while waiting for the train.
    It will be noticed that many of the carriages have large figures, 1, 2 or 3, on the doors to specify the class. For the sake of the younger generation, who may not have heard the legend, I crave permission from the seniors for mentioning the incident of the Irishman who repudiated the charge of travelling in a class superior to that for which he had taken a ticket. Said he, " I paid twopence for my ticket, and naturally got into a carriage with a 2 on it!"
     Visitors to London usually make early acquaintance with the Circle, for it is so planned that it unites nearly all the London termini of the great railways, and is a connecting link with every suburb of London. The old lady from the country, who begged the guard not to forget to put her out at London, did not realise that there are four hundred railway stations in our capital, and that it is about an hour's journey to cross London by train.
    Every railway has a distinguishing characteristic, be it a particular tint for its posters or a special colour for its engines. The Inner Circle, however, makes a special feature of advertisements, and a favourite amusement with passengers is to find the name of the station amidst the multifarious appeals to one's pocket and credulity which cover the walls. The advertising contractor before long will have entirely obscured the stations' names ; but provided they are known beforehand they can sometimes still be detected with a sharp eye. Who knows? Some day we may see the porters' uniforms embroidered with artistic suggestions of favourite brands, with medicinal remedies labelled over the parts affected. By paying a slight premium, advertisers' wares could be announced by the porters simultaneously with the destination of the train.
    At some of the Underground stations there are movable signals on the platforms giving a complete list of the stations at which the incoming train will call. An excellent contrivance, and one which other companies might follow with advantage. It saves numberless questions, and has appreciably improved the tempers of the porters. Another most useful device adopted by the District Railway is the marking of every ticket with either I or O and the erection of large signboards ALL TICKETS MARKED I (or O) THIS WAY. Notwithstanding these notices some people prefer to make assurance doubly sure by asking the long-suffering men at the barriers.
    As is well-known the platforms are reached by steep flights of stairs, at the bottom of which is the inevitable gate. By horrible ingenuity every gate is so hung that when shut it is out of sight of the would-be passenger hurrying down the steps. Londoners are used to having gates shut in their faces ; but to be at the wrong end of long descending vista, and see the gate closedby an invisible porter, is an exasperation. Some victims assume a stoical indifference, until a fellow-sufferer expresses himself in manner more emphatic than polite, when they may look towards him feelingly, with a "Thank you, sir ; I am obliged to you." Some discuss with the porter the ethics of the situation. Others again vent their wrath by impotently shaking the bars of the gate, and are all the calmer for the exercise, such ebullition of feeling causing a wicked joy in the breasts of the onlookers!
    It cannot be said that architecturally the stations are attractive. Occasionally you see a neat little pile like Portland Road station, but the majority are to be found discreetly retiring behind houses and shops, with an apologetic expression for their existence. No doubt there are people who eagerly devour the long lists of names forming the external adornment of stations, but so far as the writer's personal observation goes, most folks show a remarkable haste in departing as well as in arriving.

Some Sundance reviews of Wuthering Heights 2011 (Picture: Agatha A. Nitecka):

I saw a new version of "Wuthering Heights" by director Andrea Arnold ("Red Road" (still my favorite of hers), "Fish Tank").  It's a beautiful, stark and cruel film, very true to the Emily Brontë novel in combining the rawness of nature with the fickleness of human passion.  Arnold chooses to cast Heathcliff as black-skinned, not merely swarthy, and she uses very contemporary cinematography and editing.  She also gets remarkable performances out of her child stars, Shannon Beer and Solomon Glave, who fill the roles of young Catherine and Heathcliff with fire and grit.  Not to every taste, but very good. (Shawn Levy in The Oregonian)

By positioning Heathcliff as a racial minority in the narrative, Brontë creates a much more complicated story about obsession, bestiality, and revenge than previous adaptations and teenage girls obsessed with the literary character would lead you to believe. Arnold channels the original tone of the novel as she depicts a love story with unsatisfying, unsettling results. (...)
This hopeless, dirty, consumptive world is what makes the book so interesting, and what this adaptation capitalizes on. Arnold has moved away from the hopelessly romantic towards the merely hopeless and in doing so has finally made a version of Wuthering Heights with some depth. There is more to glean from this contemplatively paced (be warned: another way of saying very slow) film than one viewing affords. I look forward to watching and rewatching this film as both a companion piece to an incredible novel, and as a separate work of art, worthy of being considered for its own merits. (Whitney Borup in Film Threat)

"Wuthering Heights" is pretty. "Wuthering Heights" is a really long movie and it feels even longer. There should be a term for this, like the wind chill or heat index: "'Wuthering Heights' has a running time of 128 minutes, but the length index is going to make it feel more like 140 for all you folks out there."  (Mike Ryan in Moviefone)

Arnold is a feisty director with a singular vision, and Wuthering Heights is definitely a singular take on Emily Brontë's story. Purists, be warned; this is not the high gothic romance we read in high school. (...)
The movie is long and slow and makes the viewer work to meet it halfway. One could argue that Heathcliff could spend less time peering in Catherine's windows and letting the rain soak him to the bone as he sulks on the moors, but the experience verges on the meditative.
Although it takes place in the eighteenth century, the handheld camera work and quick cut editing gives it a more modern feeling. It is grim and muddy and sometimes utterly mundane, but also beautiful and even sensuous at times.  (Jenni Miller in Movies.com)

Everything from Arnold’s casting to her grip on visceral emotion captured through the lens of the camera is to be noted when watching her films. “Wuthering Heights” brings us to a fresh reinvention of the ages-old story of 18th century orphan and his love for a farmer’s daughter. The retelling of “Wuthering Heights” is surely another gem in the upcoming roster at Sundance 2012. (Pouya Asadi in Sound Colour Vibration)

The film has little dialogue, especially in the first half as we watch the young lover's relationship develop, and it has no music soundtrack. Arnold relied on the stark beauty and wildness of the film's location––the western end of Swaledale in North Yorkshire––along with its magnification of natural sounds (the wind on the moors, fingers scraping against bark, etc.), provided by French sound designer Nicholas Becker, to give Bronte's novel the texture and emotion usually provided through a film's script and soundtrack. Dare I say that Arnold has perhaps surpassed the classic story given to us by Brontë through this visual masterpiece.
I do, however, have one gripe: the actors. Making their film debut in Wuthering Heights, the young Heathcliff and Catherine played by Glave and Beer respectively are case perfectly for their roles as adolescent lovers. Beer has an untamed look about her that is exactly as I pictured Catherine to be, and though he says little, Arnold's choice in Glave as Heathcliff (and interpreting Heathcliff's outcast persona as an issue of race) was genius. At the halfway mark, when the characters grow up and the cast is swapped for James Howson (Heathcliff) and Kaya Scodelario (Catherine), and the script becomes more talky, I was a little disappointed by the execution. The last half of the plot is the most tumultuous, full of tragedy, heartbreak, drama, but Scodelario's acting doesn't live up to the novel's characterization of Catherine's insanity. Fist-time actor Howson recites his lines in an almost robotic tone, and though his obsession with Catherine should also be maddening, I felt nothing as he struggled with his emotions.
All in all, this was an amazing film that is worth seeing if only to appreciate the beauty of the Yorkshire countryside and experience a fresh interpretation of a Victorian classic. Even with the story-line liberties taken by Arnold and the so-so acting in the last half, Wuthering Heights is sure to exceed expectations.  (Esther Merono in SLUG Magazine)

The Richmond Times-Dispatch talks about Margot Livesey's The Flight of Gemma Hardy:

Margot Livesey, who grew up in the Scottish Highlands where her father taught at a private school for boys, is no stranger to fiction, and her seventh novel, "The Flight of Gemma Hardy," reverberates with some of Livesey's experiences. Gemma, orphaned young, is sent to a boarding school where she is both servant and student. As a young adult, she takes a job as an au pair on the Orkney Islands in a story that pays homage to Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre."

And The Boston Globe reviews it:

Born in Yorkshire in 1816, dead by age 38, Charlotte Brontë left behind a seemingly timeless, improbable oeuvre that longer-lived authors can only envy: two books of poetry and more than a dozen novels, best known among them, written under the pseudonym “Currer Bell,’’ “Jane Eyre.’’ It was clearly admiration, not envy, that moved Scottish-born author Margot Livesey to write an homage to the proto-classic, proto-feminist tale of a female protagonist who suffers but never seeks rescue. (...)
“ ‘The Flight of Gemma Hardy’ is, in my mind, neither my autobiography nor a retelling of Jane Eyre,’’ Livesey has written. “Rather I am writing back to Charlotte Brontë, recasting Jane’s journey to fit my own courageous heroine and the possibilities of her time and place.’’(...)
No spoiler alert required: Neither the stunning plot twists that Livesey supplies, nor her satisfying surprise ending, will be revealed here. What is revealed in “The Flight of Gemma Hardy’’ is an exceptionally well-plotted, well-crafted, innovatively interpreted modern twist on a timeless classic, one that’s sure to delight the multitudes of Brontë fans, and the multitudes of fans that Livesey deserves.  (Meredith Maran)

As The Denver Post:

"The Flight of Gemma Hardy" is not so much a reboot of "Jane Eyre" as it is an homage. Margot Livesey sets her version in the middle of the 20th century, after the end of World War II and before the social turbulence of the late 1960s. (...)
"Jane Eyre" is, simplistically, a coming-of-age story and a social criticism set in a Gothic landscape. Livesey owns the soul of the story. Gemma's prickly pride and her "appealing" defiance make it hard to begin, let alone maintain, relationships. She can only come to maturity through a journey that is as introspective as it is challenging; she must experience her own faults before she can have empathy for those of others. (Robin Vidimos)

Girls With Books also posts a review.

HitFix's Guy Lodge publishes his dream Oscar ballot in the crafts fields including several for Jane Eyre 2011:

Best Cinematography: Adriano Goldman, "Jane Eyre"
Blauvelt's yellowed, dust-veiled Oregon Trail vistas in "Meek's Cutoff" make ingenious use of the Academy ratio to imprison its lost characters in their limitless landscape. The film shares with "Jane Eyre" a keen artist's eye for the fleeting, witchy opportunities afforded by natural light, an unaffected sensibility video artist and photographer Har'el takes to more rapturous extremes in her self-shot doc "Bombay Beach."
Best Costume Design: Michael O'Connor, "Jane Eyre"
O'Connor's more Oscar-friendly costuming of "Jane Eyre" weaves unusually precise details of character, class and age into its mile-wide crinoline skirts.
Best Makeup: "Jane Eyre"
[T]he subtext-packed range and wit of the hairstyling in "Jane Eyre".

Best Original Score: Dario Marianelli, "Jane Eyre"
Over in the traditionalist's corner, Marianelli's typically swoony but appropriately reserved work on "Jane Eyre" was a career high[.]

DVD Verdict reviews Jane Campion's The Piano Blu-Ray:

At its best, The Piano plays like the lost masterwork of one of theBrontë sisters. I suppose it can be described as a romance, but it would be moreaccurate to describe it as Romantic.  (Clark Douglas)

La Crosse Tribune presents yet another production of The Mystery of Irma Vep at La Croix Black Box Theatre in the FineArts Center at Viterbo University:

“If you’re interested to see how the plots of movies like‘Gaslight,’ ‘Rebecca,’ and ‘Dracula’ combined with the romance ofnovels such as ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Jayne Eyre,’(sic)  this is theshow for you,” said production manager Sadie Ward. (Geri Parlin)

AgnosLibertine, Writer's Wavelength and Thursday's Book Orgy post about Wuthering Heights;  Dish on Hiatus has visited Haworth and Les Soeurs Brontë (in French) publishes a nice post of Brontë winter scenes.

Last summer my son and I made a little You Tube video entitled ‘William Morris in Lancaster’ which commemorates Morris’s lecture here on Tuesday 2 November 1886, when he addressed 600 Lancastrians in Palatine Hall on ‘Socialism: The End and the Means’. Three key reasons for doing so. I want first to highlight Morris’s profile locally and to launch a campaign to get a blue plaque celebrating that visit on the wall of Palatine Hall (we already have a plaque which records Charles Dickens’s stays in the Kings Arms Hotel here in 1857 and 1862).

Second, because my students only come across Morris towards the end of our chronologically organised Victorian Literature course, when we get to the 1880s, too late in the day for him really to become a force in their own thinking. So with the You Tube video I can highlight his local presence for them rather earlier in the course and then keep a Morrisian socialist and utopian orientation towards the other writers on it active throughout. I want Morris to be a contemporary ‘tool for thinking’ for them, not just another dusty Victorian.

Part of our You Tube video concerns the history of the Lancaster branch of the Socialist League set up in the wake of Morris’s lecture here; and I feel, thirdly, that we have too little local history of the League, too little sense of its colourful local characters, polemics, struggles, successes and failures. We know the story of some of the key London branches quite well, but there are plenty of other groups up and down the country whose record remains to be fully reconstructed both from the local press and Commonweal reports. So may I suggest that UK readers of this blog consider posting a You Tube account of their own local Socialist League branch? Such videos may only be brief tasters of the full histories we need, but they will at least get us started.

A visit yesterday to the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich - a place I can shamefacedly confess I have never visited before - and a tour of the newly refurbished Caird Library.

The museum itself hosts all sorts of great stuff, from these relics of the doomed Franklin Exhibition ...


to a boat-pilotting simulator, where you can dock your vessel in Sydney or New York harbour, or choose to rescue drowning members of the public near Dover. [Hint - take your kids to that one!]

The Caird library has undergone a massive refurbishment, creating a state-of-the-art archive and study space for visitors. I particularly liked this arrangment, below


which is a device for seeing ships' plans - you move around the image on the small screen, and can blow up sections onto a much larger screen above (actually much bigger than my picture suggests). Apparently about 4000 of 1,000,000 of the archive's plans have been digitised; but there's more coming.

The library put a few of its treasures on display. The thing that caught my eye was this beautifully illustrated mid-Victorian diary, relating to a 3 month voyage to Australia in 1854. The pictures of the writers' cabin and the dining quarters were particularly lovely:



The tour ended with a behind-the-scenes look at the rolling stacks and a glance at the thousands of masters' certificates held by the library - currently awaiting digitisation by Ancestry.com - which are a family history treasure trove for those of you with maritime ancestors.

My thanks to everyone at the Caird Libray for a fascinating tour.

Fine ― gray at times: ― but very close & warm.

Worked ― not very well, ― at Dionysiou ― from 9 to 3.

Letters ― (Trieste & Alexdr. Boat ―) from Ellen: ― Fred ― & his son are in Genl. Price’s army.

& T. Cooper. ― “Called up” at the Maudes ―

Walked from 4.00 ― to 6.15 ― calling at the Kokalis ― Χριζὸς is better.

Dined alone. Penned out, the old Delvino drawing of the Castle.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

This is a recently self published book with not many information about (not even a cover):

Fallen Angel
George Newell Hauton
Publisher: George Newell Hauton (10 Dec 2011)
ISBN-10: 0957020503
ISBN-13: 978-0957020504

What we know about it comes from this review on Abigail's Ateliers:

It is a short story of just over a 130 pages long. Its basic plot outline is that for many years,  perhaps since her death, the ghost of Charlotte Brontë walks around unseen in Haworth while sleeping at the parsonage. The ghost falls foul of a long dead witch who creates some form of  enchantment which means that Charlotte will without warning become visible and real. Charlotte has a brief romantic interlude and eventually is freed from the enchantment and can go back to walking unseen around her home town.

The Laboratory by Hon John Collier

Painting of the Day Archive

Tidying up some loose ends from 2011, I found a couple of books that still deserve a mention. Comics and crosswords – what more do you need on a Saturday?

Larry in Wonderland: A Pearls before Swine Collection gathers together almost a year’s worth of Stephan Pastis’s bizarre parliament of animals. In these strips, which ran between August 2009 and May 2010, Pastis really had fun with a Wonderland theme, introducing such characters as the Mad Ducker, Cheshire Snuffles, Tweedledum Pig, and Tweedledee Idiot Pig.

The book is currently only $6.49 on Amazon.

Mad Hatter Crosswords reproduces 75 puzzles from the New York Times. An admirably dedicated reviewer has identified them as the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday crosswords published between January 2009 and April 2010. The Mad Hatter connection doesn’t seem to go beyond the cover illustration, through it is true that crosswords go very well with tea.

The collection is published by St. Martin’s Griffin and is available from Amazon for $7.99.

 

 

 

The Haworth Parish Church has been able to raise the money for the reparations but it now seems that they need even more.We read on BBC News:

The cost of repairs to the church where the novelist sisters Charlotte and Emily Brontë are buried has unexpectedly risen by up to £50,000.
St Michael and All Angels Parish Church in Haworth, West Yorkshire, had raised the £65,000 needed to secure £100,000 in funding from English Heritage.
But rising costs of building work now means it requires up to £50,000 more.
The roof of the church is badly damaged and water has damaged the original wall paintings.
Discussions are under way to decide whether the offer of an English Heritage grant will still stand.
An English Heritage spokesperson said: "We're disappointed to hear that Haworth Church has met this last minute funding challenge.
"We know how important the repairs to the church are and want to support them as much as possible in getting this fantastic historic church repaired."
John Huxley, secretary at Haworth church, said: "We were overjoyed to learn we had reached the total, then knocked sideways by finding out building costs had gone up by so much.
"The reaction from the public to help raise funds has been absolutely phenomenal."
The church said a meeting would be held on Tuesday to discuss further fundraising options.

The Telegraph & Argus adds:

But as that target was reached yesterday church secretary John Huxley said he received the “gut-wrenching” news that due to escalating building costs it would need tens of thousands of pounds more than it had originally thought.
He said English Heritage was being “very helpful, very supportive and very sympathetic” and was looking at ways it could help. “What was due to be one of the most joyful days in the church’s history has turned very sour,” he said last night.
“This morning we thought we were home and dry. To get this bombshell as the day has gone on has been gut-wrenching.”
Fundraising events and schemes have been organised by residents and people keen to help restore the church, which is the burial place of the Bronte sisters.
They included the production of a “Haworth Couldn’t Wear Less” calendar and the donation of proceeds from the sale of 100 limited editions of a painting of the Bronte sisters by artist Stella Vine.
Mr Huxley said: “A lot of money has come in from well-wishers.
“We have raised something in the region of £40,000 ourselves which is an unbelievable result for a church of our size.
“Once we have got over the disappointment we’ll have to dust ourselves down.
“Where we’ll get the money from I don’t know. We’re just hoping there’s someone out there who can help us.
“Lots of people have been very generous and kind but we’re throwing ourselves on their mercy again.”
Donations can be made online at haworthchurch.co.uk or cheques made payable to ‘Haworth Church Restoration Fund’ can be sent c/o the treasurer to 17 North View Terrace, Haworth, BD22 8HJ. (Tanya O'Rourke)

The Yorkshire Post includes a video.

The Haworth housing development projects are discussed in a very good article in The Telegraph:

There is a Brontë Hotel in Haworth, and a Brontë minicab company, and Ye Olde Brontë Tea Rooms. Not forgetting the Brontë Balti House (free delivery for orders over £6).

Charlotte, Emily and Anne would have been amazed to discover how ubiquitous their family name has become. The sisters were unwitting authors of an industry when, in search of childhood entertainment, they began making up stories, personal histories of the toy soldiers given to their brother Branwell by their father Patrick, perpetual curate of St Michael and All Angels.

The Brontë myth enshrouds Haworth and its overlooking moors even more completely than Shakespeare's does Stratford. This corner of the industrial West Riding is captured in literary amber.

"Haworth expresses the Brontës; the Brontës express Haworth," wrote Virginia Woolf after a visit to the village in 1904. "They fit like a snail to its shell."

Climb the steep, cobbled high street to the parsonage where the family lived and the modern world fades. The churchyard is dark even on a clear blue winter afternoon, its tall, gothic gravestones bent this way and that, blackened, mossy faces recording lives snatched away by consumption, typhoid and malnutrition. Crows mourn overhead, completing the melancholy. Even the Japanese coach parties, up to five a day in the summer, cannot dispel its essential silence.

The Saturday Monitor (Uganda) discovers Brontëites in every corner. Like Olivia Kaguliro Mulerwa, storyteller and aspiring writer:

As a romantic, I admire the love that Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte) has for Mr Rochester. It is so pure and so real. An unattractive heroine and a troubled man with a complicated past, I can’t think of a more compelling love story. (Beatrice Lamwaka)

Or the actor, author and playwright Robert Leleux in the Huffington Post:

I suppose I always did that anyway. I did that with "Jane Eyre." I wanted to marry Mr. Rochester. When she says, "Reader, I married him," I was so jealous I wanted to kill her. I feel like that's just what little gay boys do.

Or the French writers Guillaume Musso and Annie Ernaux:

Dans ses sources d'inspiration, Musso cite volontiers Emily Brontë, qu'il a « dévorée » à l'âge de quinze ans[.] (Thierry Gandillot in Les Echos) (Translation)

«La littérature n'est pas seulement témoignage. La littérature apporte des modèles d'existence. C'est extrêmement important. J'ai lu très longtemps pour chercher le sens de ma vie, comment je pourrais vivre. J'ai été frappée en relisant, 50 ans plus tard, Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë. J'étais absolument ahurie de voir que beaucoup de choses me sont venues de ce livre. Comment Jane se construit, s'interroge et ne veut dépendre de personne. C'est très beau.» (Chantal Guy in Le Point) (Translation)

The travel section of The Guardian lists several cottages in the Lake District and Yorkshire, including one in Haworth:

Or head to the wild and windy moors of Brontë country – sitting in the Pennines above Haworth is the Brontë Barn (sleeps six, available throughout the peak season, £960), where exposed beams and stonework mix with cool contemporary design. (Catherine Nelson and Isabel Choa)

The York Press talks about the David Hockney's London exhibition: A Bigger Picture which may boost the tourism in East Yorkshire:

They will do now, or so hopes the Country Landowners Association (CLA), which anticipates a tide of tourists in this age of “staycation Britain”, in much the way that All Creatures Great And Small boosted the Dales and all bookish things Brontë furnish the Moors.

A couple of fashion references. The New York Times talks about the latest Comme des Garçons collection:

All these elements felt warmly and securely Comme des Garçons, but perhaps the most appealing thing about the show today was the silhouette: longish and free at the waist, with those full shorts (or knee-length skirts) and, naturally, hairy calves before the splash of pink at the ankles. One impulse was romantic — Jane Eyre, I thought — the other punk. (Cathy Horyn)

It seems that the last collection of Emporio Armani has some Wuthering Heights inspiration:

Un inguaribile romantico che vola al di sopra della moda senza mai esserne condizionato. "Penso a libri come Cime Tempestose o Lady Chatterley e a uomini dall 'aria misteriosa ma che si pongono in modo pacato, mai aggressivo", spiega Armani alla fine della sua sfilata. (Paola Bulbarelli in Il Corriere della Sera) (Translation)

Ha riletto 'Cime tempestose' e 'Il nome della rosa' Giorgio Armani nel tratteggiare il suo uomo romantico che ha una storia dietro e dentro di sé. (Eva Desiderio in Il Quotidiano) (Translation)

Al via allora a cappe dilana, cappelli, mantelle alla Heatchcliff di CimeTempestose, pantaloni morbidi a metà stada tra quelli per farejogging a quelli più classici. (Paola Montanaro in GQ) (Translation)

Giorgio Armani si ispira ad Emily Brontë e al romanticismo poetico di Cime tempestose. La sua è una poesia fatta di eroismo, laddove interpreta con grande stile capi intramontabili come il montgomery, sottolineandone l’affidabilità di Emporio Armani. (Stylosophy) (Translation)

The Millions discusses 'the literary pedigree of Downton Abbey':

We experience the grandeur of Rochester’s Thornfield Hall only through the eyes of Jane Eyre, the governess. Class roles are more fluid in Wuthering Heights, but between Heathcliff and Catherine, one is always on the way up and the other on the way down. (Garth Risk Hallberg)

Grantland lists several great writers who wrote for Hollywood:

Aldous Huxley. He fared pretty well, adapting Brave New World, Ape And Essence, and A Woman's Vengeance from his own work, and contributing to successful versions of Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and the biopic Madame Curie. (Molly Lambert)

Newsday quotes from the new Elizabeth II biography "Elizabeth The Queen" by Sally Bedell Smith:

Throughout her girlhood, Elizabeth had time blocked out each day for "silent reading" of books by Stevenson, Austen, Kipling, the Brontës, Tennyson, Scott, Dickens, Trollope, and others in the standard canon.

The Sunday Herald reviews The Locked Ward by Dennis O'Donnell:

It might have tried to banish the image of the first Mrs Rochester starting fires in Jane Eyre, or Renfield biting down on an insect in Dracula, or Patrick McMurphy staring into space after his lobotomy in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Those images are old ones. But they stick. (Mark Smith)

Bootsnall lists several people's homes turned into museums. Such as the Brontë Parsonage:

The Brontë sisters, much beloved by British and foreign classics lovers alike, live on in the heart of England with the preservation of the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth, where the sisters lived, grew up, and were inspired to write their novels. Brontë Country, as the area around the place where they lived is collectively known, features a collection of quaint villages and large expanses of moors such as the ones in which the fictional Heathcliff and Catherine, the protagonists of Wuthering Heights,  lived out their passionate love. The Brontë parsonage is maintained by the Brontë society, which endeavours to preserve the possessions of the sisters, as well as the house’s original furnishings. (Denise Pulis)

E!Online makes some Oscar predictions. Michael Fassbender is a clear contender in the Best Actor role for Shame:

Arguably the biggest breakout of the year—appearing in box office blowout comic book stuff like X-Men: First Class to the lovey dovey classical lit adaptation of Jane Eyre—it was for Shame that Fassbender will likely land an Oscar nom. (John Boone and Ted Casablanca)

The Philippines Star interviews the actor Paulo Avelino:

His current major is sharing the lead with Julia Montes and Coco Martin in Walang Hanggan.
Loosely adapted from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Paulo plays Nathaniel Montenegro, the rich guy who’s hopelessly in love with Katarina Alcantara (Julia Montes), the rich girl who only has eyes for the poor boy, Daniel Valencia (Coco Martin). “My character here is a person who is bulag sa pag-ibig. With Katarina, he’s thinking, ‘I’m not really expecting you to love me. I’m just giving you my love without expecting anything back,’” Paulo says. Ain’t love grand? (Cai Subijano)

Badische Zeitung (Germany) reviews the Matthias Breintenbarg's Wuthering Heights adaptation on stage in Freiburg:

Breitenbach kann sich auf sein Schauspielerquartett verlassen: Mit Verve, mit Spielfreude, manchmal mit einer angemessenen Portion Ironie und Komik meistern Drieschner, Melamed, Albrecht und Happel bei der Premiere die nicht leichte Aufgabe, über 75 Minuten in diesem Stück präsent zu sein. Eine feine Ensembleleistung in einem Stück, das gut neben dem Roman von Emily Brontë bestehen kann, weil es ihn ernst nimmt. Warmer Applaus. (Heidi Ossenberg) (Translation)

Deutschlandradio Kultur (Germany) interviews the Belgian author Jan de Leeuw. We understand his point but we mostly disagree:

Trotzdem bin ich davon überzeugt, dass das Privatleben eines Autors seine Bücher nährt, und dass es ihnen neues Leben verleihen kann. Die Brontë-Schwestern würden wohl kaum noch gelesen werden, wenn wir nicht wüssten, wie sie gelebt haben, in Haworth, und dass sie an Tuberkulose gestorben sind. (Translation)

Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) talks about Mike Leigh's filmography and mentions "the Brontë motto" in Career Girls 1997:

We "Współlokatorkach" (1997) Katrin Cartlidge i Lynda Steadman grają przyjaciółki ze studiów, które spotykają się po latach w Londynie i przeprowadzają bilans życia. Tworzą kontrastową, dopełniającą się parę: jedna jest "rozważna", druga "romantyczna", jak w powieści Austen. Obie, samotne z wyboru, wywikłały się z nieudanych związków, mają pracę, prezentują się elegancko. Obroniły siebie, ale czy zwyciężyły? Co zostało z ich aspiracji? Co mogą z siebie dać innym? Próbują, jak kiedyś, dla żartu, wróżyć sobie z "Wichrowych wzgórz", otwierając książkę w byle jakim miejscu: "miss Bronte, miss Bronte, czy wkrótce znajdę prawdziwe szczęście?". Palec wskazuje słowo "męka". (Tadeusz Sobolewski) (Translation)

The Ft. Lauderdale Movie Examiner and North West Indiana Times  think that Jane Eyre 2011 will be nominated to the Best Costume Design Oscar (the last one also thinks that it has some chances in the Best Edition category); Hoofddorpse Courant (Netherlands) reviews the film;  Old-Fashioned Charm posts a Brontë Unscramble Game; the Brontë Sisters discusses the sisters' railway investments; Benalmádena Digital (Spain) talks about a new local book club (Escribir en Femenino) which will open reading the Brontës.

Finally, Laura's Reviews has a guest post (by us), part of the Victorian Challenge 2012.

The web abounds with the fascinating tales and photographs of modern 'urban explorers' who have plumbed the depths of the Fleet sewer and similar subterranean passage-ways, whether with the approval of the relevant authorities, or without. I have, however, found their earliest ancestor - a photo-journalistic account of the Holborn subways and nearby sewer, from The Strand of 1898. It's not a fascinating piece of writing, to be honest, but the photographs are occasionally interesting - at least, I like the one showing street names underground. Anyway, if London tunnels are your thing, cast an eye over this ...

Underground London

[From Photos. by George Newnes, Limited]

It is a time-honoured saying that, if you want to know anything about this great Metropolis of ours, you must not go to a Londoner in search of information. This is, no doubt, a trite remark, but the more one goes about, and the longer one lives, the more apparent becomes its truth. The foreigner—intelligent or otherwise—who comes to London is very properly inquisitive; he questions, he inquires, he seeks for all that is curious or interesting, with the natural consequence that, after a very few weeks' residence, he can often give points to the man who has lived in the "heart of the Empire" all his life. The average Londoner, on the contrary, is apt to take things very much for granted. He knows that, on the whole, matters affecting his safety and his health are well managed, and, such being the case, he does not bother his head much about the why and the wherefore. The vast organization, the capable administration, the host of details which have to be carefully thought out and rigorously applied—all these things are with the majority of people entirely overlooked. The end is good ; why bother about the means? Thus is it that the average Londoner, and not least the travelled Londoner, while he waxes enthusiastic over the wonders he has seen abroad—tells us about the admirable municipal arrangements which prevail in New York, and describes with animation the wonderful catacombs of Paris and Rome—remains in total ignorance' of the fact that here, in our great City, he might feast his eyes upon wonders no less remarkable did he but know of their existence. But it is useless to dilate in this vein ; the Londoner will not be persuaded to go and see the wonders which lie at his very door. Only through the medium of the ever-inquisitive journalist, always prying about in the dark places of the earth, does he sometimes learn about and admire these native wonders, of the very existence of which he had not hitherto dreamed.

    I am bound to admit that, so far as the nether world of the City was concerned, until a short time back I was not much better informed than the generality of my fellows. It is true I knew that there were such places as subways and sewers ; but that was about all. I had hardly the faintest conception of what they were like, and probably should have continued to remain in ignorance had it not been for a visit I paid them a few months back. Quite by accident I came across the "Report of the Improvement Committee of proceedings in connection with the Holborn Valley Improvement," which was issued five-and-twenty years ago, and desultorily turning over its pages, I was struck by the various references and diagrams in connection with the subways. The thing took my fancy : I discovered how ignorant I was of the underground arrangements which so I greatly add to the comfort and safety of those sojourning within the "one square mile"; and I determined, with as little delay as possible, to make of good the defect in it my education.

    So I applied to the City Commissioners of Sewers for the necessary authority, and right willingly was it accorded. The Chairman, Mr. H. G. Smallman, entered enthusiastically into the matter, remarking that if the thing was going to be done at all, it should be done thoroughly. Remember, this was the very first time that it had been proposed to write an illustrated article on the subject. The Chairman was rather dubious as to whether we should be able to get any satisfactory photographs of the sewers; but at all events, he expressed his willingness to do all he could to help us. So that we started on our task under the best of auspices.

    Behold us, then, one September afternoon assembled outside the large iron gate beneath Holborn Viaduct— that gate which most people have noticed, but the purpose for which it is used known to very few. Besides the Chairman, there were Captain Robert Gresley Hall, D.L., the Chairman of the Streets Committee ; Mr. D. G. Ross, the City Engineer ; and Mr. H. Montague Bates, the Chief Clerk to the Commissioners, who, according to Mr. Smallman, is virtually the " permanent chairman." The photographer, with his assistant and the writer, brought our little party up to eight all told. When the gate opened at our summons, Mr. W. J. Liberty, the City Inspector of Subways and—under the Engineer — head of all practical matters appertaining to them, was waiting to show us over his territory. The iron gate, through which the sunlight was streaming, closed with a clang, and walking up two or three stairs, we set out along one of the thorough-fares of the underground city.

    In the first instance, I experienced a feeling of disappointment. The reality was so different from what I had expected. My idea had been that a subway would prove as Mr Mantalini might have said, a "demnition deuced damp" sort of a place, smelling of the earth, dark and filled with an atmosphere resembling that of a charnel-house. And what did I see? A long, clean, and well garnished looking passage, dimly illumined by gas-jets (which, by the way, were specially provided for our visit), and having an atmosphere almost as healthy as that we had just left. But the feeling of disappointment soon gave way to one of admiration when we walked along the subway, and the uses of the various pipes which ran along one side were pointed out to me. They include the mains of the Gas, New River, Hydraulic Power, and Electric Light Companies, also the pneumatic tubes and hundreds of wires belonging to the G.P.O.; and the arrangements whereby the service mains are connected to the various houses show that simplicity which constitutes the high-water mark of mechanical ingenuity. The usual time for making the connection is half an hour, and in case of non-payment of rates, a house can be cut off from its gas, water, electric light, or power supply in a few minutes, and this, moreover, without the unfortunate tenant or the general public knowing anything about it.

    I was rather amused to notice that the names of the various streets under which we were passing were posted upon the walls, as were also the numbers of the houses served by the mains. Thus, in case of emergency or fire, all that has to be done is to cut off the service at the particular branch where the mischief has occurred. As we went along, the Superintendent explained to me the exceedingly ingenious manner in which the difficulties incidental to the construction of the subways had been surmounted, and also pointed out how they were ventilated and generally kept sweet and clean. But as this is not a technical article, I need not weary the reader with such details, interesting as they are to those with a knowledge of underground engineering. Perhaps the most interesting subway of them all is the length on the southern side of Holborn, between Farringdon Street and Shoe Lane, which is lighted by gratings, filled with glass lenses, placed at intervals of 40ft. These render it sufficiently light by day for the purposes of inspection and work. The only daylight which gets into the others comes through the ventilating gratings in the footway, and this has to be supplemented by artificial light. It might be thought, in view of the possibility of leakage from the gas mains, that working in the subways might not be unattended by danger. The idea certainly struck me, and I speedily inquired of the Superintendent whether it was safe to smoke. His answer speedily reassured me. Every morning, before any work is done, a most complete inspection is made; armed with "Davys," the Superintendent and some of his men make a complete tour of the subways, testing doubtful-looking places, and if anything wrong be discovered, speedily setting it to rights. And be sure an extra inspection is made before the arrival of any distinguished visitors.

    Presently, I was astonished to learn that we actually stood over the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway! There we were, after painfully making our way through a subway which necessitated our walking bent double, in order to avoid striking our heads against the girders, directly above Snow Hill Station. Yes, there is no doubt about it. As we wait we can distinctly hear a train come in and the porters calling out its destination. It seems exceedingly close, but closer still, above us, we can hear the footsteps of the people on the pavement in Snow Hill. It is rather uncanny this, and especially so when one learns that only 6in. separates us from the street above and only a bare ¼in. of iron girder (for we are literally in a girder) prevents us from falling some 40ft. on to the metals ! It is a novel experience (especially when the train is moving below, and the spot in which we stand is positively vibrating!), and we are glad to have had it, but everyone is obviously concerned in trying not to allow his sigh of relief to become too apparent when we resume our journey. If anyone looks pale, it must, of course, be attributed to the cramped position in which we have been standing!
    Shortly afterwards we arrived at a spot which, we were informed, was immediately under the Prince Consort's statue at Holborn Circus.

    Coming back to the Superintendent's office, I was shown a great number of coins nailed to the counter. These, I was told, came through the gratings placed at intervals for ventilating purposes. It appears that gentlemen who make a business of passing spurious coin sometimes find it necessary to get rid of their stock-in-trade with the utmost despatch; they drop the coins through the gratings under the impression that they will fall into the sewers and be effectually lost. Alas! for the guilty one's hopes, the coins are found shining on the clean stone floor of the subway, and go to swell the stock in the superintendent's office. I asked him whether other articles were ever found. He replied: "Yes, we get plenty of empty purses. This is what the light-fingered gentry do. They take them from the pockets, or so-called 'pockets,' of ladies, and after carefully emptying them, drop them down the shafts. We find most of these in the dark days of winter, and chiefly in the neighbourhood of crowded Smithfield. I seldom find a gentleman's purse ; they mostly belong to City work-girls. The professional thieves know that when these girls draw their scanty wages on Saturday, they usually go to the great markets at Smithfield to make their little purchases, and ply their nefarious trade accordingly."

    Another interesting object in the Superintendent's little room is the "Visitors' Book." In it the names of foreign visitors predominate ; during the last year or so, scientific men, engineers, and sanitarians from Brazil, Malta, San Francisco, Finland, Santiago, Cologne, Copenhagen, Sydney, and, in fact, almost every great city, have visited the subways. And in nearly every instance the visitor has written a few words expressing his surprise and admiration at what he has seen. I could have stayed a long time chatting to the Superintendent, but the shadows were already beginning to draw in, and it was time for us to start upon the second half of our journey.

    First he took me to the subway sewers which lie under Holborn Viaduct. These sewers are quite unique in their way. As nearly as possible they follow the natural slope of the ground as it descended originally from the hills to the level of Farringdon Street, and consequently between the underside of the subways and the sewer is a large space, and the effect, when looking up from the latter, is very striking. Standing in the sewer (by the way, one is able to traverse these sewers dry-shod, a platform running along one side) one seems to be in a lofty vault. It is, of course, pitch dark, for even the glimmer of light coming through the gratings in the roadway which relieve the murkiness of the ordinary sewers is absent here. The space under the road in Farringdon Street is utilized for business purposes, large cellars having been constructed, with which communication can easily be made from the houses in the vicinity. These sewers are ventilated by square openings and shafts, and receive all the drainage from the houses on the Viaduct. Very great care and ingenuity have been exercised in the construction of these sewers, and also in the disposal of the gas, water, and telegraph pipes in the subways ; in fact, everything is so easy of access that it is thought that only under the most exceptional circumstances will it ever be necessary to open up the roadway, and thus cause a hindrance to traffic and stoppage of business.

    Before going down into the ordinary sewers it was necessary for us to equip ourselves. First off came our boots, and over our socks and trousers went thick woollen stockings, and over these huge waterproof boots reaching to the thighs.  The upper part of the body was covered with a rough blue smock, very similar to those worn by the coastguardsmen. In fact, there was something altogether nautical about the whole rig-out, the resemblance being heightened by the oilskin "sou'-westers" we wore on our heads. We were also provided with rough gloves, as we had to seize hold of things not very pleasant to the touch. Curious looking objects we were when fully dressed, although in one or two cases, which need not be particularized, the effect was decidedly becoming.
    When all were ready, out we sallied into Farringdon Street. About 100yds. from the Viaduct is one of the familiar iron plates let into the pavement, and this was our objective. Quite a crowd assembled to witness our descent; so large, indeed, was it that the kindly offices of two constables had to be requisitioned to enable us to get through. Many and diverse were the surmises with regard to our object. In spite of the fact that we were all smoking cigars, it never seemed to occur to any of the spectators that we were not the ordinary sewermen. Most of the bystanders thought something was wrong ; this opinion rapidly gained ground, and in a few seconds it was freely whispered around that we were a " rescue party" going to succour some poor fellow who had been overpowered by the noxious fumes down below!

    I am afraid, judging by the gingerly manner in which we went down the shaft, that we should not have been much good had any great difficulties been encountered. It was a primitive sort of ladder we had to go down, merely consisting of iron rings driven into the wall at intervals, and in our cumbrous and unaccustomed attire it was not a very comfortable job. However, we got down without any casualties, and, arrived at the bottom, found one of the sewermen waiting for us. He provided us each with a wooden sconce holding a candle, and thus provided we went along a short, sloping passage, at the end of which stood another guide, who assisted us to step down into the sewer itself.
    Down each one of us stepped into about a foot of swiftly flowing water ; the Superintendent of the Sewers, accompanied by some of his men, placed himself at our head, and in single file we commenced our novel march.

    I looked around me curiously. Down here the contrast presented with the clean and cheerful-looking subways was very great. Not, however, that there was anything particularly offensive about the sewers. The air, though close and hot, was not offensive, and there was little or no odour in the large main. But from my position in rear of our party, I could not help but be struck by the weird picturesqueness of the scene. The pitchy darkness of the arched passage in which we stood was dimly lighted up for a few yards around by our candles as we passed along, and the lights and shadows danced and flickered up the walls and along the surface of the water like veritable Will-o'-the-Wisps. Far ahead another beam of light—light of a whiter and more translucent character than that shed by our candles—shone steadily across the channel. It neither flickered nor wavered, but in the distance, sharply outlined against the grim background, looked like a piece of wide tape drawn tightly from wall to wall and just resting upon the surface of the water. As we approached it seemed to broaden out and its edges grew less sharply defined; the blacks and whites began to run into one another until, when we got close up to it, it expanded and diffused itself all around us, and we saw that the little beam we had seen from a distance really came from Nature's own magic-lantern—was, in fact, neither more nor less than the afternoon sunlight finding its way through the narrow interstices of a grating! Why had we no great "impressionist" in our party, someone blessed with the seeing eye and the cunning hand to have seized upon that picture, to have retained it, and finally to have reproduced it as a marvellous study in blacks and whites ? Certainly, no sun-lit ocean, no fog-enveloped city, no mist-laden stream could have furnished more fitting subject for a great painter than this beam of light in a City sewer.

    On we went, our progress necessarily slow, for the bottom was slippery, and the stream ran swiftly past our legs. My guide explained that when there was a heavy downpour of rain outside, the word was given, and the men all went up to the surface, for the rush of surface-water filled the main almost up to the roof, and the augmented stream came sweeping along with the rush and roar of a mountain torrent. "No." he said, "we don't have accidents; we can't afford to. If a man once got caught in such a torrent, there'd be no saving him, unless the water happened to be lower at a junction, and he managed to regain his foothold, otherwise he'd be carried along with the stream until it discharged itself in the river at Barking. That's where he'd be found ; at least, what was left of him."
    The water, as I have said, was only from 1ft. to 18in. deep, but after this little conversation I found myself taking particular care as to how and where I put my feet down. Presently the photographer ordered us to halt and arrange ourselves. He wanted to take a group. Then a difficulty arose : his camera would rest upon its stand, but where was he to find a support for his flash-light apparatus ? Happy thought - a human stand! One of the sewermen was requested to bend down ; upon his sturdy shoulders the apparatus was placed ; then we all waited patiently until the magnesium wire flashed out and made us all blink. Whether the picture was a success or not may be left to the reader to say. Possibly the subjects are not looking very well pleased, but when you are standing in a stream of running waters and can feel yourself perspiring profusely under a lot of unaccustomed garments ; while, moreover, the temperature is some twenty or thirty degrees higher than would be comfortable, and your eyes are getting a little strained by the curious half-light, it is by no means the easiest of tasks to obey the photographer's stereotyped command to "look pleasant." Our photographer, however, was a man of sense ; he did not waste unnecessary time in giving us minute instructions how to deport ourselves, but having once got us focused, "took us" without further ado.
    After being photographed, some of the party seemed disinclined to go much farther. So, leaving them in the broad main, the Superintendent, at my request, took me to some of the side-streets and by-ways of the underground city. As we went, I seized the opportunity of questioning him upon t occupation. He seemed to think it was healthy enough.
    "Oh, yes, men get knocked up sometimes, but is more often through catching colds than anything else. You see, it's hot down here and if men loiter about up above, especially in the cold weather, they're likely to get chills. No, we don't often have men on the sick list with fevers or anything of that sort. Why should we? Its healthy enough down here; you yourself can testify that the smell is no worse than that you often encounter in the open street. Now and then, of course, when at a bend or narrow passage, there's an accumulation of sewage, and the stream gets partially dammed, the men have a rather unpleasant job to perform ; but as a rule the work is not so objectionable as you would imagine. Yes, sometimes a man will stay down here for six or seven hours at a stretch, and they seem none the worse. Smoke ? Yes, as you see" (pointing to his pipe), "I smoke, and so do most of my men; possibly, if we didn't, the smells which we sometimes meet with might affect us more."
    We entered one of the branches, and conversation, except of the most limited description, became impossible. The roof was so low that we had to bend almost double to avoid damaging ourselves ; added to this, it was constructed on a sharpish incline, and the bottom being slippery, it was necessary to proceed with caution. As my guide explained, had it been a wet day this branch would have been quite unnegotiable; as it was, the water in it was only a few inches deep. This came from the surface, as I very soon saw, for at the top end was one of the gulleys covered with an iron grating, to be seen in the roadway.
    Back we went as we had come ; past the place where the main stream forks out into two branches, in which the current, of course, flows more slowly. Along one of these we went, then up another branch even smaller than the first and more difficult, for here the water was almost knee-deep, and was swirling and eddying like the river around the buttresses of one of the great bridges. Previously I had mentioned to my guide that if possible I should like to get a glimpse of some of the rats with which the sewers abound. He had explained that, though they come out more freely at night, he might to show me a few in one of the less-frequented portions of the sewers. And this was the place he had chosen.
    Painfully we made our way for some forty or fifty yards, and then, posting ourselves in a niche in the wall, we waited, but ne'er a rat did we see. Rather disappointed, we were just turning to go back, when I fancied I saw a dark shape flit past our feet. It may have been a rat or merely a shadow ; at all events, I started and nearly lost my balance. With a clutch at my companion, I regained it ; then, as I stood upright, found we were in total darkness. As I slipped, my sconce fell from my hand, and was now being gaily borne eastward at the rate of two or three miles an hour, and, in grabbing at the Superintendent, I had inadvertently extinguished his candle; and we had not a match between us! The only thing to do was to grope our way back in the dark. Luckily, my companion could have found his way about blindfold, and consequently laughed heartily at our predicament. He led the way, and I followed, touching him lightly every few yards to make sure I was in his tracks, as the darkness was so intense that I could scarcely distinguish him. Now, I have a curious fact to relate. The Superintendent declares it was my imagination, but at the time I could have sworn that though never a rat made his appearance when, with candles lit, we stood on the look-out, they simply came out in shoals and rioted about our feet when we were journeying slowly and painfully in the dark. Well, it may have been imagination, and perhaps the journey in the dark had played upon my nerves more than I cared to own.
    When we rejoined the rest of the party, they were all waiting and wondering what had become of us. They laughed heartily when we told our story, and frankly expressed their incredulity when I spoke about the rats. But they expressed no inclination to go and find out for themselves.
    And so back we all went to the shaft, and one by one climbed our way to the surface. And how glad were we to get there! It was an exceedingly interesting experience, and one, that it falls to the lot of few to have, and that I think all of us fully recognised. But after a couple of hours in the nether world, it was doubly delightful to feel the fresh breeze blowing on our cheeks, to hear the busy hum and clatter of the traffic, and to see once again the glorious blue sky over our heads.

Romantic Circles is very pleased to announce a new volume in the Romantic Circles Praxis series, Robert Bloomfield: The Inestimable Blessing of Letters, edited by John Goodridge and Bridget Keegan.

Robert Bloomfield’s letters document one artist’s struggles (and sometimes his victories) to share his unique voice and vision; the online publication of his extant letters (a companion to this collection of essays) reveals new and exciting insights into Bloomfield the artist and the man.The essays included in this Praxis volume highlight and draw attention to aspects of Bloomfield’s literary production that would likely not be possible without the full access to his letters that the edition provides, and make a strong case for why Bloomfield continues to be worthy of study.They suggest how much more remains to be said about this prolific poet.

This volume makes use of the previously published edition at Romantic Circles, The Letters of Robert Bloomfield and His Circle, edited by Tim Fulford and Lynda Pratt. This edition of Bloomfield”s Collected Letters constitutes every known letter by Bloomfield himself, plus a selection of the letters sent to him by literary correspondents and those exchanged between members of his circle.

Perfect fine & calm again: rippleless sea, & warm sun.

Painted irregularly ― 3 Ascensions ― from 9.30 ― to 1.30.

Letter from C. 40scue ― & Newspapers ― & wrote to C.F.

At 2 ― walked to Casino, & drew an Ilex till 4. Then to Ascension, & on to the Cannone ― returning home by 6.20.

Dined alone ― Χριζὸς is ill, so Giorgio has to go there, & sleeps out.

Penned out the very last of the Athos 1856 giro.

X6

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Amy Hankins is rewriting her mythical Air Jane webcomic (the first version can be checked here):

AS many of you know, I have long been planning to re-write The True Story of Air Jane. [link] (...)
Well, finally at long last, I bring ya Page Uno!
I always had trouble starting comics. Starting them and ending them. Sometimes I have to think about it for weeks before anything goes down on paper. So I used this idea to start AJ's story here in the re-write.
So sit back, have a taco (or whatever you like) and hear the wild, crazy tale of Air Jane!
This will also appear at DrunkDuck--here is the link: [link]

Meet Air Jane, 19th-century hoop-shootin', wisecrackin', fun-lovin' governess. Her dream is to become a b-ball star, but for now she's governessin' (hey you gotta pay the bills, right? Wait...do governesses have bills? Aw never mind...)A totally wacky, incredibly condensed, and really super dooper altered version of Charlotte Brontë's classic novel.

Kaleidoscope Cats 4: Paisley Pattern Cat by Louis Wain

Painting of the Day Archive

Women's Wear Daily features Kaya Scodelario:

By starring in director Andrea Arnold’s adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,” Kaya Scodelario is the latest in a long line of British ingénues to earn her spurs in a period drama.
But the 19-year-old Londoner doesn’t channel the delicate turns of phrase and genteel manners that the genre is known for. Instead, Scodelario gives an emotionally raw performance as Catherine Earnshaw in Arnold’s earthy, rough-hewn adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel. The film, which gets its U.S. premiere this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival, earned much buzz when it premiered in Europe at the Venice Film Festival late last year, with Britain’s Daily Telegraph noting that Scodelario “crackles with flirtatious petulance” in the role.
“For me the whole point of this story is that [Catherine] loves [Heathcliff] so much that it almost kills her — well it does eventually kill her,” says Scodelario, in her soft London accent. “I think a lot of people assume that ‘Wuthering Heights’ is this great love story, but I think the first thing [Arnold] said to me that it wasn’t, it’s very dark, deep and conflicting. It’s very kind of Gothic and a bit f---ed up to be honest.”
Arnold, who is known for gritty films such as “Red Road,” set on a tough Glasgow housing project, places her “Wuthering Heights” on northern England’s punishingly windswept, rainy Yorkshire Moors. While much of the action centers on Catherine and Heathcliff as children, Scodelario and first-time actor James Howson play the older Catherine and Heathcliff, when they reunite after she’s unhappily married to another. (Nina Jones)

Hitfix also includes Wuthering Heights in a Sundance roundup.

The New Zealand Press reviews the film Sione's 2: Unfinished Business:

Modelled on Star Trek 3 (complete with its own form of "klingons"), the story involves a copy of Wuthering Heights, a Maori Hamburger joint, a strip club and a ladies' toilet block. (James Croot)

Agri-View reviews P.D. James's Death Comes to Pemberley where

In some ways James' description of weather and the countryside is reminiscent of the writings of Charlotte and Emily Brontë-darkness, wind, rain, scary sounds, etc. (Joan Sandstadt)

The Independent wonders, 'Where have all the book illustrators gone?' and looks back on a few great illustrators reminding readers of the fact that,

CE Brock illustrated E Nesbit but also Emily Brontë and Walter Scott. (Melanie McDonagh)

The New York Times' The Learning Network shares a few tips on collaborative reading such as:

Gender: Place students in groups by gender for the first part of reading a discussing any book that has both male and female characters. Facilitate both groups’ discussions, noting which characters each talked about, at what length or depth and the emotion or judgment toward them. When the groups are together, point out what each group said to start a discussion. Or, they can read two books back to back – one with exclusively male characters (like “The Lord of the Flies”) or a male protagonist, and the other with entirely female characters or a female protagonist (like “Jane Eyre”) – and share and compare experiences with the text. (Shannon Doyne and Holly Epstein Ojalvo)

The Lewiston/Auburn Sun Journal reports a group of students enjoying a Victorian tea party where

Prior to the tea party, the students immersed themselves in Victorian literature and culture. In addition to reading "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde, students chose between "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen and "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë.

Hipsy's View posts about Jane Eyre 2011 and LoveBooks (in French) writes about Wuthering Heights.

Victorian Mixed Media

The 41st Meeting of the Victorians Institute
19-21 October 2012
at
Virginia Commonwealth University

Please send 300-500 word proposals for papers and a 1-page c.v. via email to dlatane@vcu.edu by 1 May 2012. Papers are invited on any aspect of the rubric, including

arts & crafts – the media of the empire – theatre — ekphrasis– the exhibition as medium – illustration and text (extra-illustrated volumes – giftbooks) — hybridity and language — map and mapping – media and genre — medium specificity in the 19th-century — new (digital) media and the Victorians — photography and its relationship to traditional media — poetry of the daily press — the print trade — show and tell (dioramas, panoramas, history, literature) — Victorian new media (typewriting – film) – sound and music – information systems – periodicals, pamphlets, broadsides – representation of media in fiction and poetry, etc.

Because 2012 marks the bicentennial of Robert Browning’s birth, papers which consider his work are especially welcome, whether or not they conform closely to the topic, as a portion of the program will commemorate the occasion.

Keynote address by W. J. T. Mitchell, Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago, is editor of Critical Inquiry and his books include “What Do Pictures Want?,” “Art and the Public Sphere,” “Iconology,” and “Blake’s Composite Art.”

Plenary talk to commemorate the bicentennial of the birth of Robert Browning by Herbert Tucker, John C. Coleman Professor of English at the University of Virginia; his books include “Epic: Britain’s Heroic Muse, 1790-1910,” “Tennyson and the Doom of Romantcism,” and “Browning’s Beginnings: The Art of Disclosure.”

Selected papers from the conference will be refereed for the “Victorians Institute Journal” annex at NINES.

Limited travel subventions will be available from the Victorians Institute for graduate students whose institutions provide limited or no support.

Please visit www.vcu.edu/vij for information about the conference, the Victorians Institute, and “Victorians Institute Journal.”

“Victorian Mixed Media” is sponsored at Virginia Commonwealth University by the College of Humanities and Sciences, Department of English, and the PhD program in Media, Art and Text (MATX).

David Latané, conference organizer.

Advisory committee: Nicholas Frankel, Catherine Ingrassia, John Picker (English); Eric Garberson, Catherine Roach (Art History); Nicholas Wolf (History).

Of all the many passions and crazes in nineteenth-century gardening and
natural history, none was as long lasting or as wide reaching as fern fever.
Ferns were not just the obsession of a few professional botanists, nor even
of the thousands of amateur gardeners and naturalists, but held a popular fascination
for much of society. If you decorated and furnished your house, went to the seaside,
strolled in pleasure gardens, patronised the theatre and concerts, visited exhibitions,
read novels, played music, or spent time in hospital, you encountered ferns and
ferneries. In numerous ways Pteridomania, as fern madness was christened, epitomised
the exciting, enquiring, innovative, industrious, creative, and contradictory reign of
Queen Victoria in which it occurred.

This is part of a book I just finished reading, called Fern Fever: The Story of Pteridomania, written by Sarah Whittingham. This book describes the popularity of ferns in the nineteenth century in all its aspects.

It could be possible that the idea of a book about ferns does not seem to exciting. Think again! This book will make you love ferns and fern-collecting, even if you only had lukewarm feelings about ferns before. This book is definitely a pleasure to read. Even though it contains lots of information, it is written in a very pleasant and comprehendible style. Throughout the book there are many colour plates and interesting images. The text is very well researched and thorough, so that it will be an interesting read both for people who are new to ferns and for the expert fern-lover. The book incorporates a lot of background information and general information on the nineteenth century, making it a good all-round book to read. Definitely recommended for everyone who wants to contract fern fever, or is already feeling feverish!

Topics included are: how to collect ferns, fern equipment, women writers, collecting and cultivating ferns, fern furniture, and more.

(Image Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, Canberra. From Fern Fever: The Story of Pteridomania (c) Frances Lincoln Ltd. and Sarah Whittingham. US $60.00.)

A downside might be is that the book is very extensive, counting 240 pages. It’s so thorough though that noone will ever have to write about ferns any more, it really covers every subject.

Weirdly, the front cover is an exact copy of an older book’s cover, which is reproduced inside the book. It seems just like the text was erased, and new texts inserted. It seems strange, for a book that is so well-researched, not to deserve it’s own front cover.

Anyway, don’t let that stop you! The book is available here: http://www.franceslincoln.co.uk/en/C/0/Book/3159/Fern_Fever.html

Very fine all day ― lovely & calm ― towards sunset.

Accounts ― & then went to Taylors, & got £25. Called & left a Nonsense book at Woolffs.

Boles all corny. Returned at 10 ― & by 10.30 was working at Athos (Ἀγιού Διονυςίου) till 5. ― Dr. Roberts ― Capt. Vernon ― & latterly Col. Maude called.

Steamer not in from Trieste.

Luard dined with me, & I read him some Tennyson, & penned out afterwards (Cavalla sketch,) till 11.45.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

Dear Readers, this article, written by Tony Grant, continues on his blog, London Calling. Tony recalls events that actually happened to his great grant uncle, William McGinn. Graves at the Arras British cemetery. There are about three thousand graves here. It took Marilyn, Alice, Emily, Abigail and myself well over an hour to find Williams [...]

Kensal Green Cemetery Back in June of 2008, I wrote a piece on Victorian Funerals and Mourning.  In it I left the funeral cortege pretty much at the gates of the cemetery; an omission that I want to correct in this blog.  With a rapidly growing population which more than doubled in the first half of the nineteenth century, arrangements for the interment of the dead were totally inadequate.  At

An alert from the Dove Cottage & The Wordsworth Museum:

Special Event
Arts and Book Festival 2012
Friday 20 - Sunday 22 January

Friday 20 January - at The Wordsworth Hotel

Introduction and welcome
Michael McGregor - 4.35pm


The World Within: The Brontës and Emily Dickinson
Lyndall Gordon - 4.45pm

Katherine Mansfield: The Storyteller
Kathleen Jones - 6.00pm

Whistle
Martin Figura - 9.15pm

At the Last Judgement by Theodor Baierl

Painting of the Day Archive

The Moderate Voice discusses the proposed censorship laws SOPA/PIPA and reminds us that piracy wasn't born with the internet - it had been around for a long, long time already:

Ironically, the copyright infringers of the 19th century were headquartered in NYC.  Harper Brothers (now HarperCollins, part of the Murdoch empire) “printed pirated copies of works by such British authors as Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë. (Kathy Gill)

Several websites mention Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights as part of the Sundance Film Festival. From ArtInfo:

Andrea Arnold, the British director of the grimly realistic “Red Road” and “Fish Tank,” has a special fascination for furious revenge, which is why her tackling of Cathy and Heathcliff’s brutalizing romance hews close to the spirit of Emily Brontë’s Gothic masterpiece. Arnold aligns their passionate, blighted love with the wildness of the Yorkshire moors, as stark and infested a terrain as the heath in “King Lear,” and peppers the terse exchanges with savage imprecations and the soundtrack with cacophonous nature — howling wind, rain, trees, dogs, insects. If the novel's Heathcliff is of indeterminate origin — it's speculated that he is a Gypsy, Lascar, or an American — Arnold has unambiguously cast black actors in the role, suggesting that he is a victim of racial bigotry rather than class prejudice. Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon wouldn’t believe it possible. (Graham Fuller)

And from Beyond Chron:

“Fish Tank” director Andrea Arnold upends the Emily Brontë classic “Wuthering Heights” with her non-romantic treatment and her casting a black actor as Heathcliff. (Peter Wong)

ComingSoon:

Andrea Arnold's first two films, Red Road and Fish Tank, were terrific, so we're hoping to finally getting around to seeing her take on the literary classic Wuthering Heights. (Edward Douglas)

VueWeekly places the US/Canada premiere in February/March:

Another Scot, Andrea Arnold, sweeps us into her handheld-shot, teenage-cast vision of Wuthering Heights.  (Brian Gibson)

The Costume Designers Guild has nominated Jane Eyre 2011 in the Excellence in Period Film Category. Many websites praise Michael Fassbender's performance in Shame and mention his previous Rochester in Jane Eyre 2011, but Socialite Life might be the most... expressive:

I just want to rewatch Jane Eyre over and over and over again.  Those eyes…those mutton chops. (Kelly Lynch)

The actor says about this role on NPR:

"I really wanted to focus on ... the fact that Rochester talks on an equal level with the governess alone would have been not good in that time period. That was not the done thing. And the fact that he is a sort of rebel within that, he does not like this social class that he's a part of, and you can see that in his awkwardness when Blanche comes and he's courting her. He finds the people ugly, and the intellectual side of him is there. ... He really needs her more than she needs him. She has the capability of saving him. He's a closed sort of package, because the times he has opened himself up, he's got burnt pretty badly, so he prefers to keep a cold exterior on things and protect himself. ... I saw him as a bipolar character, and I went with that idea."

Easier Property talks about a new development site in Leeds, named Branwell Park, after Maria Branwell:

Redrow is honouring the mother of the Brontë sisters, by naming its latest venture in West Yorkshire in her memory.
The award-winning housebuilder owns an eight acre site off Netherfield Road in Guiseley, where it plans to build 96 homes from its sought-after New Heritage Collection.
The development will be known as Branwell Park, after Maria Branwell, mother of the novelists Anne, Charlotte and Emily Brontë.
Patsy Aicken, sales director for Redrow Homes (Yorkshire), commented: “At Redrow we are keen to acknowledge the history of the communities in which we build and wherever possible link the names of our developments to the area. Maria Branwell married Rev Patrick Bronte at St Oswald’s Church in Guiseley and given that three of their children are literary greats we wanted to honour the family in this way.”

The Christian Science Monitor lists several novels to be read this 2012, including Margot Livesey's The Flight of Gemma Hardy:

Attention Jane Eyre fans: Margot Livesey's captivating update of Charlotte Brontë's classic takes readers from the Orkney Islands to Iceland and deep into a young woman's difficult romance with a modern-day Mr. Rochester. (January)

Tehelka interviews the author Deborah Baker:

Who are your favourite authors?
Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Virginia Woolf, Dostoyevsky, Pasternak, Tolstoy, and Kafka were my touchstones then. (Gunjan Batra)

Vancouver Straight reviews Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant:

My favourites were the ones that dealt with 15th century peasant romance, St. Francis of Assisi and his birds, cruising with the Brontë sisters, and the strange, unreciprocated bromance between Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe.  (Jennie Ramstad)

Minneapolis Pioneer Press talks about Michael Christie's appointment as music director of the Minnesota Opera:

I got onto (Minnesota Opera artistic director) Dale Johnson's radar while I was working with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis," Christie said from Phoenix on Wednesday. "He invited me to come for 'La Traviata,' then 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Silent Night,' and he sat down and talked to me about this search and their wanting to have somebody to work more consistently with the orchestra. (...)
"When I saw the orchestra responding in a certain way during 'La Traviata'," Johnson said Wednesday, "I thought: My goodness, he has such a great rapport with the orchestra. He's never met them before, yet they looked at him with admiration, and all of a sudden that magic happened. And I said: 'I think that we may have found our guy.' And 'Wuthering Heights' was a triumph for him, as was 'Silent Night.' During the workshops for that (a world premiere), he was very clear and caring about what he wanted....He's a new music guy, and that's one of the things that attracted us to him." (Rob Hubbard)

The Smoky Mountain News begins an article on Jane Austen and men by stating,

Of female writers who appeal the least to the young men in my seminars, Jane Austen surely holds first place. Many of these male students can relate to the work of Annie Dillard or Anne Tyler, and more than a few over the years have taken to Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, if only because of Heathcliff and the author’s magnificently wild prose, but none of these young men have evinced, at least publicly, any interest in becoming, as have so many women, members of the Austenite cult. (Jeff Minick)

The New York Times has an article on people gathering to watch Downton Abbey:

A friend brought back a feathery fascinator headpiece, which she now wears for “Downton” viewing parties. The guests are other librarians and teachers who already had a tradition of reading Brontë novels together and formed what they called the Elegant Ladies’ Club (although the viewings now include one man). “We all have the same level of obsession about the show,” she said, “and we like any excuse to dress up.” (Aimee Lee Ball)

Dorchester Report talks about bibs and tuckers:

“Early bibs were somewhat like modern bibs, although they were not specifically used to protect clothing from spills the way they are now. Tuckers were lace pieces, fitted over the bodice-sometimes called ‘pinners’ or ‘modesty pieces’. These came into prominence by the end of the 17th Century. Tuckers are even mentioned in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.” (Barbara McDonough)

The New York Daily News remembers that:

The New York Public Library is “Celebrating 100 Years” of serving the public. On display: the first U.S. Gutenberg Bible, Charlotte Brontë’s desk, John Coltrane’s handwritten music and Charles Dickens’ own copy of “David Copperfield.” 10 a.m.–8 p.m. Free. (Sanna Chu)

Movie City News reviews Raoul Ruiz's posthumous film, Mistérios de Lisboa:

Castelo Branco’s subject was usually mad love among the rich — fertile ground for any novel or film — and his characters fall in love and suffer and plunge into nightmare like Heathcliff and Cathy in “Wuthering Heights,” or Scottie and Madeleine/Judy in Vertigo.  (Mike Wilmington)

Ball Don't Lie publishes jokes about the basketball player Earl Barron:

The only demerit of the arrangement, apart from Port Land's reliance on coffee and not tea, was the presence of the spectre of Mr. Gregory Oden, who haunted the hallways like the madwoman in the attic of Miss Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre. (Have you read this volume with Mistress Haversham? Miss Brontë is a friendly acquaintance and quite talented, perhaps even more so than her sisters Emily and Anne. I must introduce to the lovely trio upon my return.) (Eric Freeman)

Pinoy Parazzi talks about the Philippine tv-series Walang Hanggan; The Telegraph & Argus publishes that finally The Balcony Tearoom at Moor Lodge in will have a late alcohol licence; Sunshine Stories, booksellersnz and Las Mariposas Producen Huracanes (in Spanish) post about Wuthering Heights; the Brontë Sisters joins the Anne Brontë anniversary celebration; Writer Girl reviews Wuthering Heights 2009; Les Soeurs Brontë (in French) posts about interior and exterior walkings; Like Me Too and Bokdivisionen (in Swedish) post about Jane Eyre and Jediyuth reviews Jane Eyre 2011 in Thai; mtwhitelock uploads a recent picture of Top Withins.

In late January 1862, 150 years ago about now, workmen in Brooklyn, New York were frantically finishing one of the most innovative machines ever constructed: a warship made of iron.

Newspapers originally called it the Ericsson Battery, after its inventor, Swedish-born engineer John Ericsson. The U.S. Navy had been skeptical of Ericsson's design, but after President Lincoln was impressed by a model of the proposed ship, a contract was awarded to build it.

One problem was getting it built quickly, as it was known that the Confederates were building their own ironclad warship on the hull of a steamer abandoned by the U.S. Navy in Virginia at the beginning of the Civil War.

In about 100 days during the winter of 1861-62, the Union ironclad, which would be named USS Monitor, was riveted together. It was like nothing else afloat, and in early March 1862 it would meet its Confederate rival, CSS Virginia, at the Battle of Hampton Roads.

View Vintage Images: USS Monitor, Civil War Ironclad

Illustration: USS Monitor/Library of Congress

---

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Follow on Twitter: @History1800s

Back in Issue 83 of the Knight Letter we mentioned the incredible underwater photographs of Elena Kalis, but I wonder how many of you have actually had a chance to see them? Elena’s images are copyrighted but she is happy for people to share them on blogs like this. Three of my favorites are below and you can find many more on her website. The series is called “Alice in Waterland” and the model is Elena’s daughter Alexandra, who seems to be uncommonly good at opening her eyes underwater.

You can purchase the images as a calendar from Red Bubble.

Here are the articles and reviews from the latest issue of Studies in Romanticism (50.3, Fall 2011).

1.

Psyche’s ”Whisp’ring Fan” and Keats’s Genealogy of the Secular  Author: John Savarese

p. 389-411

2.

Attraction and Combination: The Science of Metamorphosis in Shelley’s The Revolt of Islam  Author: Barbara Estermann

p. 413-36

3.

Charlotte Smith’s Poetry as Sentimental Discourse Author: Erinç Özdemir

p. 437-73

4.

“When Despotism kept genius in chains”: Imagining Tasso’s Madness and Imprisonment, 1748-1849  Author: Jason Lawrence

p. 475-503

5.

Never Getting Home: The Unfulfilled Promise of Maria Edgeworth’s The Absentee  Author: Spencer Jackson

p. 505-29

6.

Review of Clifford Siskin and William Warner, eds.: This Is Enlightenment Authors: Alan Bewell, Jon Klancher, Christina Lupton, and Ted Underwood

p. 531-43

7.

Review of Samuel Baker, Written on the Water: British Romanticism and the Maritime Empire of Culture Author: Evan Gottlieb

p. 543-7

8.

Review of Michael Ragussis, Theatrical Nation: Jews and Other Outlandish Englishmen in Georgian Britain Author: Michael Scrivener

p. 548-53

9.

Review of Andrew Elfenbein, Romanticism and the Rise of English Author: Eugene Green

p. 553-62

-

Gray ― soft, rainy=looking ― but no rain, warm.

Rimasto¹  at home, & wrote to Mrs. Clive, & various others.

At 2.30 went up to the Maudes: & at 3 to church.

Craven preached, not badly.

At 5 ― home, & walked out, the longer ― or middle giro, ― meeting Craven, & Luard.

At 7.30 dined at the Decies ―

Pleasant people all ―: excellent dinner ―: excellent dinner: delightful  evening altogether.

Home by 11.15.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

1. I stayed.

As we have reported before, the artist Stella Vine has painted a portrait of the Brontës to raise funds for repairs to the St Michael and All Angels Parish Church in Haworth. This is the new portrait:

£150.00
'Charlotte, Emily, and Anne'
Limited Edition Giclee Print
(With a message of thanks on the reverse for the church fund). Edition size: 100

Paper: Hahnemühle archival paper
Approx print size: 44.9cm x 37.5cm (+ border 6cm on each side)

100% of the profit from this print will go to the Haworth Bronte church fund. The church is in urgent need of repair.The painting the print has been made from is 51cm x 61cm, acrylic on canvas, signed and dated on the reverse 2012, with personal message of thanks.
If you are interested in purchasing the painting, again 100% will go to the church fund, please contact Jamie: studio@stellavine.com

You can also donate to the Bronte church here:
http://www.haworthchurch.co.uk

Any amount no matter how small will help, thank you x

The artist will be present at tonight's Look North (BBC1):

Listening 2 Christa Ackroyd & Rev Peter chatting about how Patrick Brontë was a radical social reformer, educated by Wilberforce, cooool.
Filming in the Brontë church for Look North with Christa Ackroyd.  http://instagr.am/p/iRFSc/

Apparently Haworth is to become a 'global magnet' according to The Telegraph and Argus:

English Heritage has pledged to transform Haworth from a day trip haven into an international tourist destination.
Trevor Mitchell, English Heritage’s Yorkshire and Humber planning director, said the village is one of Bradford’s biggest attractions but claims more should be done to market it as a global tourist attraction.
Mr Mitchell said: “At the moment Haworth isn’t really offering itself to an international audience. It is marketing itself to the people of West Yorkshire on an afternoon out. What Haworth needs is to offer something that appeals to the international tourist who has come for the Brontë connection.
“That is why we are saying we want to work with property owners and Bradford Council to see if we can touch things up a bit.”
Mr Mitchell said English Heritage was making Haworth more of a priority than in the past because it was identified as at risk in 2010.
The organisation has agreed to pay 80 per cent of the costs to repair the Parish Church roof, if match funding can be found, and is offering 80 per cent grants to reinstate original features on shop fronts in Main Street.
It has also encouraged The Old School Room, where the famous Brontë sisters taught, to apply for a grant and a decision is expected to be announced within a month.
Mr Mitchell said: “We know the Old School Room was built by Patrick Bronte and that the Brontë women taught there but actually it isn’t open to the public. Thousands of people walk past it every year and don’t really get to appreciate it.
“It looks a bit down on its luck.Hopefully we will be able to work quite closely with the people at the Old School Room to put a good project together, turn the building around and make it a success.”
Bradford Council’s portfolio holder for regeneration David Green (Wibsey, Lab) admitted more needs to be done to promote tourism in the district.
He said: “There hasn’t been a clear strategy, not just for Haworth but for tourism in particular, for a number of years.
“Places like Haworth, the council run museums and galleries and even the Keighley Bus Museum can all be pulled together and marketed for the benefit of all.” (Kathryn Bradley)

We don't see how a place that already has guide posts in Japanese is only 'marketing itself to the people of West Yorkshire on an afternoon out'.

Coincidentally, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner has a columnist who, in anticipation of a visit from American friends has been

swotting up about Robin Hood (met his end at Kirklees Abbey), the Brontë sisters, of Haworth (I always preferred Branwell) and York (what can you say?) (Denis Kilcommons)

The Yorkshire Post mentions briefly the fact that Stella Vine is working towards helping Haworth church.

The London Evening Standard reports that Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre and Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights are both nominated for the same category at the 39th London Evening Standard British Film Awards.spas

Two dramatically different takes on Brontë stories, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, are in contention for the technical honours [...]
LONDON FILM MUSEUM AWARD FOR TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT
Sean Bobbitt cinematographer, Shame
Paul Davies sound designer, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Maria Djurkovic production designer, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Michael O'Connor costume designer, Jane Eyre
Robbie Ryan cinematographer, Wuthering Heights (Louise Jury)

Jane Eyre 2011 is one of the runners-up on the National Catholic Register's list of best films of 2011.

The Telegraph comments on the fact that Wuthering Heights 2011 has been left out of the BAFTAs:

However, Bafta’s capacity for hipness has its limits, and there was no sign of Andrea Arnold’s bold Wuthering Heights adaptation or the cult gems Weekend and Kill List – and disgracefully, no best actress nod for Olivia Colman in Tyrannosaur either. (Robbie Collin)

A few readers have also remarked on the absence in the comments section of this Guardian article. And Kate Muir from The Times also thinks that the movie deserved at least a nomination for Cinematography.

The Philippine Star reviews Walang Hanggan, a new local take on Wuthering Heights:

Walang Hanggan clearly has the advantage of a bigger cast introduced at the media launch, all of whom have been very visible since on every program on ABS throughout the day promoting the series. The undying love story from three generations is what gives scope and grandeur to the teleserye. During Monday’s opening episode, two generations were quickly introduced, their relationships to one another, and possible encounters in the future.
Imagine having two queens of Philippine Cinema, Susan Roces and Helen Gamboa, playing sisters no less, both involved with the same man (Eddie Gutierrez). One is likely to give in (Susan) and suffer in silence. Helen is the ambitious one, to whom money and stature in society is most important, is married to Eddie who clearly sides with Susan in matters of conflict. Playboy Richard Gomez is the son who has willingly played suitor to Rita Avila for the money she will bring into mama’s wine business. Until he meets Dawn Zulueta, wage earner for their family, falls in love with her and rejects Rita’s offer of love and financial assistance, proposes marriage to Dawn, which aunt Susan has happily aided and abetted, with dad Eddie advising him to follow his heart. But a careless P50-bet with friends during a drinking session is unearthed to destroy this all too perfect love affair. Dawn throws away the infinity ring Richard had given her and the episode ends.
The once real and reel loveteam of Dawn and Richard was thought to be a love story made in heaven. We were present at its making, and its breaking, having been manager to Dawn at that time. We shared her giggles, laughter and tears. Even as both went separate ways to build their own families with spouses welcoming the past loves with warmth and affection, Richard and Dawn continued to represent the consummate loveteam difficult to replace.
Their love story began on the set of Carlitos Siguion Reyna’s Hihintayin Kita sa Langit, and blossomed there. The 1991 movie based on Emily Brontë’s romantic drama Wuthering Heights of star-crossed lovers caught the public’s attention, as well as the School of Inattention’s meticulous Oggs Cruz who gave it a thumbs up. Oggs wrote, “It is an impeccably shot film… It is a fantasy that clearly exploits a nation’s infatuation for larger-than-life struggles, of the downtrodden eventually reversing his fortunes, of victimizers getting their eventual punishment, and of love against all odds. Brontë’s classic work, stripped away of the complexity of its multi-generational narrative, perfectly suits this requirement. Siguion-Reyna shies away from portraying the subtleties of love and instead depicts it in its full grandeur and opulence.”
We have an inkling that Star Cinema might have considered a remake of Hihintayin, perhaps with a happier ending like that of William Wyler’s film version of Wuthering Heights where the ending shows the lovers in happier times traipsing along the hills of Batanes where the film was set. But Carlitos refused to sell the film rights which he confirmed to us. Perhaps, Carlitos knew that Hihintayin had a bright future as a remake. If he had been present at the media launch of Walang Hanggan, he would have been all the more convinced. More so now that the opening episode with the Dawn and Richard’s love story is firmly in place. (Bibsy M. Carballo)

And according to ABS-CBN News,

The pilot episode of ABS-CBN's newest series "Walang Hanggan" ruled the national TV ratings on Monday (January 16).
Based on the latest data of Kantar Media/TNS, the show's pilot episode registered a 32.1% ratings nationwide beating GMA7's "Legacy" with 16.8% TV5's "Glamorosa" which only got 4.9%.

Flavorwire thinks that Wuthering Heights is one of ten 'Famous Pop-Culture Love Triangles Where the Girl Should Have Stayed Single':

Heathcliff, Catherine, and Edgar Linton (Wuthering Heights) Catherine loves violent, unruly Heathcliff, but marries Linton instead for his wealth and status. How does Heathcliff react? By seducing Linton’s sister Isabella as a form of revenge (even though he hates her) which in turn causes Linton to retaliate by disowning Isabella. This upsets Catherine so much that she locks herself in her room, falls ill, and dies in childbirth. At that rate, spinsterhood would probably have been a better option. (Victoria McNally)

Anne Brontë was remembered yesterday by Cultura (in Hungarian) and Thoughts from a Buttonmonger. Day for Night, El templo de tinta (in Spanish), Jediyuth (in Thai) and Не киноман (in Russian) post about Jane Eyre 2011 while Mumblings in an Insane World writes about Wuthering Heights 2011. Doll with a Frown has designed a Jane Eyre book cover 'for fun' and Brainstorm shares a few thoughts on that novel. Poliphilo posts about Villette. Movie Screenshots has uploaded caps from Wuthering Heights 1939.The Book Lover writes in Italian about Juliet Gael's Romancing Miss Brontë. Lena Coakley has taken a test to find out 'which Brontë sibling' she is. Greystone Studios has a Brontë-related comic strip. And the Brontë Weather Project shares an update.

Cupidon by William Bouguereau

Painting of the Day Archive

Gray & misty early: fine ― later. East wind.

Worked from 9 to 4.30 at S. Dionysio: & well. Col. Maude came in & sate.

Early ― at 10 ― I went up to them: howling dog ― “Τι νὰ γίνα ― διὰ τοῦτο πρᾶγμα; ―”¹ said Paramythides’s nephew.

Letters from Lucy Franville
Reg.d Fowler.
Mrs. G. Scrivens.

Walked up to Casino & back ― (after 5.30 ―) by 6.30.

Dined, & penned out half a sketch ― Carvalka. ―

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

1. What to do about this thing? (NB)

People simply can’t get enough of Downton Abbey, as my site meter tells me. Everything we bloggers write about the costumes, actors, and historical details is lapped up by eager readers and on nights when the series is aired, my visitor count goes through the roof. People just can’t get enough of the Crawley family [...]

A very Brontë year in Paris. Although they are still waiting for the French release of Jane Eyre 2011 (next June 6), Jane Eyre 1944 is at the Cinéma Le Champo and now at the Filmothèque du Quartier Latin, André Téchiné's Les Soeurs Brontë 1979 is screened:

La Rétrospective Littérature et Cinéma
L'Ecrivain vu par le cinéma : Les Soeurs Brontë (1979)
Filmothèque du Quartier Latin
January 18, 21:50

The Briar Rose: The Council Chamber by Sir Edward Burne-Jones

Painting of the Day Archive

This year's BAFTA shortlist nominations have just been disclosed. It looks like Jane Eyre 2011 has only been nominated for Costume Design (Michael O'Connor).

Coincidentally, according to The Telegraph, a British government report on the film industry

praised low-budget but critically-acclaimed films including Shame, We Need To Talk About Kevin and Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights. (Anita Singh)

The Guardian cites verbatim from the report:

The report also advocates "market testing where appropriate" – showing unfinished films to audiences and adjusting them according to response.
Smith claimed such initiatives, aimed at boosting commercial success, would not thwart challenging work by British film-makers like Andrea Arnold or Steve McQueen, whose Wuthering Heights and Shame are cited in the report as having contributed to a "golden year" for British film. (Alex Needham)

The Times adds:

[L]ow-budget British film industry seems to have more room for mixed- race casts. Andrea Arnold recently cast a black Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, and Attack the Block brought a teenage John Boyega into the limelight. (Kate Muir)

Another new adaptation of Wuthering Heights (Walang Hanggan) is currently being broadcast in the Philipines. From Business World Online:

Showcasing a powerhouse cast led by seasoned actresses Susan Roces and Helen Gamboa, Walang Hanggan tells the story of undying love that spans three generations, similar to the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
Misses Roces and Gamboa play sisters Virginia and Margaret who compete for the love of one man (played by Eddie Gutierrez).
Then there is the ill-fated love story between the rich guy Marco (Richard Gomez) and the poor woman Emily (Dawn Zulueta).
The tangled love story continues with young sweethearts Daniel (Coco Martin) and Katerina (Julia Montes).
Regina Amigo, the program’s creative manager, said ABS-CBN has pulled out all the stops to make sure Walang Hanggan will be a big TV hit.
"We got the best actors to be in the project. We shot in various locations around the country. We made sure this TV project will be something big for our audiences," Ms. Amigo told reporters last week.
Ms. Roces expressed excitement over the new series. "I’m a fan of soap operas myself, that’s why I’m very happy to be part of it," she said.
Meanwhile, Ms. Zulueta, who appears on this TV project for the first time in more than a decade with Mr. Gomez, takes pride in the narrative. "The story was so great, that it was hard to turn down the role. Everyone can surely relate with the characters’ journey," Ms. Zulueta said.
While Ms. Zulueta and Mr. Gomez rekindle an old onscreen romance, Mr. Martin and Ms. Montes starts a new one as they team up for the first time in this project.
"This is a new challenge for me since this is the first time that I’ll be doing a ‘full love story.’ But I’m getting inspiration from the fact that I’m working with the best actors and actresses of the industry," Mr. Martin said.
Completing the powerhouse cast are Rita Avila, Melissa Ricks, Joem Bascon and Paulo Avelino. Jerry Lopez Sineneng and Trina Dayrit direct the series which will run for at least four months.
Walang Hanggan airs weeknights at 9:30 p.m. on ABS-CBN. (Jeffrey O. Valisno)

Yet another adaptation of Wuthering Heights is mentioned in The New York Times in an article praising Fabio Luisi, the Metropolitan Opera’s principal conductor:

Who would have expected this Italian maestro to be so at home conducting Copland’s jazzy Clarinet Concerto, let alone an aria from “Wuthering Heights,” the only opera by Bernard Herrmann, of “Psycho” fame? (Anthony Tommasini)

A tutor in Cambridge writes in The Boston Globe,

For 40 years I’ve encouraged hundreds of students, lost in thickets of dense prose, unable to muddle through cumbersome classics, to turn to study guides. They offered consolation, an easy way out and a chance to pull the wool over the teacher’s eyes; teachers like Miss Marmet, who heaped scorn on me after catching me with Mickey Spillane’s “I, The Jury’’ when I should have been reading “Jane Eyre.’’ (Ted Sutton)

Natalie in the Wild has uploaded a Jane Eyre illustration. Thoughts from Mill Street and Humo (in Dutch) posts about Jane Eyre 2011.

It is a little challenging to blog about a computer game you have never played, but here goes… There was once a game called The Sims. The point of the game was to create virtual characters and then control their lives. It became the best-selling PC franchise in PC history. Then, last year, the makers launched Sims Social, a version of the game that can be played on Facebook. Now, to get to the point, screen shots from the latest release hint strongly (very strongly) that it will be Wonderland-inspired. Hooray!

Perhaps it would be more helpful just to show you a picture?

Another sneak peak screen shot, and some excited speculation can be found on Games Blog.

My dearest Ann’s birthday: she would have been 71 today.

Alas.

A fine gray sunless day, like an English Autumn.

Worked principally at S. Dionysio.

I wonder what comes after death.

Worked till 5 ― when Luard & Le Mesurier came. ― & stayed till 6.

6.30 dined.

Penned out from 7.15 ― to 10.30.

(a Syra drawing.)

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

We are so accustomed to thinking of the Kelmscott Chaucer as the great aesthetic masterpiece of Morris’s later years that it comes as a bit of a shock to learn that in one significant respect at least he was disappointed with it. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t persuade Burne-Jones to illustrate Chaucer’s ruder tales; I don’t suppose he ever really expected that he would be able to! No, it is more a matter, as J.W. Mackail informs us in the biography, that ‘when designing the borders for the Kelmscott Chaucer, he expressed his regret at not being able to fill them with Chaucer’s favourite birds’ because of his incapacity for drawing birds and animals (I, 115).

I wonder, then, whether Morris’s famous meditation on political defeat in A Dream of John Ball might not also apply to aesthetic defeat? Would it be the case that, in the realm of art too, when the finished work comes it turns out not to be quite what you meant, and other men then have to fight for what you meant under another name? In which case, should we not seek out an enterprising artist today who could design us new Kelmscott Chaucer borders which would indeed feature the vigorous bird life of the medieval poet’s own verse, as Morris himself intended they should?

Romantics and Victorians
Nicola J. Watson and Shafquat Towheed
Publication Date: November 2011
Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN: 9781849666244 (paperback)
9781849666237 (hardback)

The second volume in the Reading and Studying Literature series, co-published with the Open University, introduces students to European romanticism and Victorian culture. Each period is discussed in terms of an overarching theme, providing a clear focus for study and discussion and introducing readers to an important theoretical concept in literary studies.European romanticism is approached through a consideration of the evolution of the idea of the romantic author and the romantic inner life, using readings from Wordsworth on Grasmere, Shelley lyric poetry and Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater. The book goes on to explore Victorian culture through a reading of ideas of 'home' and 'abroad', in the work of Emily Brontë, Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson. The featured theoretical concept of this volume is 'the author'.

Contains: Part 2: Home and abroad in the Victorian age, c. 1832-1901: Wuthering Heights (1847) | Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (1890) | Robert Louis Stevenson, 'The Beach of Falesa' (1892-3)

Giving WomenAlliance and Exchange in Victorian Culture
Jill Rappoport
OUP USA
978-0-19-977260-5 | Hardback | 05 January 2012

Giving Women examines the literary expression and cultural consequences of English women's giving from the 1820s to the First World War. Attending to the dynamic action and reaction of gift exchange in fiction and poetry by Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Christina Rossetti as well as in literary annuals, Salvation Army periodicals, and political pamphlets, Rappoport demonstrates how female authors and fictional protagonists alike mobilized networks outside of marriage and the market. Through giving, women redefined the primary allegiances of their everyday lives, forged public coalitions, and advanced campaigns for abolition, slum reform, eugenics, and suffrage.

Contains:
Chapter 2 Fictions of Reciprocity in Jane Eyre and Aurora Leigh
I. Jane's Inheritance
II. "An[other] Undowered Orphan"
III. Blind Economies

Today marks Anne Brontë's 192nd birthday. She was the only sister not to have one of her works adapted last year. From here we would like to encourage not just regular readers to discover both her novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as well as her poetry but also script writers, producers, whoever can do something, to try and discover her potential. Agnes Grey is a quiet little masterpiece and we believe the subject matter of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to be still - and sadly so - relevant today.

192 years after her both Anne Brontë has plenty to say to the world (as she once hoped). It's only a matter now of the world lending her an ear.

Picture: Letter from Anne Brontë to Ellen Nussey, October 4th 1847.

Many sites are reporting Meryl Streep's class act when she received her Golden Globe. As Digital Spy reports, she said,

"How about Michelle [Williams], how about Mia Wasikowska in Jane Eyre, fantastic, Tilda [Swinton]... oh, jeez," she continued, naming more of her fellow actresses. (Tara Fowler)

The Celebrity Cafe features Michael Fassbender and this is how his role as Mr Rochester is described:

a virile, handsome and complex Mr. Rochester in the classic Jane Eyre[.] (Jackie Morrison)

More showbiz news, as the Brontës seem to have put on an appearance in Desperate Housewives (Season 8, Episode 11, Who Can Say What's True?"). As summed up by Digital Spy:

Bree calls Renee's breasts the "Brontë sisters". Renee: "Even your boob jokes are repressed." (Catriona Wightman)

We don't know if repressed but the last time we counted them (the sisters) they were three.

The Guardian has a fantastic article in praise of Haworth church:

Lead thieves, time and too much wuthering have been unkind to the parish church of St Michael and All Angels in Haworth. Water is coming through the roof, Victorian wall paintings have been damaged and there is damp in the side chapel dedicated to the three Brontë sisters in the church where their father was parson. The raw Pennine air that scarred and shaped, and – like the stunted firs at Top Withens – probably shortened the lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne, is now threatening the church itself. Saving churches – in particular 19th century rebuilds – is a contentious business. But without their father's work at Haworth, it would not have been the village and the moors above that enclosed their short lives and provided the passionate setting for their writing. The Brontës' world was always heavy with decay. Haworth church needs to raise £30,000 more by Friday. All of us would be the poorer if this unique building was allowed to collapse.

The Nashville City Paper discusses Classics Illustrated and recalls that,

Only eight female authors were ever adapted: Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Ouida, Jane Porter, Anna Sewell, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Harriet Beecher Stowe. (Tina LoTufo)

Musings of a Literary Dilettante's Blog discusses Wuthering Heights. Reflections in A Major posts about Helen Burns and The Powell Blog reviews Jane Eyre 1983.

Portrait of Paul Gauguin by Eugène Carrière

Painting of the Day Archive

Lady Almina, the Countess of Carnarvon, who lived at Highclere Castle during the turn of the century and through World War 1, had many qualities in common with the fictional Cora, Countes of Grantham in Downton Abbey. Upon Lady Almina’s marriage, her fortune staved off financial ruin for the 5th Earl of Carnarvon and helped [...]

First impressions of the London Underground, from 1863. The descriptions of railway food are priceless and still hold true today ...

LONDON SOCIETY UNDERGROUND.

     THERE is a class of prosy gentlemen whom the inexorable fates decree that we should meet sometimes at the corner of a street on a windy day, who come between us and the object of our affections at a botanical fete, and hold us metaphorically by the button on every inconvenient occasion, to tell us something which we have heard a hundred times before, or retail one of those remarkable adventures in which the chief characteristic is the constant recurrence of the first personal pronoun.
     It was my lot a short time ago to sit next an old party of this description at dinner. He wore that species of cravat the invention of which is due to the ingenuity (or, as some say, to the cervical disorders) of George IV., and which usually extends from the middle of the human chest to the tip of the chin; the only advantage apparently to be derived from its wear being that it sustains the head at an angle impossible to realize for five minutes together except by this means. Turning round to my side, as far as this eminently respectable impediment would permit, and when the fish (an excellent turbot) was removed, he addressed me very solemnly in the following strain:-
     'Ahem! We live in an age of progress. 'When we look around us and see the advancement - nay, the rapid strides which art and science have made - when we notice the gradual but steady development of those resources of nature which form at once the basis and incentive of human industry, we cannot fail to be struck with the superiority of English intellect in the nineteenth century over that which has appeared in any former age. It is to the present era we owe the application of that wondrous agent, steam. The manufacture and use of gas are also of recent date. It is only of late years that we have learnt to guide the electric fluid harmlessly from our public buildings and made it subservient to our will in transmitting messages from one end of Europe to another. Photography lends its valuable assistance to pictorial art. The talents of an Armstrong are brought to bear upon the science of modern warfare. Thanks to the genial influence of chloroform, our surgeons can now with ease pursue their interesting calling, and amputations - allow me to give you a leg of this chicken? - no? - welI, as I was saying, amputations are now fearlessly and skilfully performed. Then, again, look at the Metropolitan Railway. With what ease and rapidity can the denizens of this vast and thickly-populated city traverse its enormous area! Is it not a wonderful and awe-inspiring fact that man in the nineteenth century can be thus transported from - yes, from the Edgeware Road to Farringdon Street in twelve minutes for sixpence?'
     'Certainly,' said I; 'and I have heard that the first-class carriages are very comfortable, and the smell arising from the steam has been much exaggerated.'
     'You have heard!' exclaimed my neighbour, with some astonishment. 'Am I, then, to understalnd that my young friend has allowed so many weeks to elapse without examining this last achievement of engineering skill?'
     'Why, the fact is-' I began.
     'The apathy,' interrupted my friend in the obdurate cravat·- 'the apathy of the rising generation regarding scientific subjects is very remarkable. When I was a young man,' &c. &c. And here followed a long and somewhat severe comparison between the youth of 1863 und that of fifty years ago, in which I need scarcely say we of the present day came the worst off; and while the odious vice of smoking and the growing taste for bitter ale in our universities were severely censured, not a word was said about the now obsolete custom of taking snuff, nor of the peculiar habits of those 'three bottle men' who flourished so extensively in the Georgian era. Indeed I have often noticed that gentlemen who took quite kindly to the follies of their own day, are apt to be severest on the tastes of their descendants, and should any new narcotic be devised or alcoholic stimulant be introduced in the twentieth century, I make no doubt that such of us who survive to see that epoch will be equally forgetful of our own failings, and preach with great zeal against the vanities of 1900.
     However, on the subject of the Metropolitan Railway, I confess, my stiff-necked censor, to use a familiar expression, had touched me on the raw. I did feel somewhat ashamed that, whether owing to modern apathy or accident, I had not yet travelled by it, and determined to make my journey the next day.
     They are queer little buildings, those offices on the Metropolitan line; I mean, of course, that portion of them which crops up into the thoroughfare above. For the most part they resemble isolated police-stations, or half an establishment for baths and wash-houses come astray. There is something, too, of the telegraph-office air about them, and the casual passer-by would be divided in his opinion as to whether the little crowd of humanity which pours in and out of their portals had gone thither to obtain a summons, send a message to Timbuctoo, or wash itself. On entering the door, however, these doubts are dispelled. There are the traditional pigeonholes, labelled respectively '1st Class,' and '2nd and 3rd Class,' between which, on the occasion of my visit, a youthful railway official was dividing as much of his attention as could be spared from a round of bread and butter in his hand. A railway clerk must lead a strange, eventful, and yet monotonous sort of life. How many hundred different faces must peep in daily at those little windows! all momentarily and successively framed by the aperture into a vast collection of endless family portraits - I mean that great national family of which I suppose we are all brothers and sisters. I wonder, does our ticket-vendor smile more benignantly at the first-class casement than the third? Is he a physiognomist? He would have more experience than Lavater if he had the time to study all his models. Rich and poor, old and young, wise and ignorant, fair and ugly, bad-tempered and good, each address him in turn with various accents; but he has one answer for them all, and that is written on a bit of coloured cardboard. There is no time for colloquy, for interchange of sentiment, for forming friendships; sharp is essentially the word. 'What d'ye say? one second return to Gower Street? Sixpence.' Click, click, goes that awful machine; the change is banged on the counter; Viator seizes his ticket, and passes on to make room for the next man. Unhappy youth! perhaps that old plutocrat in blue coat and brass buttons may have no heir. Had you but the chance, you might cajole him into leaving you his investments in the Three per Cents, or that comfortable little property in South Devon. That smiling angel in the tulle bonnet, who nearly gave you a sovereign by mistake as she ungloved her pretty hand - who knows but her agitation at the moment was caused by seeing you, for the first, and probably for the last time? Ay! there's the rub.
     'Show his eyes, and grieve his heart.
      Come like shadows; so depart.'
cries the railway company, like the witches in Macbeth, and thus a score or so of fair visions appear and vanish daily before the distracted eyes of the employé. It must be a singular fate, I say, to stand empannelled in that ugly room, looking out upon mankind from a pigeonhole. Altogether, I think I should prefer being the hermit at Cremorne. When he has issued a certain number of acrostics, and collected a proportionate quantity of sixpences, he may shut up the Book of Fate, lay aside his beard and magic robes, and mingle freely in the mazy dance; but here, voe misero! one train succeeds another - every minute fresh passengers arrive - more tickets are wanted - the same demands are made all day - ' first class,' 'second class,' 'third class' - , 'sixpence,' 'fourpence ' 'twopence' - single fare, return fare - ordinary and express trains - click, click, click everlastingly. The gentleman who worked the Delphic oracle in the height of the season must have had an easy lot compared with this.
     I descend the broad stone staircase which leads some thirty feet below, and as I do so, leaving the genial morning air outside, become aware of a certain chill, which creeps upon me like the change one experiences in entering a cathedral on a summer's day. There is an unmistakeable smell, too, of railway steam, which increases as I proceed; and having at length reached the platform of the subterranean station, I am free to confess it is not a very cheerful place. I do not say that stations are so anywhere, as a rule. Adorn them as you will, they are but dreary tarrying-places at the best. A roof of corrugated iron and glass, columns and tie-rods of the same material, walls decorated with that species of light literature which sets forth the merits of cutlery, sixteen-shilling trousers, and restorative elixir, is not calculated to cheer the heart of man above ground, and, ici bas,  a few strata down below the level of every-day life you must make up your mind for the worst. The family vault on a large scale, with a series of hip-baths introduced diagonally into it for light and ventilation from above ground, is perhaps the nearest description I can give as to the general aspect of the place. The hip-baths are lined with glazed tiles, and, to keep up the resemblance to their prototype, we find the leakage drained off at the lower end into a vessel something like a soapdish. A dense fog filled the place when I was there, and as the people waiting for the trains were seen wandering up and down the platform, one might have imagined them ghosts of the great unwashed, condemned to linger here in sight of those very lavatories which they neglected in their mortal life.
     The fog clears off, and I find myself standing by a live Metropolitan Rail way policeman, one of that order of gentlemen who appear either to be very affable and obliging, or precisely the reverse. In the present instance I must say I had every reason to be satisfied. He responded to my questions with great readiness and civility, standing, at the commencement of every answer, alternately on the right and left leg, and bending the other (like a pair of Sydenham trousers), in the professional attitude adopted by 'the Force.' How long had the Metropol'tan been hopened? Why, the Metropol'tan had been hopened about a month. (Right leg.) Did he consider the trains filled well? Yes, he did, and very well - 'specially mornings and evenings, with City men, and sich like. Yis - power o' traffic fust week - people corned to see what 'twas like, same as they would to see what any think was like, and always would do - 'twas human natur. (Left leg.) Had there been an accident? Yis, there ad been a accident; but, law bliss you, nothink to speak of. 'Twas exaggerated awful. There was more crams told about that there accident than anyone would suppose, now; and he wondered the papers was not ashamed of it. How did it happen? Well, it happened all along of a young hand as didn't know his work - in fack, he'd never been on a line before - leastways, not what you might call reg'lar dooty anywheres - let alone a tunnel: consequinlty, what could you expeck but a accident? (Right leg.) Couldn't say how he come to be put on - s'poscd 'twas somebody's fault; but, you see, in them matters you couldn't blame it on to anyone in partic'lar - of course not. And that's where it was, you see. (Left leg.) Was there much complaint about the smell of the steam? Well, there were - a little. The fack was, some people must have some think to cry out about. If they hadn't, they wasn't happy, some people wasn't. 'Twas the way o' the world. (Right leg.) But, law bless you, about this here smell - there was a deal o' fancy in these things. There was a gent down here last week as fancied he knew all about it (which it was a way some folks had got as must have a say in every think, whereas they only showed their ignorance), and he says, says he, 'What a ammirable idea it was this Metropol'tan, and what a conwenience it was to Londoners to have such a deal o' heavy traffic took off the streets.' 'Which, d'ye think it makes much difference?' says I. 'Think?' says he; 'why, there aint no call to think about it. You wouldn t know Oxford Street again,' he says, 'sich a alteration.' 'Really, now - sure of that?' I says. 'See it with my own eyes,' says he. 'Well,' I says, 'that's sing'lar,' I says; 'I'll make a note of that,' I says. 'And why is it sing'lar?' says he. 'Well, sir,' I says, , it's sing'lar, because we ain't begun to run no luggage trains upon the Metropolitan line at all yet,' I says. And that'll show you how far fancy goes in these here mutters. Stand back, if you please, sir - this is your train."
     On it came - the long flat engine putting at its head with subdued snorts, and glaring out of the dark abyss behind with two great fiery eyes. 'Edgeware-road ! Edge ---- ware-road!' shout the guards, emphasizing the last syllable after the manner of railway tradition. The carriage doors are flung open, and I have no sooner popped in and seated myself than they are shut again, and the train is in motion. One last gleam of daylight enters at the window, and then we plunge into the tunnel. Not into darkness, though - there is a good steady light from the gas-burner above, which enables you to read, should you be so inclined, as easily as you could by your moderator lamp at home; or you may lean back in the well-cushioned, comfortable seat of the most roomy railway carriage in England, and, forgetting that you have twenty feet of earth above you, contemplate your opposite neighbours. Mine was a timid, pretty girl of sixteen, taking her first subterranean ride in London, under her father's care. I saw the little delicate and ungloved hand creep gradually towards his whenever the signal-whistle was louder than usual, or when the train swayed slightly to and fro at its highest speed. Papa was absorbed in the 'Times,' and I don't think paid that attention to his pretty daughter which - well, which somebody else might have bestowed in his place. Ah, fair unknown - sweet stranger, in the seal-skin jacket, mauve-ribboned bonnet, and infinitesimal boots! - who shut the carriage-window when you complained of a draught? and who opened it again the instant you hinted at a headache? Who picked up that delicate little mouchoir of yours from the carpet? Who jumped out before the train stopped (in direct opposition to the advice of the Company), in order to assist you in alighting? You will read HIS initials at the conclusion of this article; and if, perchance, you should regret that, during your transit from Paddington to Newgate, you (very properly) did not reward his attentions with a single glance, remember that the slightest acknowledgment, conveyed (with papa's permission) to C. L. E., through the Editor of 'London Society,' will be still received with the deepest gratitude.

* * * * *

     In railway travelling, your first-class carriage does not, as a rule, afford much material in the study of character to the philosophic mind. That 'reticence' so strictly observed in the upper crust of English humanity is particularly noticeable here. The old coaching days, with 'four insides' and a jovial party on the roof, are universally admitted to have been much more conducive to 'interchange of sentiment and flow of soul' than this age of express trains and time-tables will ever be. lt is just the difference between a cosy family dinner and a state banquet in the City. We have ortolans, and choice Madeira, and peas in February at the one, but lack the genial spirit which attends honest port and mutton at the other. Yes - 'Persicos odi' - I prefer the humbler feast, and the ancient mode of travelling. The vehicles are more splendid now, the speed has increased tenfold - but the journey itself - alack! it is a dismal affair upon the best of lines. A gentleman in a white beard, who ate ipecacuanha lozenges the whole way, was shut up with us, and dubiously entertained the rest of the company by describing to his neighbour, sotto voce, the peculiarities of a fellow-passenger whom he once met on the Flamborough-cum-Crammingham line, and who, it would appear, was in the habit of travelling first class wherever he went with a second-class ticket. The best of it was, that our venerable friend, instead of commenting severely on the moral obliquity of this transaction, seemed to look on the affair as a tremendous joke, and laughed so heartily at the bare recollection of the circumstance, that half a lozenge nearly lodged in his larynx, and set him coughing for the rest of the journey; a fact which attracted the attention of an old lady in a brown front and black mittens, who sat next me, and who was distinctly heard to murmur something about 'a judgment' while he continued in this state of bronchial irritation.
     When we arrived at the Farringdon Street terminus, I felt rather ashamed at seeing everyone hurrying off to his or her destination in the City, while I had really none in that nor, indeed, in any other direction. I had simply travelled over the ground to see what this new Metropolitan line was like; and, being equally undesirous of exploring the ancient pens of Smithfield and of encountering Mr. Tennyson's 'merry March air' on Blackfriars Bridge (where I had, unfortunately, been detained exactly one hour and three quarters in an open carriage on the illumination night, on which occasion it blew pretty strongly up from the river) - having, I say, no definite plan or prospect before me, I consulted my watch, and finding it past one o'clock, I turned my attention to - lunch.
     I cannot say that hunger induced me to concentrate my energies in this direction, having made a very hearty breakfast a few hours before; but the fact is, I felt it incumbent on me to do something. Here had I alighted from a train, the passengers by which had already all disappeared on their several errands, with one solitary exception, viz. myself, and I only wanted to loiter about on the platform for a half-hour or so, and then go back again. I am naturally rather a nervous man; and when, while affecting the deepest interest in the construction of the vault above me, I became aware that I was being studiously watched by B 66 (a most intelligent, but perhaps somewhat officious, policeman), I felt extremely uncomfortable. The line had been opened too long to allow the supposition that I was here out of mere curiosity; and all the various other motives which might induce certain people to linger here crowded upon my memory. I had read in the papers how swindlers ('of gentlemanlike exterior') adopted such means to appropriate stray umbrellas and deserted parcels, and the horrible suspicion rose that I might be mistaken for a member of that body. As my eyes met the steady glance of B 66, I was conscious of becoming very hot and uncomfortable. To retire at this juncture would have been injudicious. There was only one other course open to me, and that was to - lunch.
     It has always been a mystery to me to what class of passengers our railway refreshments are offered. By the first and second class they are instinctively associated with indigestion. The third is accustomed to look upon them as expensive luxuries. I am not now alluding to the Farringdon Street terminus establishment, where I only partook of a sandwich and a glass of ale, and which, when regularly organized, will, I hope, prove an exception to the rule. But it is an incontrovertible fact, that at railway stations generally, and at London termini in particular, the 'commissariat department' is disgracefully managed. For a period of some weeks last year I was compelled (as the phrase goes), by circumstances over which I had no control, to lunch at a well-known terminus in this metropolis. No less than six separate rooms are devoted by the proplietor as bars and salles a manger to the accommodation of the public. The rooms are large and commodious, the servants numerous, and the appointments, to all appearance, good; yet the viands exposed for sale on the counter, the quality of the meat supplied for an early dinner, and the attendance of the waiters are, one and all, execrable. If you are inclined to ' feed ' at the bar, you will find nothing but stale pastry, musty ham, and flyblown buns. If you resort to the dining-room, you will be regaled with coarse-grained beef and flavourless mutton, underdone potatoes, and bad butter. The waiter will not approach you until five or ten minutes after you have called him; and when he does come, ten to one he will be munching the fragments of his own repast. The wretched man is always nibbling in sly corners, tossing off remnants of ale surreptitiously when he thinks no one is looking, and, in fact, having no particular or stated time for his 'meals,' partakes of one long and diffused refreshment throughout the day. As for the ladies behind the bar, they appear to have entered into a solemn compact not to wash their hands more than once a week, and to eschew the use of the nailbrush altogether. One damsel is in the habit of using a toilet-pin in a manner for which it was certainly never intended; another appeared to me one morning in the act of mending an old boot; a third, resenting some remarks which were made on the other side of the counter, once dashed half a glass of porter which she was drinking in the offender's face. Add to these peculiarities a. general sulkiness of demeanour, and yon may form some idea what it is to be waited on by these terrestrial Hebes. To give them their due, however, I will say that they all zealously defend the reputation of the establishment. 'The buns was always considered excellent,' - 'We never had no complaints of the pastry before,' - 'These ham sandwiches musty and dear! Well, you was the fust as said so,' and so on. There is one traditional article of food that they persist in tendering, and the bare recollection of which is enough to induce dyspepsia. It is a huge oblong box of half-baked dough, containing dice-shaped nuggets of cold pale meat and pork-fat. This is cut up into slices, revealing a crust of some half an inch in thickness, and is dignified by the name of veal-pie. I regret that I cannot add the name of the maker; but I strongly advise him to submit it, in case of war, to the authorities at the Horse Guards. A few of these destructive agents left by our commissariat within reach of a hungry regiment, would be admirably adapted for disabling the enemy at an hour's notice.
     Joking apart, the managers of our railway refreshment rooms hare reason to be heartily ashamed of the manner in which they cater for the public. Everything they offer for sale is as bad as it is dear, and dear as it is bad. A man may dine comfortably in the City for less than a miserable lunch costs at these places. Let the Metropolitan Company look to it; and as their carriages are more commodious, and their fares cheaper than on most lines, let them see what improvement they can effect in their restaurants.

* * * *

     Having at length, by an open and straightforward deportment, removed any false impression which may have existed in the mind of B 66 regarding my motives at the Farringdon Street terminus, I determined to return by the next train; and in order that I might lose no opportunity of seeing 'London Society' in every aspect, underground, I took a second-class ticket half the way back, determining to complete my journey by the third. I found my fellow-passengers more garrulous in these carriages than they had been in the first which I entered. Whether a half-cushioned vehicle encourages conversation more than one which is completely padded, or whether our English notions of 'genteel' reticence are confined to the upper circles, I cannot say, but in the second class, everyone was talking. Half the 'fares' had come in breathless, and were congratulating each other all round on having 'jist' caught the train. After all that has been said in favour of punctuality, its being the 'soul of business' and so forth, I doubt whether those over-precise people who are always to be found everywhere half an hour before necessary, can know the pleasure derivable from just 'saving the post,' catching the Ostend boat only a minute before it starts, or entering a theatre exactly when the curtain rises. There is a sort of triumph in the fact that you have wasted no leisure in attaining your object, that there has been no wearying delay in its accomplishment. There you are, just in the nick of time. The clock hand trembles on to six; the 'departure' bell is ringing on the shore; the last few bars of the overture are being played. Pop in your letter - jump on board - rush to your vacant scat. You are breathless, perhaps, and rather warm; but what matters. You are in time, hurray! I know the feeling of satisfaction which in short, I confess I am an unpunctual man myself.
     The guard had no sooner shut our door than the train was off. At full speed there is a peculiar vibration noticeable on the underground rail. The carriages are too wide and heavy to sway much from side to side, but there is a sort of undulating motion which is due either to the unevenness of the ground or to springs on which they are hung. This did not fail to evoke certain comparisons with the Gravesend boat, &c., among my fellow-travellers, who were also very facetious on the subject of accidents, alluding very pleasantly to the little contretemps which happened shortly after the line was opened, and concerning the particulars of which all appeared to have been credibly informed by 'parties as were in the train at the time.' One gentleman observed that a friend of his - a very decent sort of chap-had received a blow upon one of his 'peepers', 'which, in course, constitooted him,' continued our wag, 'a reglar eye-witness as you may say; but as the Comp'ny had done the handsome thing, and giv him five pounds by way of compensation, he (very wisely) didn't make no fuss about it.'
     A lady on the opposite seat, with a highly horticultural bonnet and a muff which looked like an electrified cat, here remarked that a cousin of her brother-in-law had a friend that knew the medical man who volunteered his advice on the occasion; but either this statement was received with discredit or its connection with the subject was too remote to elicit any general interest, so she did not say anything further.
     A third 'party' then assured us that he had himself only missed catching that very train by half a minute; which fact he seemed to look upon rather in the light of a loss than an advantage, and proceeded to explain that he had acquired, by constant practice, a habit of being generally late for every train, in consequence of having travelled many years on the Slocum and Dragwell line, where no train ever came in until about an hour and a half after it was due, except on one occasion, when it ran down and killed two bullocks by way of asserting its independence.
     When I entered the third-class carriage, I found it occupied by a man in a very loose overcoat and very tight trousers - so tight, indeed, as to give the casual observer an impression that they must be unripped at the scam before he could divest himself of that portion of his dress. This idea almost arose to conviction when one looked at his boots, which were the largest, the most creaseless, and more indicative of bunions than any which I ever noticed on the human foot. After these details, I need scarcely add that he was an omnibus driver, and, indeed, one by whose side it had often been my lot to sit when he was professionally employed in Oxford Street.
     Whether it was in grateful recollection of my cigar case, or because there was no one else to talk to, I cannot say, but he touched his hat and wished me good morning. I immediately, and after the approved English fashion, commented on the state of the weather.
     'Well, it is a fine day, sir,' he answered; 'but law bless you, what's the use o' fine days down 'ere? One day's as good as another for the matter of that. I never see such a game in my life.'
     Presuming that this was a metaphorical way of expressing his contempt for the Metropolitan line, I ventured to ask him whether he found it interfered with his business.
     'Interferes! in course it interferes,' said the charioteer, somewhat testily; 'interferes with every think. 'Tisn't only the 'buses it hinjures: look at trade.'
     'What do you mean?' said I.
     'What do I mean?' cried Mr. 'Busman; 'why, I mean that the shopkeepers on our line won't stand it much longer. How the doose are they to get their goods off now, I should like to know. See what a deal of chance custom they got through the 'buses. Spose a cove wants to get to Lunnon Bridge; well, he goes into Oxford Street to look out for a "Lunnon Genera1."  Spose a "Lunnon General" don't come up exackly at the moment, he's not in a hurry, the cove isn't, but he waits a bit and valks on. Well, in course, by valking on he comes to look in at the shops. Say he sees a 'ankercher in a shop winder - I don't say a cove wants aankercher, but say he sees it - well, praps he likes it. Well, the 'bus ain't come up yet, and if he misses it there's plenty behind. Well, praps he says, "I should like that ankercher," he says, and in he goes and buys it. Well, you can't blame him, you see; it's human natur, and wot's more, it's trade. Now, I ask you, sir, as a gen'leman, can a cove act like that in this 'ere blessed tunnel? In course not; consequently trade suffers.'
     Here I made bold to suggest that the evil he complained of was one which would soon remedy itself, and that the population of London quite sufficient to support both modes of transit.
     'That's all vaa-ry well, sir,' retorted the malcontent; 'but trade is trade. Look here; if a cove--'
     How long he would have gone on I don't know, but at this juncture the train luckily stopped, and I heard the welcome shout of 'Pedding-ton, Pedding-ton,' which announced our arrival at the West End terminus.
     'Do we get out here, please?' asked a little old woman with a plethoric umbrella from a corner of the carriage where she had been dozing.
     'Well, my dear, that depends intirely on your own tastes and inclination,' said Mr. 'Busman, with infinite good-humour, as he opened the door; 'I  dessay the Company'l take you back to Farringdon Street if you wishes it werry particlar, and waits there long enough. All I know is, I've took my first and last ride on this 'ere line. Good morning, sir,' and off he went.
     Such was my experience of 'London Society' underground.

 

     C. L. E. London Society, May 1863

News reports about the cruise ship Costa Concordia are a reminder of one of the great sea disasters, the wreck of the SS Arctic in 1854.

The Arctic was a spectacular ship for its day, a large steam-powered liner with paddle wheels on its sides. It made fast Atlantic crossings and was known for its luxurious appointments.

When it suffered a mid-ocean collision with another ship, panic broke out aboard the Arctic. Members of the crew took lifeboats for their own use, hundreds of passengers were left to drown in the icy north Atlantic, and not a single woman or child survived.

Approximately 350 people perished when the Arctic went down. The news of the disaster traveled by telegraph, and the actions of the crew created a major scandal in the press.

The fate of the 80 women and children aboard the Arctic resonated deeply, and led to the tradition of "women and children first" being adopted in other maritime disasters.

Illustration: Lithograph depicting the sinking of SS Arctic/Getty Images

Read the full article: Wreck of the SS Arctic

---

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Fine day ― but very warm & moist, ― clouds ― & 2 small showers.

Worked at the [S.] Dionysio, which I put on canvass, from 9 ― to 4. Aubrey de Vere came.

At 5 ― went up to the Casino ― to ask after Mrs. D.V. ― met the Lord High ― who said he would come & see me when I wished: he is extremely courteous & kindly always.

Returned at 6.15 ― & penned out till 6.40. Dressed to dine upstairs at 7.

Dinner ― [I sat right of] Craven’s ――― a singular bore except so far as the eating, which was good: only I had rather have eaten dry bread, & escaped the misery. Only Capt. Someone was there ― who was at Boyds’ the other night ― rather a nice fellow: ― but after dinner ― (wine=drinking prolonged with cigars till 9.30 ――) the Captain’s Lace Exhibition was the only tolerable part of life: Mrs. Cravens variations & jigs being painful. I really could not stay after 11.15 ― when they seemed half affronted at my going “so early” “Let us alone?”

Horrible indigestion & sleepless night.

XX5

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

I've been researching night-soil men recently, and it troubled me that I had stumbled upon no first-hand accounts of their work, apart from Henry Mayhew [see earlier post] until I stumbled across this letter, cited in this academic article.

My Dear Sir,

As an illustration of the frequency of the abominable system of cesspools, even in first class streets and towns, I am told on good authority, that in that small space in Piccadilly, near St. James’s Church, now being excavated for the foundation of the Museum of Economic Geology, no less than eight cesspools have been found, besides a large leak from a foul drain. How can a town be healthy with such abominations existing in wealthy districts?

The nightmen are a brutal set of men and fortunate will it be for the public if we can get rid of them. Last Thursday, I went to see an old cesspool emptied, the stuff in which had been accumulating for five years - my object being to inspect a process for disinfection. During the process of empying I saw one of the nightmen actually take up in hand a quantity of the night soil and swallow it ‘to see how it tasted’. After I left I understood, in fact, I have it in evidence under the signature of the nightman himself, one of the nightmen rubbed the night soil into his eyes ‘to see if it acted in the same way on the eyes as common night soil'. Could the chiffoniers of Paris classed among the ‘classes dangereuses’ equal these nightmen in their bestial habits?

Lyon Playfair

1 February 1847

The letter rests in the Edwin Chadwick collection at UCL (whose archivists kindly sent me a copy) and is from the eminent chemist Lyon Playfair, a supporter of Chadwick's sanitary reform agenda. Chadwick [see here for a brief bio] was an energetic but divisive civil servant, the 'architect' of the New Poor Law, and viewed cesspools as one of the great obstacles to improved sanitation in the capital. This letter, therefore, must have been grist to the mill - although one suspects he could never have repeated such a gruesome detail in a public forum.

Yet I rather feel for the 'bestial' nightmen. They had no modern notion of sanitation or hygiene and had been informed that the night-soil had been 'disinfected' by the latest chemical solution. Various 'disinfecting fluids' were being tried out in 1847 - including a 'Monsieur Ledoyen's mixture', one created by Sir William Burnett and 'Ellerman's Patent Disinfecting Fluid'. Unfortunately, these were all based on a Victorian notion of disinfectant - ie. they removed the smell of decomposing excrement - the 'miasma' which was believed to be the chief cause of contagious disease. Some were even poisonous (Ledoyen's mixture contained nitrate of lead, if I recall). If anything, the poor nightmen were simply testing the marvellous new solution - albeit in a rather gross fashion. Were they so 'bestial' as all that?

One of the most interesting things about cesspools that I've discovered is that the wealthy didn't necessarily bother with nightmen. After all, everyone disliked the smell and nuisance of emptying out 'soil' by hand, which is why it was illegal to do so during daylight hours. The solution for the larger properties in Mayfair was simple:-

The public are scarcely aware of the fact that many of the very best portions of the West End are literally honeycombed with cesspools. Many houses have from three to six or seven under them. In some porous neighbourhoods the practice is still when one cesspool is full to arch it over and dig another, to avoid the expense and trouble of removing the soil.

Hence the reference to 'eight cesspools' above. Is there anything that money can't buy, eh?

When we are told something is “Alice in Wonderland inspired,” we all know it can mean many things. In the case of restaurants, for example, it may simply mean that the china doesn’t match. In the case of tennis dresses it can mean anything at all. Spotting the Alice in the “Alice-inspired” can sometimes be a tea-time riddle in itself.

Take the new WordPress website theme called Alice designed by Raygun (single site license $25) – what’s in the name? The design feels neatly combed and dressed, much like our very proper Victorian friend, and the sample color-scheme could definitely be described as “tea party” (with an emphasis on “cupcakes”*). The prominence of gallery and slide-show features in the demo shows that thought has been given to the proper balancing of conversation and pictures – very important, as we know – and Alice is surely an appropriate source of inspiration whenever anything needs to be both “flexible-width” and “responsive,” as the tag line highlights. But is the overall effect “Alice”? Who’s to say? The Caterpillar would probably have an opinion.

A clearer case is made by Lith, a new typeface by Stefan Huebsch. Whenever we see the bold pairing of teapots and rabbit faces we know we are either in the inspirational realm of Alice in Wonderland or Beatrix Potter, but the addition of a single chess piece swings the dial. To be true, the Alice muse at work is strangely furry, and almost certainly mediated by Tim Burton, nevertheless Lith is a typeface that will say “Alice,” whatever else it might be saying at the time.

*Not very Victorian, I’ll admit, but very Alice Moderne.

 

Emblems of Nationhood: Britishness 1707-1901

10-12th August 2012

University of St Andrews

 

Reassessing the Dramatic Monologue in the 19th and 20th centuries:
Browning, Before, Beyond.
Royal Holloway, University of London

28-30 June 2012

Organised by the Browning Society in collaboration with Royal Holloway, University of London, the University of Westminster and the University of the West of England. Supported by the British Association of Victorian Studies (BAVS).

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Isobel Armstrong
Daniel Karlin
Tricia Lootens
Cornelia Pearsall

Over the past two centuries, Robert Browning has been hailed initially as the co-inventor of the dramatic monologue, and more recently, as earlier origins of the genre have been proposed, as its most prominent practitioner. To celebrate the Bicentenary of Browning’s birth, the Browning Society is hosting an international conference to reassess not only Browning’s work in what is arguably the defining genre of his oeuvre, but also the broader practice and theory of the dramatic monologue before, after and during his lifetime.

The conference remit of Browning, Before and Beyond proposes, in the first instance, to discuss the dramatic monologue in relation to Browning and other Victorian practitioners of the genre. The conference seeks to explore the reasons behind the rise of the genre during the Victorian era and the extent to which its formal and generic concerns with issues of performativity and spectacle, identity and subjectivity, text and truth – Browning introduced his Dramatic Lyrics of 1842 as ‘so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine’ – are illustrative of key concerns of the Victorian age.

Further, the conference hopes to extend critical discussion of the growth, profile, and generic nature of the dramatic monologue. The organisers welcome papers on pre-and post-Victorian poets and poems as a means of exploring the historical limits and reaches of the genre. Similarly, papers that explore the generic and disciplinary reaches of the form – its associations with drama, or connections to the Romantic lyric mode, for example – are warmly encouraged.

20-minute papers are invited on any topic relating to the dramatic monologue. Submissions may include, but are not restricted to:

·         new approaches to defining the dramatic monologue and its significance

·         reassessments of established approaches to the genre

·         the origins/ predecessors of the genre

·         Victorian variants of the genre

·         issues of subjectivity and selfhood

·         Post-Romanticism and the dramatic monologue

·         the dramatic monologue and gender

·         the genre’s relation to history

·         hybrid versions of the genre

·         twentieth-century and twenty-first century uses of the genre

·         the dramatic monologue and performance poetry

Conference organizers: Dr Simon Avery, Dr Vicky Greenaway, Dr Britta Martens. Please submit 300-word abstracts to s.avery@westminster.ac.uk by 31 January 2012.

Victorian Thresholds: Between Literature and Anthropology

28 April 2012

The theme for this year’s VSAO conference is “Victorian Thresholds: Between Literature and Anthropology.” The executive invites abstracts for 20 minute papers to be presented at our morning panel. Please send electronic copies of proposals (300-500 words) and a brief biographical statement to Matthew Rowlinson (mrowlins@uwo.ca) by 28 January 2012. Alternatively, hard copies can be sent by mail to Matthew Rowlinson / Department of English / University of Western Ontario/ London, ON CANADA N6A 3K7

Griselda by George W. Joy

Painting of the Day Archive

A charming 4-bedroom cottage called Maple Farm House can be rented on the Highclere Estate. Highclere Castle, as every Downton Abbey fan knows, is the setting for this mini-series, which is currently being shown on PBS on Sunday nights. I imagine this house as a perfect setting for Barton Cottage and the Dashwood ladies. Or [...]

The phrase "forty acres and a mule" represented a promise many freed slaves believed the U.S. government had made at the end of the Civil War. There was widespread hope ...

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