Planet Century 19

Tourism is once again discussed in Brontë Country, as reported by The Telegraph and Argus:

Tourism guardians want to get “under the skin” of the tourist havens of Haworth, Ilkley and Otley.
They want residents to help visitors get a true sense of the places, beyond the likes of the world famous Bronte Parsonage Museum, the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway and Ilkley Moor.
West Yorkshire Tourism Partnership and Welcome to Yorkshire are collecting the information to build up an intimate picture of the areas.
And their inhabitants are being asked to share their ideas of what makes them special and so help to generate more income from visitors. Tony Venables at Venables Bainbridge Books in Main Street, Haworth, said: “There is nowhere else like this place. It’s a bit bohemian. It’s not just the tourist elements – we all know about that.
“What visitors don’t see is the community which is so diverse. It’s attracted a lot of interesting and intelligent people to come and live here – you just have to visit the Fleece pub and speak to locals and you’ll find lecturers, architects, artists and musicians.”
For Barbara Pearson, of Mytholmes, Haworth, who has lived in the area for most of her life, it is the moors and those other areas most visitors do not see. “Like The Goit, a walk along the side of the railway which takes you to Oxenhope. Visitors just don’t get there,” she said.
Nick Hindle, of the Fleece pub, has been a resident for eight years and for him it is the local characters who add spice.
He said: “There are some really interesting people which helps add to the sense of community you get here.”
Project manager Susan Briggs said: “The first part of this is to find out ‘what makes the area special’ from the point of view of the people who know it best – the residents.
“We’re asking for information about quirky or interesting or just favourite things about the area to help tourists really get a true sense of place.
“It may be a great view from an unusual vantage point, a fantastic farm shop or hidden gallery or perhaps a walk that only locals know about.”
The information would be collated to build an intimate picture of the area which would be made available to businesses to help them develop the area’s sustainable tourism, she added.
“Working out the small details that fit together to give the area its character and ‘sense of place’ means that visitors will get a better feel for ‘Pennine Yorkshire’, developing a real affinity for the area and hopefully staying longer and spending more.”
Anyone with a view can e-mail susan@tourismnetwork.co.uk or visit the website knowpennineyorkshire.com.

As opposed to this, though, Fabulous Mag stays rather on the surface of things:

The county is also steeped in culture, and has been home to many a famous face. The literary Bronte family lived at the parsonage in the pretty village of Haworth (www.haworth-village.co.uk) and its cobbled high street now houses an array of one-off shops and cute tea rooms.

Another place of Brontë pilgrimage these days could be Edinburgh, which is currently home to the Wuthering Heights adaptation by Northern Theatre Ballet. As The Herald Scotland says,

Music was the inspiring nudge that led David Nixon to choreograph a full-length version of Wuthering Heights for Northern Theatre Ballet (NBT).
The question has to be asked. Was it the Kate Bush song? Did all those plaintive, high-pitched whoopings of ‘ It’s me-e-e-e, Cathe-e-e-e...’ pirouette into his imagination, make him think that the Emily Bronte novel could translate into two acts of wind-swept love, thwarted happiness, cruel despair and eventual tragedy?
“Do you know, I’ve never heard that song,” he laughs. “Not then, when I’d only just joined Northern Ballet, and was thinking about repertoire and what I might make for the company. And not even now, when we have revived Wuthering Heights and taken it out on tour again. Should I have? Would it have made a difference to the choreo­graphy?” And artistic director Nixon laughs again, because there is, actually, a story behind the music.
He explains that originally the composer Claude-Michel Schonberg – already known for such hit musicals as Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and Martin Guerre – had created the score for another company, another choreographer.
“Claude-Michel wrote the first draft for Derek Deane and English National Ballet. But by the time he’d finished, Deane was no longer with the company. They had a new artistic director, plans had changed, they weren’t interested in doing a version of Wuthering Heights.”
But some quick-thinking person joined up various dots: put Nixon, Northern Ballet Theatre, Emily Bronte and Yorkshire into the same loop and suggested that Schonberg send this, his first-ever attempt at a ballet score, to Nixon.
“As soon as I listened to it, I loved it. Absolutely loved it,” says Nixon. “I started reading the book again – maybe didn’t quite realise how appropriate the Yorkshire connection would be for us... I’d only been with the company a matter of months, I wasn’t thinking in those ‘Leeds-specific’ terms.
“Actually, I was caught up in what direction I should go in with any new choreography. We’d started out with a couple of my existing works, but it was important to do something new for this company I had agreed to direct. By the time I met up with Claude-Michel, I felt sure that I had not just the right music and the right story, but the right cast. And I still look back and think we pulled together a great piece in 2002 – although, being honest with you, the revival we started touring last year has been much more successful with critics and audiences. I’d like to think that’s because we, as a company, are in much better shape – and recognised in terms of what we do, not in terms of what anyone else does.”
It’s a “Heathcliff” moment, this whiff of impatience that NBT’s achievements as a briskly touring company are so regularly rated against what goes on-stage at the Royal Ballet in Covent Garden. Nixon doesn’t seem prone to volatile hissy fits – and yes, it’s tempting to ascribe his affable, courteous style to his being Canadian. But the Canucks’ recent Winter Olympics mindset of “own the podium” is maybe discernible in the way he chafes against the still-prevailing London-centric view that quality diminishes the further away from the capital you train and perform.
“I do think that what we do is of tremendous value to the whole dance scene in Britain,” he says. “And I think our 40th anniversary last year might have brought that home to some people.” And there it is: the ‘home’ word. In the course of this year, NBT will move into their long-awaited, purpose-built home, and Nixon is understandably enthusiastic, relieved.
“We’ve waited and we’ve waited, ” he says. “It was supposedly ready to go forward when I arrived at NBT in 2001. It didn’t. More timelines were put in place. Still nothing. And I’ve been quite upset at how long we’ve had to wait, because the world keeps changing. Plans fall by the wayside, ideas lose their point –the moment goes, the people leave. You’re asking dancers to work in spaces that aren’t properly heated, with facilities that are inadequate.”
The wait, however, will be worth it. Nixon’s undoubted pleasure in the structure can’t be disguised. “It’s stunning. When you stand inside the building, it’s just so... dance-ish. Because it’s all studios. There are offices, tech spaces and so forth but the dominating feature is a stack of dance studios. It really is, I think, a flagship building for the whole community. Something that positions Leeds as a city where dance happens. A city that – and I know opinions will differ on this – can claim to be the country’s top dance city outside of London.”
And that claim, like Schonberg’s score for Wuthering Heights, is very sweet music to Nixon’s ears. (Mary Brennan)

Minnesota Reads uncovers a new Brontëite: author Swati Avasthi.

If your favorite author came to Minnesota, who would it be and what bar would you take him/her to?
I’m not sure Emily Bronte would fit in the Minneapolis bar scene. I’d probably take her up north and try to cheer her up with some of Betty’s Pies and the soothing waters of Lake Superior. (Jodi Chromey)

That's definitely more like her!

Another author interviewed today is Angela Morrison on The Story Siren:

Is there a different genre that you'd like to write?
Maybe one you'd like to stay away from?I DO write other genres. I am revising two very different romantic novels. The first is a historical YA called MY ONLY LOVE inspired by my Scottish coal mining ancestors' emigration story. It is to die for heartbreaking. And the second is a time-slip novel, MY TIME ASSASSIN, that I'm turning upside down. I'm adding a Bronte-esque heroine to the mix. Think, Jane Eyre meets the Terminator--but my assassin ain't no robot.

The Dakota Student includes a strong-principles kind of declaration:

I'd much rather spend time with people who can laugh at Jane Eyre puns than those who think Mitch Albom fills their culture quota. (Erin Lord)

And one of those myths that turn up from time to time: Branwell Brontë dying standing up, this time brought to you by Who2? (And Somerset Maugham, apparently). It was, in fact, one of Mrs Gaskell hearsay stories with not a grain of truth in it.

The Huffington Post mentions in passing Wuthering High by Cara Lockwood. And Modoration says briefly that the Brontë sisters may have been the inspiration behind Chekhov’s The Three Sisters.

On the blogosphere, Luetut 2006-2010 writes about Agnes Grey in Finnish and Serendipity reviews Rachel Ferguson's The Brontës Went to Woolworths.

Categories: Branwell Brontë, Brontëites, Dance, Haworth, Wuthering Heights

X3

Less cold at times ― yet very cold later. Rose late. Cough still bad. ―

Worked ill & restlessly at 2nd Cervara.

To Macbeans ― (for I get no papers now, & go there daily,) & back: & worked till 4. Maj.r Reynolds called. To P. Williams, with him to the Coliseum, & S.J. Laterano, & back. O! beggars! ―― & o! generally what a life is this of Rome! ― Poor George is at times vexed at getting no letters, tho’ he says ― Τὶ θὰ κάμε:¹ He is a truly good simple[-]hearted man, & it will be sad to me to lose him.

Dined alone. Worked at Church’s Damascus. ―

How little progress is made in my pictures! ―

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

1. Lear probably meant τι θα κάνουμε, “what shall we do?” according to Google Translator.

Inquiring Reader: David JC contacted me to let me know he would be blogging about his experiences reading Jane Austens six novels in six months in his new blog, Following Jane.  As he so eloquently wrote -

A complete social experiment. 31. Husband. Father. Friend. Reader.

Over the next 6 months, I’ll only read Jane Austen’s novels.

A solitary book club.

1 book a month between April and September of 2010.

Let’s see what insight I’ll find while following Jane.

I wrote David and asked him a few questions, which he promptly answered.

Why did you decide to concentrate on reading Jane Austen’s novels for six months?

I was driving home the other night and wanted to do something productive, but also something meaningful that would enrich my life. I thought of a list of influential people in life… directors, teachers, historical figures, actors, authors… and then Jane suddenly popped into my head. I wondered what it would be like for the male perspective to read all of her novels and then write about the experience and discoveries. I don’t think it has been done before, and it felt like an interesting challenged.

Have you read any before? if so, what did you think of it/them?

I have read Pride and Prejudice before and was completely intrigued by the relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth (but then again, who isn’t?).

Have you seen the movie adaptations? Which are your favorite?

I have only watched bits and pieces of the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice version… never the entire thing, or any other film adaptations.

I cant wait for David to get started, and will keep you, dear reader, posted.

• Richard Wilkinson Art and Illustrations
• Following Jane

Some new dates in the Northern Ballet Theatre's UK tour with, among others, David Nixon's & Claude-Michel Schönberg's Wuthering Heights:

As children they are inseparable, running wild and free on the moors, but over time their childish affection deepens into an overwhelming love – a devastating force that even death cannot destroy.
Northern Ballet Theatre is one of the UK's leading ballet companies whose dancers' ability to capture the spirit of their characters draws audiences into the story in a way that makes our productions more than just dance.
With an original score by celebrated composer Claude-Michel Schönberg, known for his West End and Broadway hits Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, see this turbulent love story brought to life in Northern Ballet Theatre's adaptation of Emily Brontë's romantic masterpiece.

Read the full scenario for Wuthering Heights. Watch a video here.

Running Time: 2 hours aprx
Creative Team
* Choreography by David Nixon
* Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg
* Orchestrated by William David Brohn
* Additional Orchestration by John Longstaff
* Theatre Associate and Dramaturge Patricia Doyle
* Set design by Ali Allen
* Costume Design by David Nixon
* Lighting Design by David Grill

Edinburgh Festival Theatre
* 11 - 13 March, 2010
Festival Theate, Edinburgh
Evenings: 7.30pm
Sat: 2.30pm

Sheffield Lyceum Theatre
* 16 - 20 March, 2010
Evenings: 7.45pm
18, 20 March, Matinées at 2.00pm

Categories: Dance, Wuthering Heights

George Herbert (1593-1633) at Bemerton by William Dyce

Painting of the Day Archive

Although child labour was to arouse the strongest of emotions during the Victorian Era, it was certainly not a new phenomenon.  In England children had always worked although, while Britain was a primarily agrarian society, much of the work was “hidden,” being in the fields and a part of a family’s work structure. From the middle of the eighteenth century, a number of factors combined to make

The Scotsman devotes an article to the forthcoming performances (March 11-13) of Northern Ballet Theatre's Wuthering Heights production at the Edinburgh Festival:

IT'S A snowy day in Leeds, and the man responsible for the world's longest-running musical is giving advice to the dancers of Northern Ballet Theatre (NBT). They nod appreciatively before resuming their rehearsal, incorporating his comments into their movement.
Yet just a few years ago, Claude-Michel Schönberg was "not interested in ballet". He was far more at home in the world of blockbuster musicals such as Les Misérables, Miss Saigon and Martin Guerre – all three of which he composed. Two things catapulted Schönberg from a ballet virgin to a veritable expert: he was asked to write the score for a dance version of Wuthering Heights and married Charlotte Talbot, a former principal dancer with NBT.
Today, both husband and wife are helping the company restage the show that brought them together. Originally created in 2002, with Talbot in the lead role of Cathy, the ballet takes Emily Brontë's 19th-century novel and transforms it into two hours of passionate dance. Although choreographed by NBT's artistic director David Nixon, it was Schönberg who came up with the initial structure for the piece.
"I was not a ballet expert before, but I thought that the best version would be the simplest one," he says. "So I read the book again and watched the films, and I thought the Laurence Olivier version was the most straightforward and clear in terms of storytelling, so I used that to write the script of the ballet."
It took Schönberg nine months to write the score, working eight hours a day in the south of France."This ballet was a completely new experience for me," he says. "But I looked at a lot of other ballets before I started writing, and I began to understand that it's not miming, it's using the body to express what's happening in the story and the spirituality of the characters." (Read more)
When the curtain rises and Heathcliff sweeps Cathy up into his arms, what's going through Talbot's mind? "Dancing Cathy was absolutely the highlight of my career," she says. "And when I listen to Claude-Michel's music I still feel it in my body. But I don't wish it was me up there on the stage – I just remember the feeling I had back then and I'm happy with that." (Kelly Apter)

China Daily interviews Yang Jia, elected as a model for Chinese working women for 2009 by the All-China Women’s Federation:

She imagined herself as the strong-willed and independent Jane Eyre, who struggles to be her own individual, or as the rich and beautiful Tonia Tumanova from the Russian novel How the Steel was Tempered.
Instead, Yang said, she ended up more like the blind characters in those same books - Jane Eyre's love Mr. Rochester, or Pavel Korchagin, the hero who fought against his disability to achieve success. (Yang Guang)

The Progress magazine talks about International Women's Day.

The anti-feminist nature of our society is to blame for this. It has two main, damaging characteristics: female hypersexualisation, and the idea that women are irrational, illogical and hysterical. The latter is rooted in a long history of literature and language. From Shakespeare's Ophelia to the madwoman in the attic in Jane Eyre, literature's image of the hysterical woman is as stubborn as it is ugly. (Gary Nunn)

Renaissance of Reading interviews Hannah Tinti, Brontëite:

Who were some of your favorite authors growing up and who are you currently reading?
I loved the Bronte sisters. I re-read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights every few years. I am currently reading Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, which just won The Story Prize.

PRWeb reports that the CliffsNotes-To-Go series, including Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, are now available to download on the iTunes Apps store. A teacher who uses Facebook to teach Wuthering Heights in the Jackson Free Press. The Reader Online posts about Anne Brontë's poem The Captive Dove, the Kindred Spirits Book Group announces that April's reading will be Agnes Grey, Spacebeer reviews Wuthering Heights and Randomness and All write with coffee... Jane Eyre.

Categories: Agnes Grey, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Poetry, References, Wuthering Heights

In 1803, a woman named Madame Lanchester of Bond Street, published  ’Le Miroir de la Mode‘. By 1804, scarcely two years after it appeared, the magazine had vanished. (Although The Museum of London has at least one plate published by Madame Lanchester which is dated 1807).  Very little is known about the woman, who had designed for other publications, such as Richard Phillips Fashions of London and Paris.

La Miroir de la Mode was a short-lived, expensive, and large quarto-sized magazine published only from 1803 to 1804, clearly a failed attempt to follow in the footsteps of the defunct Gallery of Fashion, which was also quarto size. The publisher was the famous modiste, Madame Lanchester, who later wrote fashion descriptions and commentary for Ackermann’s Repository. – Word Wenches: Regency Ladies Magazines, Part 3

Ebay is a rich resource for people who are interested  in viewing Regency fashion plates, as this page by Cabrio4 attests. People can purchase their own fashion plates for a reasonable  price, with this particular seller enjoying a reputation of 100% satisfaction. The small image below of a Full Walking Dress  from  ‘Le Miroir de la Mode’, April 1803 (Measures approx: 10.5″ x 8.5″), is extremely rare (and has been sold).

More about the topic

Early Georgian & Regency Fashion Prints to 1806 – Guide written by Cabrio4, eBay seller
Regency Ladies’ Magazines, Part One
Regency Ladies’ Magazines, Part Two
Regency Ladies’ Magazines, Part Three

I’m lucky to have Lancaster University’s Ruskin Library on my doorstep. Its art exhibitions are always interesting and informative, and the current one on ‘Ruskin’s Venice’ (to 21st March) is up to the usual excellent standard, with many fine drawings, etchings and water-colours of Venetian Gothic architecture by Ruskin and his cronies. There’s nearly always a William Morris spin-off too, which in this case takes the form of a display copy of the Kelmscott Press edition of Ruskin’s Nature of Gothic, which Morris describes in that unforgettable phrase as ‘one of the very few necessary and inevitable utterances of our century’.

But the Morris connection reminds me that I would like the Ruskin Library to be utopian as well as historical, to open itself up to zany futuristic artistic and architectural impulses as well as to the sensible scholarly ones it usually embodies in its shows. Could it not, for example, chance its arm with an exhibition of the utopian architecture of German Expressionism (which is certainly in the Ruskin-Morris tradition)? With its ‘Glass Chain’ utopian correspondence between architects in 1919 and 1920, its 1925 compendium of Architecture Which Was Never Built which gathered together the architectural utopias of all periods, with its bizarre projects for ‘architecture plays’ and utopian architectural films full of ‘flame-buildings’, naturally ‘grown’ houses and ray-domes, the exhilarating Gothic modernism of Bruno Taut, Hermann Finsterlein, Erich Mendelsohn and the early Bauhaus might fire up our own utopian imaginings today.

All museums, I think, should aspire to be museums of the future, not just of the past. May the Ruskin Library under its energetic Director Stephen Wildman be bold enough to make a start in that direction!

Dinner from Spillmans.

Slept better, & woke less unwell. ―

Cloudy ― but finer, & with storms, & showers, & some sun, & some sleet, & much cold.

Worked at the 3 Cerbaras all day, except for ½ an hour at Macbeans.

No one came; no letters. Sat.day Review only.

At 5½ called on the Knights ― the 2 Bertie Mathews & Mrs. Caldwell there: ― Mrs. C. says Ancona & the Marches are all to be annexed.

Cold, raw, damp.

Dined alone. No one came: which enabled me to get on with a Jerusalem.

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

THE 2010 VICTORIANS INSTITUTE CONFERENCE

BY THE NUMBERS

October 1-3, 2010
University of Virginia
New submission deadline: April 15, 2010

Conference website: http://www.nines.org/VIC2010

Co-sponsored by The University of Virginia English Department, Rare Books School, and NINES.

Keynote lecturer: Daniel Cohen, George Mason University; author of Equations from God: Pure Mathematics and Victorian Faith, 2007; and director of the Center for History and New Media.

Other confirmed speakers:
Jimena Canales, Harvard University (author of A Tenth of a Second: A History)
Marilyn Gaull, Boston University (editor of The Wordsworth Circle)
Alice Jenkins, University of Glasgow (author of Space and the ‘March of Mind’)
Ellen Rosenman, University of Kentucky (editor of Victorians Institute Journal)

UVA organizing committee: Steve Arata, Alison Booth, Karen Chase, Jerome McGann, Andrew Stauffer, and Herbert Tucker; with assistance from Bethany Nowviskie and Michael F. Suarez, S.J.

This conference has received generous funding support from the Page-Barbour Lecture Endowment at University of Virginia. As a result, we may in a position to provide stipends to offset expenses for selected graduate students and junior scholars. Other plans include the following:

1. a special roundtable with journal editors on the future of scholarly journals in a digital age
2. a special roundtable with university press editors on the monograph and the crisis in scholarly publishing
3. a visit to UVA’s Rare Book School for seminars on C19 materials
4. lunch and coffee breaks provided gratis during the conference
5. a gala Friday evening reception and a wine reception on Saturday evening
6. open house in the Scholars’ Lab, showcasing digital C19 projects

PLEASE SUBMIT 1-2 PAGE PROPOSALS to Victorians.Institute@gmail.com by APRIL 15, 2010.

Recent versions of Gordon & Caird's song Sweet Liberty (from Jane Eyre. The Musical):

Sweet Liberty as performed by Sharon Sexton with the cast of St Mary's Musical Society, Navan, Ireland:	Amy Jo Jackson sings "Sweet Liberty" at Don't Tell Mama's. Feb 2nd, 2010.
The actress Alexei Heinen aka Miss Broadway Dork in a one take quickie:	Eliza Palasz at the Washington Western Regional IE Festival for high schools

Categories: Jane Eyre, Music, Theatre

Mermaids (Whitefish) by Gustav Klimt

Painting of the Day Archive

The Vancouver Sun offers an 'immersion' into the Brontë story. We are just quoting a bit from it but the entire article is worth it:

Their sweeping stories were penned in a two-story parish house surrounded by a graveyard in the bleak, claustrophobic village of Haworth in the Pennine moors of North Yorkshire.
Most of the places that shaped the sad arc of the sisters’ lives are just steps apart in the tiny cobblestone center of Haworth.
The Church of St. Michael dates from 1881, a replacement for the one where their father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, took to the pulpit in the 1820s. Behind it is the tiny parish house ringed by gravestones that, as the novelist Mrs. Gaskell described it, were "round house and garden, on all sides but one." (Gary A. Warner)

Click here to read the entire article.

The Age would like to get into the Brontë spirit but...

And then there's honey, the sunny, Californian character of which surely contradicts the Bronte-novel spirit of porridge-eating. (Robyn Annear)

The New Canaan News reviews a local production of the musical adaptation of The Secret Garden and sums up the story thus:

Burnett's novel, adapted by Marsha Norman for the stage, is replete with 19th-century melodramatic literary themes -- plague in India, an orphan sent to live with a strange uncle in a strange house, ghostly sobs -- in short, similar elements to those that made "Jane Eyre" and its genre popular with the public. (Chesley Plemmons)

La Terrasse has a very interesting post on Shirley, which grabs you right from the start:

There are several unusual things about Shirley, compared with Charlotte Brontë’s other books. (read more)

And David Matthews has also written a worth-your-time post on 'Those Brontë Girls: Life and Art'.

Jane Eyre on the blogosphere today: Coucoumellisms, Histoire de lectures (in French) and Cherralyn. Wuthering Heights is there as well: Things she read (on the 2009 adaptation), Lucis (in Czech) and Jesus Christ walks into a Hotel...

Categories: Haworth, Jane Eyre, Shirley

Ireland in the 19th century was engaged in an epic struggle marked by a series of open revolts and sustained protests against British rule. A trend in revolutionary activity in Ireland which began in the late 1790s essentially lasted until Irish independence was achieved in the early 1920s.

As St. Patrick's Day draws close, it's a fine time to review Ireland's century of rebellion, which began with Robert Emmett's rebellion in 1803, continued through the age of the great Irish patriot Daniel O'Connell, and reached its zenith with the Land League and the era of "Ireland's Uncrowned King," Charles Stewart Parnell.

The unrest in Ireland even spilled over to America, as emigrants determined to return and free their homeland fought in the famed Irish Brigade during the American Civil War. The 19th century was a fascinating time in Ireland, as it was truly a century of rebellion.

Illustration: Charles Stewart Parnell/Library of Congress

Ireland's Century of Rebellion originally appeared on About.com 19th Century History on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 11:07:47.

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Gray cloudy early ― sunny afterwards ― but after 2 P.M. cloud, & then rain & wind & no end of hail, & sleet, & pouring rain.

Cough & cold dreadfully bad.

Worked at M. 3 Cerbara all day, ― save going out to Macbeans, ― & to call on Chomondely [sic], who had brought a letter from F.L. ― & Clark of Trinity.

At 5 it was dark & pouring, so I went to the Forsters, & sate till 6. ―
Dined alone, & read Westminster Review. ―

Afterwards, Reg.d Cholmondeley  came: ― rather wearying as to pictorial discourse.

Letter from Mrs. Scrivens: very nice.

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

The week I spent in New York with my son three Christmases ago was certainly one of the most memorable weeks of my life. It was our first trip out to the Big Apple, and we did many standard tourist things: ice-skating in Central Park and at the Rockefeller Centre, a nighttime ascent of the Empire State Building, a chilly stroll across Brooklyn Bridge, an ice-hockey match in Madison Square, a hike across Harlem to admire Columbia University, the Christmas window displays at Macy’s. My great regret was that the USS Intrepid was not in position as a naval museum that December; I had so wanted to send a postcard of it back to my Uncle Harry, who had served in the Royal Navy in World War Two.

So the memory of that magical winter week comes vividly back as I open Janis Londraville’s collection of the May Morris-John Quinn correspondence: ‘Even though it was January, it was quite unusual for such a great snowstorm to invade New York City. The young lawyer, exhilarated by the company of his lady friend, decided not to attend the reception at Columbia University for the ambassador of England. Instead, he hired a double-seated horse-drawn sleigh, complete with bells, and toured the city with his charming companion. They rode for hours’.

We are still within the centenary of May Morris’s American lecture tour, which lasted from late 1909 to Spring 1910. Personally, the relationship with Quinn caused her much pain: she so clearly wanted it to deepen towards permanence, he very clearly didn’t. Yet intellectually it gave her so much: John Quinn, as a notable patron of modernist writers and painters, must have greatly expanded her own developing sympathies towards modernist art; and as Janis Londraville so truly says, May’s ‘position in early 20th century art and literary circles has been little celebrated’. So when a full account of that hoary but indispensable topic ‘Morris and Modernism’ comes to be written, it will certainly have to include May as well as William himself.

Malin Lindroth's theatre play Bertha M will be performed again in Paris:

Institut Suédois à Paris
Lundi 8 mars à 19h30
Avec la pièce BERTHA M (trad. J. Robnard), Malin Lindroth revisite le manoir du sieur Rochester, l'aristocrate anglais séduit par Jane Eyre, et nous fait découvrir la destinée de Bertha Mason, son épouse légitime, retenue prisonnière à vie et tombée dans la démence. Charlotte Brontë, qui s'inspirait de la vie conjugale de Thackeray qu'elle admirait, aurait-elle aujourd'hui laissé dans l'ombre cette figure tragique d'une épouse répudiée ? (Google translation)
Director Jacqueline Ordas.
With Jacqueline Corado Da Silva.

Categories: Theatre

Illustration to 'Thumbkinetta' by The Hon Eleanor Vere Boyle

Painting of the Day Archive

Laura Marling is interviewed by The Guardian and once again a reference to the Brontës cannot be missed:

She abhors our modern-day sexual sensationalism and the media's destructive obsession with kiss-and-tells and, to boot, is an incurable romantic who loves the heroines of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. (Sarah Boden)

The Observer reviews Beswitched by Kate Saunders:

Flora herself and her new gang of three – sweet, round and rather dim Dulcie, fiercely bright and bossy Pogo and spiky, charismatic Pete (Daphne) – are well-drawn characters whom we care about, especially Pete, who has elements of the Chalet School's Joey Bettany and Jane Eyre's friend Helen Burns and whose hard edges soften in a believable way. (Geraldine Brennan)

Gordon Brown's Brontë background is remembered by The Telegraph (India):

Just before Blair stood aside in his favour, a backbencher, remembering Jane Eyre, begged Blair to think again about “letting Mrs Rochester out of the attic”. (...)
Not everyone believes the respray version, of course. But what has to be admitted is that the more Brown looks like another Brontë character, the strange-yet-strong Heathcliff, the better his party seems to do in the polls. (Ian Jack)

The Washington Post defines Wuthering Heights 1939 in an article about the Oscars as

[O]ne of the great movies of all time, the masterful Laurence Olivier film based on a 19th-century novel[.] (Lisa de Moraes)

We don't understand why Jemila Samerin in The Hindu attributes a quote by Louis de Bernières (from Bird Without Wings) to Emily Brontë. And furthermore, a quote like this one:

“The primary epiphenomena of any religion's foundation are the production and flourishment of hypocrisy, megalomania and psychopathy, and the first casualties of a religion's establishment are the intentions of its founder.”- Emily Brontë.

On the blogosphere, Awesome Alli's Reading Blog and Selina Tng post about Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Jane_Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights

Find examples of Regency dresses and unmentionables in this extensive database by Démodé. The clothes featured in this link are from 1800 through 1830. Examples include corsets, bodices, shifts, underdresses, petticoats, day dresses, spencers, robes, etc, from collections around the world. These images are representative of the Démodé Regency collection.

Quite clear, but not quite as cold: bright. ―

Worked at 2 Cerbaras ― but very unwell.

At 12 went to Macbeans ― (where I go now for papers ― because I have given up my Galignani.[)]

Everything is in a very imbrogliato¹ state. And, privately & particularly, no letter comes from that dilatory Spiro: ― which is vexing.

Packed frames &c &c. this morning.

― Worked again till 4. ―

Then, walked with P.W. ― to P. Pia ― & back by Avellaria, ― now, to day for the first time ― at 6½.

Dined alone: worked at Musters’s Beyroût. ―

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

1. Messy.

An early Victorian tea set of unglazed red earthenware mounted in silver by Josiah Wedgwood that may have belonged to Queen Adelaide (above) is featured in "A History of the World in 100 Objects" organized by the British Museum and the BBC...

John Galliano channels Sherlock Holmes...

The racy love life of a 19-year-old Victorian clerk is serialized online...

Charles Dickens fails to make the grade...

A disease prevalent among the Victorian poor makes an unexpected return...

And finally: The prime minister is inspired by a Victorian poem...

Erin Blakemore's The Heroine's Bookshelf will be published next October (October 19, 2010) by Harper Collins. According to the publisher's website:

The Heroine's Bookshelf
Life Lessons, from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder
Erin Blakemore

The literary canon is filled with intelligent, feisty, never-say-die heroines, and legendary female authors. Like today’s women, they too placed a premium on personality, spirituality, career, sisterhood, and family. When their backs were against the wall, characters like Scarlett O’Hara, Jo March, Jane Eyre, and Elizabeth Bennet fought back—sometimes with words, sometimes with gritty actions. Their commonsense decisions resonate even more powerfully in a world where women are forced to return to the basics, paring down and shoring up their resources for what lies ahead.

In this compelling book of beloved heroines and the remarkable writers who created them, Erin Blakemore explores how the pluck and dignity of literary characters such as Scout Finch and Jo March can inspire women today. She divides these legendary characters into chapters that pair each with their central quality—Anne Shirley is associated with irrepressible “Happiness,” while Scarlett O’Hara personifies “Fight.” Each chapter includes insights into the authors’ lives, revealing how their own strengths informed their timeless characters. From Zora Neale Hurston to Colette, Laura Ingalls Wilder to Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen to Alice Walker, here are some of the most cherished authors and the characters whose incredible spirit continues to inspire readers everywhere.

The section devoted to Jane Eyre is Steadfastness: Jane Eyre.
If you cannot wait to read it, the author is publishing on her blog (The Heroine's Bookshelf) a series of posts fictionalizing Charlotte's first visit to her publisher in London:

Charlotte Brontë in London (Heroine Mini-Series, Part 1)
This is the story of a woman whose work was lambasted as unchristian, immoral, anything but the work of an upstanding lady. She was nervous in temperament and given to moody depression and moments of utter despair, sadness that the unfettered moors of her childhood home heightened. She wore spectacles and had ruddy cheeks and a few missing teeth. And she gave us Jane Eyre, another plain, poor woman who changed the world.
This was Charlotte Brontë, and she’s been on my mind recently for many reasons. (Read more)

Categories: Books, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Constance by Albert Pinkham Ryder

Painting of the Day Archive

In his lively study of Morris in the old ‘English Men of Letters’ series (1908), Alfred Noyes throws down the gauntlet to readers of Morris’s poetry. There is, he claims, only a ‘narrow range of natural objects which he [Morris as poet] will allow himself to mention … The lark and nightingale and a few other birds he will allow; but the bullfinch and the yellowhammer, the white-throat and the herring-gull are all, we may say beforehand, avoided by him as if they were turkeys’. Nine times out of ten in the poetry, Noyes argues, Morris ‘would be content with some such phrase as “the brown bird’s tune”’ (p.45).

Can we rescue Morris from this charge? When Sigurd the Volsung kills the dragon Fafnir in Morris’s epic and tastes the blood of its heart, ‘there came a change upon him, for the speech of fowl he knew’, and he then hears the great eagles prophesying to him. Can we effect such a magical transformation on Morris’s verse itself and show it as being a good deal more sensitive to the variety of bird life than Alfred Noyes allows? We certainly know how attentive Morris himself was to birds and their habitats; for as Cormel Price recorded in his diary on February 22 1883: ‘Spent the evening at Top’s – a long talk on birds: T’s knowledge of them very extensive: can go on for hours about their habits: but especially about their form’.

As far as I know, Noyes’s challenge has not been definitively answered, even a hundred years on. Philip Larkin once wrote an essay entitled: ‘Wanted: Good Hardy Critic’. What we now need, in relation to Morris’s poetry, is a good ornithological critic.

The Denny's Restaurant chain drew criticism this past week for running TV spots which offered free French fries and pancakes in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the end of the Great Famine in Ireland. As you might imagine, people were outraged by what seemed to be a joking approach toward a monumental human tragedy.

A blog item in the New York Times mentioned that the Ancient Order of Hibernians as well as the Irish news media criticized Denny's. Utterly missing the point that a famine simply isn't funny, a spokesperson for Denny's said the company "has a history of using humor in its television advertising."

A story at the Irish Central news site notes that a page on Facebook is urging people to boycott Denny's.

Ad Making Light of the Great Famine Denounced originally appeared on About.com 19th Century History on Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at 22:43:19.

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Vanity Fair interviews Cary Fukunaga whose next project is directing a film version of Jane Eyre. Nothing new is said:

Careful not to repeat himself, Fukunaga, who is half Swedish and half Japanese, made sure to follow Sin Nombre up with a very different project: an umpteenth adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, starring Michael Fassbender and Alice in Wonderland’s Mia Wasikowska.(...)

• Sin Nombre was a very personal project from beginning to end. By following that with an adaptation of Jane Eyre, are you abandoning the idea of always being a writer-director?

I did wonder about that. I think there’s a part of you, especially during your first film, that wonders if you’re going to be someone who just writes his own projects. And I wish I wrote that fast, but considering the amount of movies I want to make in the finite time I have to make films, I wont be able to write all my films.
I eventually want to do writing on all the films, but not necessarily to be the writer. Writing is a painful, painful thing, it really is. (Julian Sancton)

Continuing with this new Jane Eyre film, the Philippine Daily Enquirer interviews (?) Mia Wasikowska who says the same usual stuff about Cary Fukunaga's choice as director. The journalist has some problems identifying the correct Brontë sister, though:

Mia Wasikowska (pronounced “Vah-she-kov-ska”) made a splash as the virtually unknown girl who got the plum title role in Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland.” Yet, here she is, creating more headlines—by bagging the part of the eponymous heroine in the new film version of “Jane Eyre.”
“We begin shooting ‘Jane Eyre’ in March,” announced Mia, who arrived for this interview in a stunning short hairdo. (...)
Speaking in a quiet tone, the girl who first gained attention as the suicidal teenager in HBO’s “In Treatment” elaborates on the umpteenth big-screen version of Emily Bronte’s (sic!!!!!) classic Gothic tale. Cary Fukunaga, who directed “Sin Nombre,” last year’s acclaimed indie film about the harsh realities faced by would-be US illegal immigrants, helms the movie with Michael Fassbender as the tortured Rochester.
Wonderful choice
“It’s faithful to the book, but I think Cary is a wonderful choice as the director,” Mia shared. “He’s not an obvious choice, so he’s going to bring some exciting energy to the movie. I can’t wait to discover for myself what he’s going to do with it!” (Ruben V. Nepales)

The Perthshire Advertiser publishes an article about the current performances of Polly Teale's Jane Eyre at Perth Theatre:

THERE is no need to be familiar with Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel Jane Eyre, assures Perth Theatre director Ian Grieve, whose ambitious production opens tonight.
Ian promises “a spectacle”, devised and performed by creative and talented people in their spheres of acting, music and movement.
He remains tight-lipped on the details of how Bronte’s “wonderfully exciting Gothic novel” is to be injected with a “sense of fun and spectacle” but to whet the appetite he promises a stilted performer (not in the delivery of lines!) and action high in the rafters 40-feet above the stage.
“I wanted to do something with universal appeal which would involve telling a story in a unique way,” says Perth Theatre’s creative director Ian, himself a newcomer to the Jane Eyre novel.
“I did Wuthering Heights about 15 years ago, so I knew some Brontes, but I’d never got round to Jane Eyre.
“I wanted to do something with universal appeal, telling a story in a unique way, and I found Polly Teale’s stage adaptation of Jane Eyre.
“I loved it and felt it gave us the chance to do something we had not done at Perth Theatre before.”
Combining words, movement and music, Ian describes the production as “epic and quite operatic in scale”, adding “I wanted something with stunning appeal for teenagers and a good show for those who’ve never been to a theatre before.” (...)
Jane’s alter-ego Bertha is a constant presence in the play: “She is plain Jane on the outside but the audience also sees what is going on inside. It’s the most ambitious show we have done.”
He describes the run-up opening night as “challenging, exhausting but also exciting.”
“The set does special things. We’ve taken risks but we’ve also created something incredibly exciting.”
The multi-talented team includes a number of new faces to Perth Theatre as well as local talent of the highest calibre.
Perth’s Tom McGovern returns as Rochester; music is by Iain Johnstone of the award-winning Wee Stories Theatre Company. Also back are Jon Beales, one of the main forces behind PFT’s 2009 smash hit Whisky Galore – A Musical!; and acclaimed set designer Ken Harrison.
Newcomers to Perth include movement director Lisi Perry, based in Liverpool, who brings two movement specialists to Jane Eyre – Kath Duggan as Jane and Vanessa Cook as the alter ego Bertha.
And Perthshire teenager Beth Duncan is having an amazing introduction to the world of professional theatre, taking the part of Adele, the child to whom Jane is governess.
Ian concludes: “Hopefully, what we have created will enthral Perth theatre-goers in the execution as much as it has thrilled us in the preparation, capturing, for stage and for a modern audience, the intensity and passion of Bronte’s work.” (Alison Anderson)

Elaine Showalter reviews for The Guardian Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds by Lyndall Gordon:

The great Dickinson family drama reached its height in 1882, only a few years before Emily's death. By the mid-1850s she had become a virtual recluse at the Homestead. There she maintained her intimate friendship with Sue, who lived next door at the Evergreens, the home Edward Dickinson had built for his son's family. For many years, Emily crossed the little path between the houses, reading her poems to Sue, and giving her hundreds to keep. Sue, in return, gave her books by British women writers – Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot.

La Nación (Argentina) reviews both the aforementioned book and The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson by Jerome Charyn:

Ajustados a la realidad o no, lo más interesante es que ambos libros reflejan una obsesión contemporánea por rellenar las lagunas en lo que se sabe sobre la vida de las escritoras y el deseo sexual que tan decorosamente escondían en el siglo XVIII y XIX.
Las hermanas Brontë y Jane Austen ya han recibido este tratamiento en Gran Bretaña, y para ellas los críticos señalaron algo que quizá pueda aplicarse ahora: nuestra necesidad de que hayan sido feministas, rebeldes o heroínas modernas, a la vez más y menos complicadas de lo que probablemente fueron. (Juana Libedinsky) (Google translation)

Jane Smiley reviews Claire Harman's Jane's Fame in The Globe and Mail and reminds us of how

Lord Alfred Tennyson loved her [Jane Austen] and Charlotte Brontë did not.

By the way, The Globe and Mail also interviews her. The interviewer has decided to change the name of the Brontë expert Lucasta Miller:

What do you think had sparked the current interest in the history of reputation such as we see in Jocasta Miller's (sic) The Brontë Myth and Francine Prose's recent book on Anne Frank's afterlife?

Bookreporter reviews The Infinities by John Banville:

Adam “fears premature burial” and considers death “the age-old inquisition.” His daughter Petra, the “loony sister” of young Adam, manages the care of their father at Arden House, a magnificently described estate rivaling Wuthering Heights. (L. Dean Murphy)

El Diario de La Rioja (Spain) goes a bit too far considering Lone Scherfig's film An Education a sort of bastard Jane Eyre adaptation:

Hornby no oculta que la inspiración le llegó leyendo a Charlotte Brönte, y se refiere constantemente al personaje de Peter Saarsgard nominándolo como Sr. Rochester, por si nos cupiesen dudas de que 'An education' se trata en realidad de un amago de adaptación bastarda de Jane Eyre en la que se cruzan pasajes autobiográficos de la periodista Lynn Barber. (Josu Eguren) (Google translation)

The German Der Tagesspiegel also mentions the Jane Eyre references in the film:

In „An Education“ träumt Jenny davon, Englisch zu studieren, in Oxford. Und nimmt in der Schule gerade „Jane Eyre“ durch, die Liebe der Gouvernante Jane zum rätselhaften Mr. Rochester. (Christina Tilmann) (Google translation)

And the Polish artPapier goes further entitling its review Być Jak Jane Eyre? (How to be Jane Eyre):

Już w prologu filmu widzimy fragment lekcji języka angielskiego, podczas której Jenny i jej koleżanki, pod kierunkiem panny Stubbs (Olivia Williams), interpretują powieść Charlotte Brontë „Dziwne losy Jane Eyre”. Słynna romantyczna opowieść o skromnej guwernantce, która zakochuje się ze wzajemnością w mrocznym lordzie Rochesterze, niemal od początku prezentuje się jako istotny kontekst historii Jenny. I nie chodzi tutaj tylko o analogie fabularne (zamożny, fascynujący, ale skrywający ciemne tajemnice mężczyzna, pragnący związać się z młodą, niedoświadczoną, ale inteligentną, dobrą i wnoszącą do jego życia powiew świeżości kobietą). „Dziwne losy Jane Eyre” powinny w zasadzie stanowić ostrzeżenie dla Jenny, która – będąc bystrą interpretatorką – nie zauważa, iż w snutej przez Brontë historii związku młodej kobiety i dojrzałego mężczyzny sporo jest niepewności i mroku. Przede wszystkim jednak „Dziwne losy Jane Eyre” stanowią kontrapunkt, kontekst negatywny dla historii Jenny. Spod romantycznej opowieści w filmie Scherfig wyziera bowiem prawdziwe życie, wraz ze swymi brudnymi, małymi sprawkami, skrzętnie zamiatanymi pod dywan. I to właśnie w tej szarej, często przykrej rzeczywistości, a nie w świecie romantycznych wizji, Jenny będzie musiała odnaleźć swoją ścieżkę. (Magdalena Kempna) (Google translation)

The Independent has an article about Gloria de Piero, former political editor of GMTV, now Labour candidate and the one behind the whole Heathcliffgate.

To add to the mix she is also reported to have been "fancied" by Tony Blair, and to be the candidate of choice of Gordon Brown who she once compared to the brooding Heathcliff, to the Prime Minister's amusement. (Jonathan Brown)

Patrick Modiano confesses to Le Monde his love for Wuthering Heights:

Il aurait aimé, lui, être l'auteur d'un seul livre : un grand roman d'amour plutôt, à la campagne de préférence. Ecrire l'un de ceux qu'il a aimé lire et se débarrasser, une fois pour toutes, du souci d'écrire. "Un seul livre... ç'aurait été mon rêve. Par exemple Le Guépard... J'ai toujours été fasciné... Il est mort... Après c'était fini... Je pensais qu'il y avait une sorte de sérénité... Qu'on n'avait plus envie... Qu'on était libéré..." Le Guépard, Les Hauts de Hurlevent aussi. "Un seul livre, ça prend une résonance... Moi, c'est pas pareil..." (Marie Desplechin) (Google translation)

Daughters reading Jane Eyre in the South Washington County Bulletin and a librarian Brontëite in Southeast Missourian, the Boston Globe announces some ComCast On Demand Movies, including Jane Eyre 1996:

An intelligent version of the Charlotte Bronte classic starring Charlotte Gainsbourg as the enduring heroine and William Hurt as the tormented gentleman for whom she falls. Lacks the boldness and passion that made the novel a landmark of the Romantic era. (PG; runs through March 11)

A young actress uses a Jane Eyre monologue for her auditions in the Sidmouth Herald, another Brontëite in the Democrat & Chronicle, Writ Lit Drip briefly dissects Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights, Libri et Libertas discusses Wide Sargasso Sea, Thirsty Imagination includes Rochester in its theory of brooding, Little Augury illustrate some pictures of a Christian Dior fashion show with Wuthering Heights quotes and TRCB reviews Jane Eyre.

Finally, an alert for readers who are interested in Juliet Gael's upcoming novel Romancing Miss Brontë. Random House is giving away advanced copies (while supplies lasts). More information here. BrontëBlog has its own and will publish a review near the actual publishing date (April 27).

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Theatre

Monster lit is a recurrent topic for news outlets. USA Today looks at forthcoming books of the genre and among them,

In Sherri Browning Erwin's Jane Slayre (Gallery Books), hitting stores April 13, Charlotte Brontë's plain Jane Eyre is an indomitable zombie killer.
The story: Jane is a vanquisher of demons as well as an excellent governess.
Otherworldly villains: Werewolves, vampires, zombies.
Weapons of choice: Wooden stakes, scimitar, saber.
Little-known fact: Rochester's wife is a werewolf. (Carol Memmott)

EDIT: The Little Professor has her own suggestion:

Charlotte Bronte, Vampire. For the first time, it can be told why Charlotte Bronte outlived all of her siblings...

Another recurrent topic is Twilight, of course. On Line Opinion tries to find out why vampires have always been able to 'obsess' readers. In order to do that, a look at 'flawed' heroes is apparently necessary:

Our heroes have always been flawed. Heathcliff was a vengeful misanthrope with necrophiliac tendencies. Mr Knightley was an annoying elitist who belittled his heroine. Mr Darcy was essentially a bad tempered snob. And let’s not get into Mr Rochester and his poor mad wife in the attic. Yet despite their vices, at least in the past we could count on our heroes to at least be human. Today it seems that every protagonist of note has fangs and a healthy appetite for human blood. (Kirsten Oakley)

The Irish Times has an interesting article on Alice in Wonderland (and not just the latest film) where Lewis Carroll's opinion of Wuthering Heights is quoted:

Carroll, the quiet, Oxford University maths don, who never married and was wary of Wuthering Heights – “it is of all novels I ever read the one I should least like to be a character in myself” – created a surreal world rooted in logic and shaped by a prevailing sense of order and an awareness of menace that comes from within. (Eileen Battersby)

A well-known Brontëite, Siri Hustvedt writes about insomnia for The New York Times:

I was 13 when I had my first bout of insomnia. My family was in Reykjavik, Iceland for the summer, and day never really became night. I couldn’t sleep, and so I read, but the novels I was reading only stimulated me more, and I would find myself wandering around the house with rushing fragments of Dickens, Austen or the Brontës whirring in my head.

Blogs for today: The Book Blog of Evil and Looking for Mr Goodbook (in Swedish) both post about Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre. And Scoutie Girl confesses to having become obsessed by Jane Eyre recently.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

The Aberdeen Press and Journal announces the opening of Polly Teale's Jane Eyre at Perth Theatre (Scotland):

A THEATRICAL adaptation of the Charlotte Bronte classic Jane Eyre opens at Perth Theatre today.
The Horsecross Arts production is based on Polly Teale’s stage adaptation of Jane Eyre and centres on the idea that there is more to Jane than her sensible exterior.
Her more passionate nature reveals itself once she arrives at Edward Rochester’s house to take up the post of governess to his daughter Adele.
The production combines music and dance and is directed by Ian Grieve.
Mr Grieve said: “With Jane Eyre, we are embracing a range of skills and storytelling techniques that have introduced the theatre team to some new and exciting ways of working.
“Hopefully, what we have created will enthral Perth theatre-goers in the execution as much as it has thrilled us in the preparation, capturing, for stage and for a modern audience, the intensity and passion of Bronte’s work.”
The production brings a number of new faces to Perth Theatre.
Kath Duggan plays Jane, Vanessa Cook plays Bertha, Vari Sylvester is Mrs Reed, Hywel Morgan is Brocklehurst, Kate Cooley and Rachel Entwhistle are Abigail and Bessie.
Rochester is played by Tom McGovern and the production also features Perthshire teenager Beth Duncan, who is making her professional stage debut as Adele.
Jane Eyre runs at Perth Theatre from Friday until March 20.
Tickets are available from the Horsecross Box Office on 01738 621031 or by visiting http://www.horsecross.co.uk/

And another Brontë-related production will be in Scotland soon, but in Edinburgh this time. Northern Ballet's take on Wuthering Heights, as The List says.

There are no shortage of love affairs in the annals of English literature, but few burn with the passion of Cathy and Heathcliff. The tragic hero and heroine of Emily Brontë’s 19th century novel Wuthering Heights have been lifted from page to stage and small screen many times over the years. And now, courtesy of Northern Ballet Theatre (NBT), that tumultuous relationship is being brought to life through dance.
Choreographed by NBT’s artistic director, David Nixon with an emotive score by Claude-Michel Schönberg (of Les Miserables and Miss Saigon fame), Wuthering Heights the ballet ends mid-way through the novel, after Cathy’s death. It’s an emotional scene – especially when the dancers involved are real-life partners, as California-born Martha Leebolt discovered when she played Cathy opposite her boyfriend Christopher Hinton-Lewis in 2009.
‘It was awesome,’ recalls Leebolt. ‘At the end when Cathy is dying on the bed, it was just so sad. We were both crying and really in the moment, and I remember thinking we’d better make sure we make that last lift!’ Due to Leebolt incurring an injury, the couple were only able to perform ten shows together – and sadly, now that’s she’s fit again, Hinton-Lewis has suffered a similar fate. But as Leebolt says, no matter who plays Heathcliff, ‘when the music and choreography come together, you can really feel it, even if you’re not dancing with your real partner.’
For Leebolt, taking on the role of the strong-headed but loving Catherine Earnshaw has been a fantastic challenge. ‘I really love the character,’ she says. ‘She’s not just a normal romantic heroine, it’s like playing two characters in one show because her personality is so wide ranging. There are good and bad points about her as a person, but as a role to play for two hours it’s pretty exciting.’
Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Thu 11–Sat 13 Mar (Kelly Apter)

The Khaleej Times interviews Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor:

Your take on love.
I believe in it and love reading Wuthering Heights again and again. The ideal man for me is someone like Clarke Gable in Gone With The Wind or Darcy in Pride and Prejudice with his passion and dry sense of humour. I like men who have a politically incorrect sense of humour.

Heathcliff definitely has a politically incorrect sense of humour.

Willamette Week reviews the latest Alice in Wonderland and mentions Jane Eyre, though not in connection to Mia Wasikowska's future project.

Like the writers of the recent Sherlock Holmes movie, Disney scribe Linda Woolverton takes a beloved fish and fries it up with the greasiest English nationalism. While Sherlock became a sadistic mix of Oscar Wilde and James Bond, Alice has grown into the female equivalent, Jane Eyre as The Woman Who Would Be King. She flees from an arranged marriage into the Wonderland she forgot. (Alistair Rockoff)

A couple of blogs for today: Imagin 'Erre writes about Jane Eyre in French and Reina de Hielo writes about Wuthering Heights in Spanish.

Categories: Brontëites, Dance, Jane Eyre, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

Interlaken 4

Rose late. High wind, bright, cold.

Cold in head odious.

Worked badly at Interlaken.

To Macbeans ― . ― Yesterday ― Mr. Holland, riding out with C.K. fell, & broke his jaw. ― Williams dined yesterday at a Miss Whites ―: after dinner, some dispute arose between their servant, a Tuscan, & the people of the house, ― who stabbed him badly. ― Last night at 5 P.M. an American was stopped at the end of the Condotti, & his watch stolen. And 3 men have been stabbed by those who won’t have cigars smoked.¹ ― Quite enough “movement” for one day!

I had the remaining boxes downstairs.

Worked a little at the other Cerbaras. Reilly came, & I went with him to his studio.

Later, walked with P.W.

Dined alone, & worked at Musters Lebanon.

Little sleep all night ―

X2

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

1. The prohibition of smoking cigars was a form of protest against foreign occupation during the Italian Risorgimento.

A new chance to listen to Philip Wilby's Brontë Mass (with a new orchestration for choir and brass band):

Exultate Singers
Choral & Brass Spectacular with the Flowers Band
Colston Hall, Bristol
Saturday 6th March 2010 at 7.30pm

Expect an exhilarating evening's entertainment from City of Bristol Choir, Exultate Singers and one of the UK's top brass bands, Gloucester's Flowers Band. Under the direction of conductors David Ogden and Paul Holland, they join forces to perform Philip Wilby's Brontë Mass - combining the poetry of the Brontës with the words of the Latin Mass, in a stunning work full of bold, romantic, sonorous textures.
The second half of the concert is packed with spectacular and uplifting music from the films and the brass band world.
A selection of suites from film scores by John Williams, the world’s most successful film music composer, is combined with the music from James Bond, Brassed Off, and The Mission.
In the world of brass band music, Paul Lovatt Cooper is one of the most sought-after composing talents of his generation, and his piece Walking With Heroes needs to be heard to be believed - this is brass band music at its most flamboyant and uplifting.
All this will be memorably performed by one of the UK’s leading brass bands in collaboration with 120 singers.
Come and enjoy feel-good music for the start of Spring - don’t miss this unique event in Bristol’s musical calendar.

Programme includes

• Philip Wilby’s Brontë Mass (premiere of orchestration for choir and brass band)

Categories: Music

Falls of Tivoli by William Linton

Painting of the Day Archive

Once upon a time green paint literally killed people. In 1814 in Schweinfurt, Germany, two men named Russ and Sattler tried to improve on Scheele’s green, a paint made with copper arsenite. The result was a highly toxic pigment called emerald green. Made with arsenic and verdigris, the bright green color became an instant favorite with painters, cloth makers, wall paper designers, and dyers. The first commercial British arsenic was produced at Perran-ar-Worthal in 1812, and at Bissoe in the Carnon Valley in 1834. Their product appealed to the Lancashire cotton industry which used the chemical in pigments and dyes. It was also used by other industries such as glass manufacture (as a decolouriser), in the production of lead-shot, leather tanning, soaps, lampshades, wallpaper manufacture (to create green and yellow print), pharmaceuticals, agriculture for sheep dips, children’s toys, candles, a highly effective rat poison, etc.*

“Manufacture of [emerald green] began in 1814 at the Wilhelm Dye and White Lead Company of Schweinfurt. It was more popular than Scheele’s green and was soon being used for printing on paper and cloth; it even coloured confectionary. –  The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison, John Emsley

“…its poisonous nature was revealed. Manufacturers then changed the recipe, adding other ingredients to lighten the colour, and changing its name accordingly in an effort to disguise its true nature.” – Murder, Emsley

“The leaves of artificial flowers in particular were coloured with various arsenic greens and they were very popular in Victorian households. The industry making them employed hundreds of young girls, who suffered accordingly from chronic arsenic poisoning…at a banquet held by the Irish Regiment in London in the 1850’s the table decorations were sugar leaves coloured by them. Many of the diners took these home for their children to eat as sweets and several deaths ensued. At another dinner in 1860 a chef was eager to produce a spectacular green blancmange and sent to a local supplier for green dye. He was given Scheele’s green and three of the diners later died.” – Ibid

Wallpaper made with Scheele’s green was deadly, By 1830, wallpaper production had risen to 1 million rolls a year in the UK, and by 30 million in 1870. Tests later revealed that four out of five wallpapers contained arsenic. Leopold Gmelin (1788-1853), a famous German chemist, suspected as early as 1815 that wallpaper could poison the atmosphere. He noticed that the substance gave off a mouse-like odor when the paper was slightly damp. Gmelin warned people to strip their rooms of the paper and advocated banning Scheele’s green, but he was too far ahead of his time.

In 1861, Dr W. Fraser tested wallpaper that contained arsenic.The threat, he said, came from breathing the dust of the papers, especially flocked wallpaper. The warnings went unheeded, and by 1871, arsenic production had increased to the point that Britain had become its largest producer and consumer. An addition of a small amount of arsenic, for example, would neutralize iron in glass and give it a green tint. ”Potassium chromate (K2CrO4) is yellow and this colour can be imparted to certain glasses. To produce emerald green glass in which a yellowish cast has to be avoided the addition of tin oxide and arsenic is necessary.” (Substances used in the making of colored glass.)

Soon arsenic was exported for the making of pesticides in the United States. Health considerations did not end the use of arsenic-laced wallpaper. By the 1870’s synthetic green dyes began to replace arsenic, and fewer people were placed in danger by its poisonous gases. Experiments at the end of the 19th century proved that arsenic pigments in damp or rotting wallpaper were lethal. The mold that grew on damp wallpaper emitted a toxic odor that smelled of garlic.

The French painter Cezanne had an affinity for using paris green, and it might have been no coincidence that he suffered from severe diabetes. The pigment had a tendency to turn black when exposed to heat and thus it did not become universally popular with artists. Even with scientific evidence of its highly toxic nature, production of emerald green paint was not banned until the 1960’s.

More on the topic

via Elizabeth Denlinger, curator of  The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle at the NYPL:

The New York Public Library is delighted to announce the availability of up to ten fellowships to support visiting scholars pursuing research in the Library’s Dorot Jewish Division; Manuscripts and Archives Division; Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs; or Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle.  Fellowships will range from $2,500 to $3,000.

Scholars from outside the New York metropolitan area engaged in graduate-level, post-doctoral, or independent research are invited to apply.

Applications must demonstrate how The New York Public Library’s collections are essential to the research proposed, and successful applicants are expected to contribute a report on their findings, suitable for posting to the Library’s website, at the conclusion of their research.

Applicants who are neither United States citizens nor entitled to work in the U.S. will be responsible for arranging their own visas. Fellowships will be handled as reimbursements when this is required due to the awardee’s visa status.

Applications must be received by April 1, 2010, and should include:
Cover letter
Curriculum vitae
Outline of proposed research and indication of Library holdings to be used
(not more than 1,000 words)
Outline budget for travel and per diem expenses
Proposed dates to be spent in residence
One letter of recommendation

Application materials, including letters of recommendation, may be submitted by e-mail in PDF format (the preferred submission method) to jbaumann [at] nypl.org.

Awards will be announced April 30.

The official site (with all the above info and more) is here:

http://www.nypl.org/short-term-research-fellowships

Also, look here for more info on the Pforzheimer.

Sent letters to W.H. Hunt, & Lady Bethell.

Interlaken. 3.

Unwell more or less all day.

Letters from E.T. ― AT does not come. ―

And from Fanny Coombe.

Worked at Interlaken.

Went to Macbeans. ― Mr. Fields called.

Cold wind, & cloudy.

Called on Williams at 5, & on the Knights.

Dined alone. Bed early.

Cold bad.

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

THOMAS BARRY, SHOWMAN

I've mentioned the case of Thomas Barry before here but there's a much fuller account of his court appearance which I've just posted to the site. If you've wondered what fun was available on the Whitechapel-road on a Saturday night, read below. A great insight into the Victorian entrepreneur. Bear in mind Jack the Ripper's last murder was in November 1888 ... a mere three months before Mr. Barry was prosecuted for using 'representations' of the murders to draw people into his sideshow (I think we're talking about drawings, rather than wax-works, although I may be wrong).

A PENNY SHOW

Thomas Barry, a showman, was indicted at the Central Criminal Court, on Tuesday, before the Recorder, upon the charge of creating a nuisance y exhibiting figures illustrating a show, and thereby causing idle people to assemble and remain in the Queen's highway. Mr. Poland, Q.C., and Mr. Gore prosecuted for the Whitechapel District Board of Works, and Mr. Purcell defended.
Mr. Poland, in opening the case, said that the defendant was the proprietor of a show at 106 and 107, Whitechapel-road, and the inhabitants thereabouts had complained of the nuisance caused by the show. I had been the custom of the defendant to exhibit outside the place representations of the Whitechapel murders of "Jack the Ripper", various fat people and dwarfs, and all kinds of monstrosities. There was a waxworks inside, and boxing and other performances went on. The price of admission was a penny. Noises were made outside to attract audiences, and large crowds assembled, obstructing the thoroughfare, and causing, he contended, a nuisance.
A number of witnesses were then called in support of the case for the prosecution. It was stated that a piece called Maria Martin was played, and also Cartouche, the French Jack Sheppard. Each show lasted about twenty minutes to half-an-hour, and the shows followed each other in succession as audiences were collected. There was shouting when an audience was being gathered, and then large crowds were attracted. The showman outside called out that there was a "bearded woman" to be seen inside, and that this woman was caught by Buffalo Bill, and, having long hair and a beard, she represented "half a gorilla and half a woman." There was an imitation policeman in wax outside. There was a fat French woman exhibited inside, and it was stated that she weighed 39st. 11lb., and measured 8ft. around her shoulders, and one of her garments was exhibited outside to show its size. The announcement was also made that there was a "female champion boxer" who boxed three rounds with a tall soldier.
Police-constable 28 J.R. proved that as many as 200 people had assembled outside the show premises at one time. The pictures that attracted most attention were those relating to the Whitechapel murders, exhibited at shop No.106. One picture showed six women lying down injured and covered in blood, and with their clothes disturbed.
Police-inspector Cudmore stated that many known thieves loitered among the crowd and gathered outside the premises, and a large number of persons were arrested near the spot for pocket-picking and larceny.
Henry Tate, in the employ of Mr. Hunt, a cheese-monger of 108 and 109 Whitechapel-road stated that the shop, No.107, was principally used as a "ghost show." Various pieces were played there, including Sweeney Todd. The showman outside kept calling out till the "house" was filled and performers in stage dress appeared every time they wanted to "draw the house full."
Mr. Poland read a petition, signed by a number of residents in the neighbourhood, which had been presented to the Whitechapel District Board, complaining of the show as an injury to trade and a nuisance to the inhabitants.
Mr. Purcell put in a counter-petition, signed by forty-three other inhabitants of the locality, saying that the show was not the least nuisance to them.
Further evidence was given in support of the prosecution by a number of inhabitants living close to the defendant's premises. It was stated that trade had fallen off in consequence of the crowds that gathered.
Mr. Johnson, a vestryman, said that in connection with the show there had been a barrel-organ grinding, a fog-horn blowing, and a gong being beaten. The organ, however, was done away with about four months ago.
Mr. Purcell, for the defence, said that the business carried out by the defendant was not one that contravened the law at all. The pictures with reference to the Whitechapel murders were removed a long time ago. He contended that the defendant had not conducted his legitimate business in such a way as to make him amenable to the law. The defendant did not want people to stare outside, but to go into the show, and the roughs and pickpockets who gathered outside were as much a nuisance to him as to his neighbours.
Witnesses were next called for the defence, being persons living in the neighbourhood, who stated that the defendants business was not a nuisance to them. It was stated that, besides stalls along the road, there was in the thoroughfare a seal and crocodile show under canvas, a cocoanut-shying stand, kinfe-ringing stands, shooting galleries, men drawing teeth and selling corn-plaisters, and these caused equally large crowds to assemble.
The defendant was called as a witness on his own behalf. He said that for the two shops he paid £245 a year rent. As far as possible he had diminished the noise made to attract people, and he wished to carry on his business with as little annoyance to others as possible.
In answer to Mr. Poland, the defendant said he could not carry on his business if he discontinued having a showman at the door to call out. He could do without pictures, but it was necessary to show the performers to attract the public.
After a long consideration, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. Mr. Poland said that there was a similar case against a man named Lindley arising in the same neighbourhood. The defendant Lindley said that he would plead guilty.
Mr. Poland then suggested that both defendants should be allowed to go no their own recognisances to come up for judgment if called upon, and if the inhabitants of the locality were satisfied that there was no further nuisance no more would be heard of the matter. The only object of the prosecution was to stop a nuisance.
The Recorder adopted this course and the defendants were discharged on entering into their own recognisances in the sum of £100 each to come up for judgment if called upon.

The Era, February 9, 1889

Reza Hammedi's Les Soeurs Brontë dance piece, first premiered in 1993, will be performed today, March 5, in Vichy (France):

Ballet Jazz Art
Les Soeurs Brontë
Choreography: Raza Hammadi
Music: Leoš Janáček

Opéra de Vichy, March 5, 20:30 h

La Montagne gives some more information about the show:

Sa pièce Les Soeurs Bronté s'inspire de l'univers familial et de l'oeuvre littéraire romanesque. Le chorégraphe a choisi de mettre sous l'éclairage le rapport de domination du père et la complicité des soeurs et du frère dans une danse lyrique. (Google translation)

Categories: Dance

Morning Music by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Painting of the Day Archive

DICKENS ON STAGE

Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Andersen feature in a new play at the Hampstead Theatre, entitled Andersen's English. Here's a Youtube trailer:



And here's the website ... the show opens in April.

Articles

Book Reviews

The Classics Circuit is taking a Georgette Heyer Tour this month. I thought I would piggyback in a circuitous way, and add my own reviews where they fit in. Such fun! For those who have not read Georgette’s sparkling novels, mostly set during the Regency era, you have missed a treat. Although Ms. Heyer’s writing lacks the depth of Jane Austen’s novels, they are historically accurate and largely FUN to read. Going backwards, here is a recap of the first four days of the tour (I am including only the novels set in the Regency era), with my own reviews thrown in:

March 4  Sparks’ Notes Review: Friday’s Child, My Review of Friday’s Child

March 3 Michelle’s Masterful Musings Review: Devil’s Cub

March 2 Enchanted by Josephine Review: Beauvallet

March 1 Austenprose Review: Georgette Heyer’s Regency World by Jennifer Kloester

March 1 One Librarian’s Book Reviews Review: Frederica; My review of Frederica

Very fine ― tramontana ― quite clear. Wrote to Lady Bethell.

To church ― wh. was fuller than usual, ―: 8 or 10 F. soldiers, “Προτεζᾶντ.”¹ But Mr. Burgon’s sermon, on Isaac, Jacob, & Rebekah, bored me awfully ― being vastly foolish & colloquial; ― & afterwards he gave a “personal address” ― in what seemed to me at best very questionable taste. ― But, coming out, Macbean greatly differed with me: ― home ― & then called on Miss Cushman ― out. Home again & wrote to A. Seymour. ― Capt. Jameson came, & with him I walked to P. Salara, & over Antennæ, & back by the Tiber, & in the Borghese. A good hearty fellow. ――

Dressed, ― (Giorgio late ― having lost his way.) & to the Knights. Isabella very poorly ― ill: & Helen not much better. ― E.B. Mathew also there. Dinner, silent, se non per me.² Afterwards, livelier. Talk of the Colchester House, ˇ[Mannock?] Hall lived in by the L.K.s ― very queer: secret passages: poison &c. Came away at 10½.

Note from Miss Cushman ― very kind.

Giorgio ― “che volete, ― che abbia da scrivere sempre?”³ & his idleness after a long walk: ― wery like a schoolboy.

XXX1

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

1. Protestant.
2. Except for me.
3. Well, and would you want me to be writing all the time?

EBOOKS

This is a rare publishing-industry post, as I try to keep this blog fairly Victorian. Nonetheless, I have a question for published novelists and book people out there ...

What's a reasonable rate for ebook royalties?

My original contracts with [a certain publisher] had a nice theoretical 50% (although they never actually published anything electronically).

Now, when they might actually publish books as ebooks, with the emergence of the Kindle et al., they want to reduce to 15%.

This is more about curiosity than cash because my books are not massive sellers; and I'm no longer with [a certain publisher] so they won't be promoting me in any serious way; and I'm not trying to work out any kind of negotiating position (I don't really have the leverage - it will be take it or leave it). Really, I'm just plain curious.

The standard rate for paperback royalties is around 7%+ ... is there a standard rate emerging for ebooks?

If you saw the above work and thought “Bougeureau,” you could be forgiven. Hugues Merle (French, 1823-1881) is in many ways a forgotten proto-Bougeureau. Merle and William-Adolphe Bougeureau (1825-1905) knew one another well and, for a time, were represented by the same gallery. Born two years apart, both graduated from the École de Beaux-Arts, were members of the French Academy and regulary exhibited at the annual Paris Salon. Their penchant for mythical, allegorical and literary scenes combined with mastery of the monumental human figure, made them competitors for the same pupils, positions, prizes and patrons. While Merle was only two years Bouguereau’s senior, he died nearly a quarter century earlier. A strong argument could be made–and I may tackle it some day–that had Merle lived to Bouguereau’s age, memory of his work would have not suffered such anonymity.

Two years ago, someone I know bought major work by Hugues Merle–Romeo & Juliette (1879). Since then, Merle has become a pet project that has taken me to France, England, Belgium and the United States in search of primary documents and published materials. There is disappointingly little available on public record.  By increasing awareness of his work, its my goal to encourage those who have information relating to Merle to raise their hands and help us all piece together the life and work of an artist to has a lot to offer.

There is a precedent for this. Thirty years ago, Damien Bartoli (1947-2009) took up the cause of Bouguereau and worked to produce a catalogue raisonné for the artist. Sadly, Bartoli died last month; but, not before publishing dozens of articles and submitting his final manuscript of Bouguereau’s complete works. (It will be this by the Antique Collectors’ Club in London.) Over the same 30 years, Bougueraeu has experienced a revival. Although it would be hard to establish a causal relationship, since Bartoli picked up his pen Bouguereau has seen a dramatic increase in awareness, appreciation and prices for his work. I’m no Bartoli and Merle is not Bouguereau. But, as Bougeureau’s star continues to rise, I believe it is only a matter of time until Merle’s follows. The two were closely associated in life and deserve to be in death.

Hugues Merle was born in Saint–Marcellin in the region of Isère (i.e. Southeast France). Little is know about his family or upbringing. As a community, Isère was politlcally charge, known for strong Protestant roots and nearly uniform support for the Empire. Early in his career, Merle painting a number of pro-Empire works that may be a reflection of his origins.

Merle was accepted as a student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the nation’s most prestigious school for aspiring artists. There he enrolled in the studio of Léon Cogniet (1784-1880). Cogniet had studied at the École under Pierre -Narcisse Guérin, at same time as Eugene Delacroix, Ary Scheffer and Theodore Géricault, with whom he maintained life-long friendships. While he distinguished himself by winning the Prix de Rome in 1817, Cogniet is largely remembered as a teacher. Of him, Baudelaire wrote:

If he does not aspire to the level of genius, his is one of those talents which defy criticism by their very completeness within their own moderation. M. Cogniet is as unacquainted with the reckless flights of fantasty as with the rigid systems of the absolutists. To fuse, to mix and combine, while exercising choice, have always been his role and aim; and he has perfectly fulfilled them.

(Charles Baudelarie. The Mirror of Art, rans. and ed. by Jonathan Mayne. New York: 1956, p. 21)

Cogniet students include some of the century’s most respected painters, including Alfred Dehodencq, Jean-Louis Ernest Messonier, Jules Joseph Lefebvre, Léon Bonnat, Raimundo de Madrazo, and Jean Paul Laurens. As a teacher, Cogniet advocated vigorous and rough sketching above meticulous, time-consuming preparation. This became what Albert Boime described as “the sauce Cogniet [that] became a popular epithet to describe the technique of his disciples.” (Art and the Academy, p. 104). This resulted in a fluid naturalism in Cogniet’s own work, which influenced Merle’s approach during the the 1840s and 1850s.

Having seen nearly 200 of Merle’s works (I have no idea how many he painted yet), ranging from the early 1840s to his death in 1881, I would divide his ouvre into roughly three periods:

1. Multifigural History Painting (1840s and 1850s)
2. Genre Scenes (1850s and 1860s)
3. Monumental Romantic Figures (1860s t0 1881)

1. MULTI-FIGURAL HISTORY PAINTING (1840s and 1850s)

It is no surprise that works from early in Merle’s career have more in common with Cogniet’s work than his latter works. They  are politically-charged or mythological history paintings–the kind that students at the École were trained to produce. Like Cogniet, many of these works are romantic in coloring and stroke. The brushwork is loose and the palette is warm.

2. GENRE SCENES (1850s and 1860s)

It is my guess that once he had established his academic credibility, Merle had to make a transition into becoming a commercial success. In mid-nineteenth Paris, this meant appealing to the bourgeoisie. Rather than mythological or heroic scenes that appealed to aristocratic tastes or political agendas, the easy sell to the upwardly mobile French middle classes was domestic family life and narratives lionizing traditional French values. Merle painted pictures of mothers and daughters, family gatherings, country scenes and home interiors. According to one source, it during this period Bougeureau and Merle had the same picture dealer, and that dealer encouraged  Bougeureau to take up Merle’s successful theme of familial grieving.

In this era, Merle developed his own technical approach that distanced him from Cogniet. He replaced warm colors with a high-contrast, jewel-like palette. His paintings became sparsely populated and the remaining figures grew in proportion to fill the canvas. As the figures grew, they became more idealized with an emphasis on line over color.

3. MONUMENTAL ROMANTIC FIGURES (1860s t0 1881)

Merle’s critical successes in the  Salons of the 1860s led gave him international recognition. Like many others, Salon prizes resulted in a lucrative business of painting portraits Brits and Americans.  But, it was Merle’s work as an interpreter of major literary romantic figures that set him apart.

Upon seeing a photo of Merle’s interpretation of the Scarlett Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne is purported to have said: “It is the most true representation of my work I have ever seen.” Merle painted a number of biblical and literary figures, especially romantic couples, including Tristan & Isolde, Benedick & Beatrice, and Romeo & Juliet. These figures were painted as large as life. They dominated the canvas. Merle removed all unnecessary narrative devices, relying on his audience’s familiarity with the subjects.

In 1865, François-Victor Hugo (Victor Hugo’s son) had translated the complete works of Shakespeare into French. For the next fifteen years, the French poured over and re-interpreted the Bard’s narratives in ballets, operas, sculptures, and paintings. Merle’s Romeo & Juliette depicts the couple’s first meeting in Act I, Scene V. Here Romeo steals a “pilgrim’s kiss” from Juliet who coyly responds “You kiss by the book.”

The increased sophistication of Merle’s subjects was rising mastery of the human form. While his treatment of the clothed figure indicate his skill level, it is in nude that we are able to see an artist’s true mastery of the figure. Bougeureau’s female nudes leave us in awe of his skill and ensure his immortality. There are accounts of several painting of nude figures by Hugues Merle that have not surfaced in the art market. For me, this is a major omission in his ouvre and one that will continue to dog him if he is to regain stature.

It has been an embarrassingly long time since I last posted. Several of you have written, asking if I had finished or been finished.

Thank you.

Each note of encouragement and bewilderment at my absence has propelled me forward. I plan on spending the next couple of weeks responding with mountains of gratitude. (The surprising news is that, despite my absence, readership of BeardedRoman has increased by nearly 30 percent.)

It’s been a epic year for BeardedRoman; one that has prematurely peppered my chin with grey hairs. Four principal things that have kept me away:

1. I started a doctorate at the University of London.

2. My second son was born. (My wife did all the hard work.)

3. Pneumonia crippled me for almost three months. I’ve fully recovered and am running at full capacity.

4. We moved from London back to the United States–just in time for Christmas–and have been setting up a house, buying cars, getting back to work and experiencing a perpetual family reunion ever since.

Moving forward, I hope to not repeat my prolonged absence. If you’re still here, I’m grateful.

A new production of Polly Teale's Jane Eyre opens in Perth, Scotland:

Horsecross Arts
Jane Eyre
Adapted by Polly Teale
Perth Theatre

March 4-20
performances at 7.45pm. Sat matinees at 2.30pm.

Kath Duggan plays Jane, Vanessa Cook plays Bertha, Vari Sylvester is Mrs Reed, Hywel Morgan is Brocklehurst, Kate Cooley, Rachel Entwhistle are Abigail and Bessie, Beth Duncan plays Adèle.

A classic coming-of-age story which remains a startlingly modern blend of passion, romance and suspense.

As a child, the orphaned Jane Eyre is taught by a succession of severe guardians to stifle her natural exuberance. A part of herself is locked away, out of view of polite society... until she arrives at Rochester's house as a governess to his young child. Soon Rochester's passionate nature reawakens Jane's hidden self, but darker secrets are stirring in the attic...

Polly Teale's critically acclaimed adaptation distills the powerful forces at play in Bronte's passionate novel to create an intense theatrical tour de force which bursts from page to stage with an almost dangerous life of its own.

Director's Take: Tue 16 Mar
Stay on after the show and hear the director/actors talk about the show. There's a chance for Q&A.

audio description: Thu 18 Mar 7.45pm, Sat 20 Mar 2.30pm
BSL sign interpreted performance: Sat 20 Mar 2.30pm
captioned performance: Sat 13 Mar 2.30pm

Categories: Jane Eyre, Theatre

The Masque of the Four Seasons by Walter Crane

Painting of the Day Archive

Tidbits concerning the two forthcoming screen adaptations of Brontë novels keep filtering in. Metro (in an article about Mia Wasikowska) seems to have spotted the place where the new Jane Eyre will be shot:

Having already notched up an acclaimed turn in TV’s In Treatment, she’s just finished a teen love story directed by her hero, Gus Van Sant (Milk), and is now about to start shooting Jane Eyre in Derbyshire. (Larushka Ivan-Zadeh)

Which is also where the latest BBC adaptation was filmed. We wonder if they are eyeing Haddon Hall too?

And in an article about the international pre-sales of the new Wuthering Heights, Variety gives a few details about shooting time and place:

HanWay Films has struck multiple sales on Andrea Arnold's "Wuthering Heights," which shoots mid-May in Yorkshire, Northern England.
Major territory deals include Artificial Eye and Film 4 for the U.K., Diaphana for France and Prokino for Germany.
Other European territories include Spain (Alta), Portugal (Lusomundo), Switzerland (Frenetic), Benelux (Cineart), Greece/Romania (Odeon), Czech Republic (Intersonic), Poland (Gutek), the former Yugoslavia (Tuck), Russia (Maywin) and Iceland (Myndform).
In Asia, the pic went to Hong Kong/Singapore (Golden Scene), Turkey (Horizon), Middle East (Front Row) and Korea (Thomas Entertainment).
The pic was also sold to Latin America (Swen), Australia (Transmission) and South Africa (Ster Kinekor).
"Wuthering Heights" is an Ecosse Films and Film Four Production. Kevin Loader produces with Robert Bernstein and Douglas Rae. Pic was adapted by Olivia Hetreed. (Leo Barraclough)

City Room - a New York Times blog - describes seeing the manuscript of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and concludes by wondering,

Back at home late that evening, I idly reached for my copy of “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë and read a few pages. Wonder what her handwriting looked like. Did she make a lot of edits? (Hilary Johnson)

The Jane Eyre manuscript can be seen at the British Library in London. It's quite a treat.

The Pennsylvania Patriot-News features a local student who is cometing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. She might also enjoy looking at the Jane Eyre manuscript.

In her spare time, the straight-A student and aspiring emergency room doctor keeps occupied with tennis lessons, practicing the saxophone and flute and reading classics such as "Jane Eyre" and "Brave New World." (Lauren Boyer)

And now for the strange pop culture meets the Brontës mention of the day. The Celebrity Cafe has an article on the 50th Anniversary Tour of the comedy club The Second City (check this previous post for more information). Here's what happens on the stage at one point:

After an impromptu rap song, the audience is bombarded with a host of comedic skits. Each skit ranges anywhere from five seconds to ten minutes in length and is based on the writings of anyone from Dan Castellaneta (the voice of the all-American family man, Homer Simpson) to the five actors on stage. As for subject matter, the performers make sure no stone is left unturned, enacting satires of political figures like President Obama (did they mention he's not white?) to the highly improbable scenario of Emily Bronte making her way as a New York insult comic. (John Hall)

YouthKiAwaaz has a post on Wuthering Heights. 34casto is reminded of the first Mrs Rochester while reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wallpaper. Well Worn selects furniture to 'go' with Jane Eyre. And finally, Other Stories picks both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights as books that mean a lot to her.

Categories: Humour, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Victorian Era, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

I apologize for my silence on this blog. Life intrudes sometimes, and distracts me from my always and forever passionate pursuit of all things Pre-Raphaelite. While you are waiting, let me distract you with something lovely.

My friend Christine subscribes to English Home magazine. In their current issue, they feature an article on home-dec fabrics where they feature the fabrics on a stunning redheaded model. This image blew me away, and I had her husband Lee scan it for me. To me, with the blue fabric and the red hair, it looks like the model from The Soul of the Rose by Waterhouse meandered past the gardens on her way back into her manor.


Click to see larger of course.

Inquiring reader, Jane Austen’s World has joined many other blogs in promoting Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith, the prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  Quirk Books is offering the chance for you to win one of 50 Quirk Classics prize packs. To be eligible, each you must list where you read the review and post it to the Quirk Books site at this link. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls (Quirk Books; March 23, 2010; $12.95), by Steve Hockensmith, is an all-new work of fiction inspired by Jane Austen’s characters. My friend, Hillary Major, who reads more books than anyone I know, has graciously condescended to read and review the book.

A Dreadful Prequel, by Hillary Major

Before there was the Alamo, there was Netherfield Hall.

And who would you want by your side in a last stand of the living against the living dead but the sisters Bennet?

Set four years before Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Dawn of the Dreadfuls finds the Bennet siblings four years younger though already set in their ways: Jane is naively willing to see the best in everyone, Mary is sententious, Kitty a tagalong, and Lydia more lustily flirtatious than any eleven-year-old has a right to be. Elizabeth, however, finds herself at a crossroads when the long dormant undead choose to rise again only weeks before her coming out. Should she trade in her katana for an invitation to Mrs. Goswick’s ball? Should she content herself as the disciple of the handsome Master Hawksworth, her instructor in the deadly arts? Should she exercise her intellect by joining the Dr. Keckilpenny on his quest to re-educate the undead?

The Austen fan will be able to guess Lizzie’s decision long before the gathering zombies (that is to say, the unfortunate encroachments of certain unmentionables) make its outcome a matter of life and death.

Though Steve Hockensmith’s novel boasts only a dozen illustrations (illuminating such heartwarming scenes as an unmentionable “hump[ing] its way toward Mary like a massive, rabid inchworm”), the book is in many ways a cartoon. There’s a bumbling villain in the person of the portly and lascivious Lord Lumpley, who owns Netherfield Hall and fancies himself Hertfordshire’s version of the Prince Regent. (He also fancies Jane Bennet.) There’s a plenitude of martial arts as Mr. Bennet shares his past as a student of Shaolin and reveals that Mrs. Bennet’s flower shed was always intended to be the family dojo. Perhaps the most amusing twist of all comes when Mrs. Bennet’s lost love comes back into her life. Unfortunately, Captain Cannon finds himself rather diminished from his former glory…

Dawn of the Dreadfuls isn’t a thriller. We know the Bennet siblings will survive and go on to meet their Darcys, Binghams, and Willoughbys. What, then, kept me turning the pages of this Quirk Classic? Could it be that (like Elizabeth, who defiantly uses the “z-word” even in company), I was simply fascinated by Hockensmith’s embrace of the vulgar, drawn in to walk the fine the line between the absurd and obscene?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, the third Quirk Classic, comes with illustrations from artist Patrick Arrasmith.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls will be available for purchase on March 23, 2010
Published by Quirk Books
Paperback, $12.95, 288 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59474-454-9

• Quirk Books site
• That Hockensmith Feller
• Welcome from Big Red

Interlaken 2

Throat better, cold somewhat also. Gray ― but finish.

Worked insanely hard at Interlaken, from 9 to 1.

Went to Macbeans. ― Dined at 3. ―

Worked till 5. ― Walked in Borghese.

6½ to 8 wrote to Homan Hunt.

8½ went to Newtons ― a great many people there: ― of all the nicest, were a Mr. & Mrs. Fields ― who had been to Faringford! ― Their talk of A.T. was charming.

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

Capuchin Classics publishes this month a new edition of Wuthering Heights, with a foreword by no other than Lucasta Miller:

Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë; Lucasta Miller (Foreword)
Published March 2010
Capuchin Classics
408 pages, Paperback
ISBN-10: 0956294758
ISBN-13: 9780956294753

Emily Brontë’s only novel, Wuthering Heights, is one of the most treasured classics of 19th century fiction. Intensely passionate and sharply original, it tells the story of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff’s doomed love and its disastrous consequences. It displays Emily’s profound love of her native Yorkshire in its evocative depiction of the moors. This is a work full of iconic images and of unfailingly compelling narrative.

Emily Brontë - The three Brontë sisters and one brother started creating fictional lands together while they lived in Haworth parsonage in West Yorkshire. Wuthering Heights - Emily's only novel - was originally published under the pseudonym of Ellis Bell, and has gone on to inspire numerous stage, film and television interpretations, as well as a popular song. Emily lived from 1818 to 1848.

Lucasta Miller - Lucasta Miller was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and is the author of The Brontë Myth

Categories: Books, Wuthering Heights

An alert from the Queen's University, Belfast:

Bronte, Jane Eyre and Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

• Dr Leon Litvack will give a lecture, followed by a workshop on these novels in relation to the theme of ‘women in society’.

• Date: Wednesday, 3rd March 2010, 1.30-3.30pm

• Location: Peter Froggatt Centre, room G06

Categories: Alert, Talks

The Children's Holiday by William Holman Hunt

Painting of the Day Archive

FemaleFirst reports the recent words pronounced by Gemma Arterton on her 'former' role as Cathy in Wuthering Heights:

Gemma Arterton is not starring in a big screen remake of Wuthering Heights.
It had been reported that Arterton was all set to star as Catherine Earnshaw in the Andrea Arnold directed movie alongside Ed Westwick as Heathcliff.
Speaking to MSN.com the actress said:"I was hoping that that would work out, but actually she's looking for a pure Yorkshire lass - so any Yorkshire lasses out there who want to be Cathy in Wuthering Heights, she's doing open auditioning."
She added: "I think she [Arnold] will make the best Wuthering Heights film ever, she's such an amazing director."

Hollywood Reporter says that HanWay is doing well on the pre-sales of the film:

HanWay Films said Monday it had struck multiple pre-sales worldwide for BAFTA-winner Andrea Arnold's upcoming "Wuthering Heights," the Ecosse Films/Film Four production to be produced by Kevin Loader, Robert Bernstein and Douglas Rae.
Arnold, who last week won the BAFTA best British film award for coming of age drama "Fish Tank," is working on the remake of Emily Bronte's passionate and tragic love story setting against the unforgiving backdrop of the Yorkshire moors. Casting has yet to be announced.
Hanway has concluded deals in 21 territories including Artificial Eye and Film 4 in the U.K., Diaphana in France, Prokino in Germany, Alta in Spain, Transmission in Australia and Ster Kinekor in South Africa.
Other deals have been signed in Portugal, Switzerland, Benelux Greece, Romania, Czech Republic, Poland, the former Yugoslavia, Iceland, Hong Kong / Singapore, Turkey, the Middle East, Russia, Korea and Latin America.
"Distributors are buying a love story about teenage outsiders driven by deeply intense passion -- Andrea's brilliance delivers a contemporary distinctive edge," said Tim Haslam, HanWay CEO. (Mimi Turner)

On to something else now, as Sheila Kohler, author of Becoming Jane Eyre, is featured in the Princeton University News:

In a Manchester, England, lodging house in 1846, a young woman is caring for her father after an operation. As he sleeps, her pencil furiously scratches against a page. The young woman is Charlotte Brontë, and she is writing her masterpiece, "Jane Eyre."
A new novel by Sheila Kohler, a lecturer in creative writing and the Lewis Center for the Arts, brings to life the composition of "Jane Eyre" and the struggle of the three Brontë sisters to introduce their literary talents to the world. In "Becoming Jane Eyre," published in January by Penguin Books, Kohler explores her famous subject with the same incisive approach that has marked her other award-winning -- and frequently autobiographical -- novels.
"I have tried to imagine," said Kohler, "what might have happened in that room where, sitting by her father's side, Brontë wrote half of 'Jane Eyre' in six weeks."
"Becoming Jane Eyre" is Kohler's seventh novel. A writer known for elegant prose and disquieting psychological plotlines, Kohler was born in South Africa under apartheid and lived in Paris for 15 years before coming to the United States in 1981. She has been teaching creative writing at Princeton since 2007, bringing to the classroom her gift for penetrating the inner lives of her characters.
In writing her newest novel, Kohler researched biographies, letters and literary works of the Brontë family. Living in an underheated parsonage in the gloomy Yorkshire moors of northern England, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë endured poverty, loneliness and the death of their beloved mother and two eldest siblings. Their novels repeatedly were rejected by publishers. Yet they persevered, and eventually gained recognition as one of the most talented families of writers in the English-speaking world.
Joyce Carol Oates, the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor in the Humanities, called the novel "a tour de force of style, vision and imagination; a deeply moving and utterly convincing reconstruction of the private, inner life of Charlotte Brontë."
Kohler was driven to write "Becoming Jane Eyre" in part by thinking about a question that fiction writers are often asked: Does the novel stem from the author's life?
"What interested me was exploring how much of Brontë's life came into 'Jane Eyre,'" Kohler said.
And so, in "Becoming Jane Eyre," Brontë is motivated to work on her novel by the rejection letter she receives from a publisher on the morning of her father's operation. She also resolves not to waste any more time penning beseeching letters to her former professor, with whom she has fallen in love. She will, however, "use him in her work, the ultimate revenge," Kohler writes. "She will use all those who have snubbed and ignored her. She will write out of rage, out of a deep sense of her own worth and of the injustice of the world's reception of her words. She will write about something she knows well: her passion."
Kohler recalls being asked the "How much of the novel is true?" query by a fan of her first novel, "A Perfect Place," a psychological tale about a woman who has repressed a shocking secret.
"I said, 'None of it,' and my husband said, 'Every word.' In a way we were both telling the truth. You don't make it up. It comes from somewhere," Kohler said. [...]
In "Becoming Jane Eyre," Kohler believed she was leaving autobiographical fiction behind for the comfort of a historical novel. But she was surprised to find elements of her own experiences as a writer creeping in to Brontë's story."When one takes a historical character, that person acts as a sort of screen behind which one can both hide and onto which one can project so much that is true in one's own life," Kohler recently wrote in a blog about the inspiration for the book. "Believing I was writing about someone else's life, I was able to create a middle distance and to find myself in her story." (Jennifer Greenstein Altmann)

Another recent fictional account of the life of another writer is Jerome Charyn's The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson. The Daily Beast reviews it and mentions Charlotte Brontë in passing.

Jane Eyre also appears in a book to be released on May 26th according to Publishers Weekly:

Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature
Emma Donoghue.
Knopf, $27.95 (304p)
ISBN 978-0-307-27094-8
“The past is a wild party; check your preconceptions at the door,” warns British literary historian and novelist Donoghue (Slammerkin) in her comprehensive catalogue of a thousand years of Western literature. “[I]n Western culture passion between women is always a big deal, whether presented as glorious or shameful, angelic or monstrous,” she claims. These passions are not always, strictly speaking, lesbian, Donoghue says, as she sorts them into categories (e.g., cross-dressing and the resulting “ 'accident' of same-sex desire' ”; women friends who remain inseparable despite all obstacles). She links them to historical developments and deciphers their sometimes obscure language. “Morbid,” for example, was often a code word for “lesbian” in the 19th century. Delivering on her promise of a wild party, Donoghue reads Clarissa as a rivalry between Lovelace and Anna for Clarissa's heart; she considers Jane Eyre as an early schoolgirl novel (note Jane's crush on her schoolmate Helen), whose form would be adapted by early lesbian coming-out novels. With her excellent reading list, readers can test for themselves the “unexpected continuity” Donoghue finds in the presence of passion between women in Western literature. 19 photos. (May 26)

A couple of 'this reminds me of the Brontës' sightings.

The light on the austere church in the barren landscape was eerily reminiscent of Jane Eyre . (Sheila Sullivan in The Irish Times)

and

Shirley, 53, says: "Seeing this chapel sat on top of the hill as I drove in from Huddersfield just reminded me of somewhere you would expect to find Cathy and Heathcliff!" (Emma Davison in The Huddersfield Daily Examiner)

The Classic Literature Blog on About.com reminds us that March is Women's History Month and among others suggests...

Charlotte Bronte (or one of her sisters: Emily or Anne)? (Esther Lombardi)

On the blogosphere, Golden Moon posts about Jane Eyre and El Sueño Eterno discuses the 1944 adaptation - both in Spanish. Story Like Mine writes about Wuthering Heights. And Flickr user cobbybrook has uploaded an 'acrylic on canvas' inspired by Wuthering Heights/Top Withens.

Categories: Books, Fiction, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights

Bookslut takes a look at the ever-growing list of 'monster lit' and mentions the Brontës a couple of times:

Jane Austen was the queen of Monster Lit in 2009. While 2010 proves to move onto some other lady writers like Alcott, and rumors abound of Brontës and Eliot, Jane Austen is Monster Lit’s favorite whipping girl. [...]
Out of the Jane Austen monster novels, Jane Bites Back is perhaps the most original of them all. [...]In addition to Jane Austen as vampire, we also have Austen’s maker, Lord Byron (who is credited with founding the monster) and the Brontë family. (Selena Chambers)

We are afraid that Wuthering Bites and Jane Slayre are more than just rumours at this point.

Bookslut also reviews Brian Dillon's The Hypochondriacs/Tormented Hope:

Most of these people actually were getting violated, in some unfortunate ways, by the social and physical climate of their times. Charlotte Bronte wrote Robert Southey a letter about her desire to be a writer, and was basically told that nervous illness was a girl’s only role in the literary world. (Elizabeth Bachner)

Another book (or series) connected to the Brontës is of course Twilight. The Snapper discusses the film adaptations and says,

But Edward isn’t a good boyfriend. Telling someone, “You’re my only reason to stay alive, if that’s what I am,” as Edward does in “New Moon”, isn’t love; it’s dysfunctional. And outside of the time spent with Edward, Bella doesn’t do anything except go to school and read “romantic” novels like “Wuthering Heights.” Speaking of which, the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff is probably the most dysfunctional in all of literature, but I digress. (Lyndsey Sturkey)

Speaking of Wuthering Heights, the Daily Mail has an article on Heathcliff... - er - no, we meant Gordon Brown. Again.

Will [political editor of GMTV, Gloria De Piero] charm the pants off them? Anyone with the brass neck to tell Brown he was like Emily Bronte's fictional weirdo Heathcliff is surely in with a chance. (Peter McKay)

Yes, she was the one to begin this never-ending Heathcliffgate.

And now for something quite funny. One of those mistakes, as seen in the Columbia Spectator:

While it is well known that the Brontë sisters both wrote under pen names in the 17th century to hide their identities, protect their reputations, and increase their chances of being published, it is surprising to many that our generation’s own beloved J.K. Rowling did the very same. Rowling used the initials “J.K.” instead of Joanne, her full first name. Although it is unclear whether this was her own doing or the creation of her publisher, Bloomsbury, it is evident that the reasoning behind it is no different than that of the Brontë sisters: a fear that men would not purchase her book knowing that it was written by a woman. (Vaidehi Joshi)

We find it hilarious that a sentence that contains a mistake by a difference of two centuries (!) starts with 'while it is well known that...'. Because it's not, actually.

Thankfully, there are people out there who know what they are writing about, just like the Brussels Brontë Blog, which reports a recent talk on Wuthering Heights by Nicholas Marsh, editor of Palgrave Macmillan's Analysing Texts series.

Finally, Que a Estante nos Caia emcima posts about Jane Eyre in Portuguese and Bookmunch discusses Jerome Charyn's The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson and quotes a reference to Jane Eyre.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Talks, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

Interlaken. 1

Gray fine ― very little sun ― but warmer.

Rose at 8 still extremely unwell.

Worked very hard at another outline of the 2nd & 3rd Cervara ― & partly of an Interlaken! ―

Then Major Reynolds & Miss Yates came ― & staid some time. ― She is a curious little woman.

At 5½ I rushed out & got a small περίπατον¹ in the Borghese & Pincian.

Queer life, very.

Dined alone. Worked at Masters’s Baalbek. ―― Nice notes from Mrs. Macbean ― & H. Knight.

Ὧ Γυναίκες, παρασμέναι! ―
ὡσὰν ἄλλαι ἐλωίδες! ―²

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

1. Walk (GT).
2. Google Translator proposes: “O women, in spite of me! / But as if hope!”

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson is a new YA novel which contains several Wuthering Heights references:

The Sky Is Everywhere
by Jandy Nelson
# Hardcover: 288 pages
# Publisher: Dial (March 9, 2010)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0803734956
# ISBN-13: 978-0803734951

Lennie has always been the companion pony to her sister Bailey’s race horse. When Bailey dies suddenly while rehearsing the lead in Romeo and Juliet, Lennie is thrust into the spotlight. A normally reserved band geek who reads Wuthering Heights like a manifesto, Lennie is not prepared to deal with her grief. Nor is she equipped to confront the affection she feels for her dead sister’s fiancé. Adding to her emotional roller coaster is the gorgeous, musically gifted new boy in town who is clearly in love with her. Lennie is sympathetic, believable, and complex. Readers will identify with her and root for her to finally make the first steps toward healing. Nelson incorporates poems, written by Lennie and left for the wind to carry away, that help readers delve deeper into her heart. Bonus: teens unfamiliar with Wuthering Heights will likely want to find out what all the fuss is about. A story of love, loss, and healing that will resonate with readers long after they have finished reading. (Shauna Yusko on Booklist)

Teenreads is giving away a copy of the book:

What character from WUTHERING HEIGHTS does Lennie think Joe looks like?
You can find the answer by reading the excerpt here.

The main character of the book will probably enjoy this curious proposal from Gift Republic:

Wuthering Heights (Personalised Books)
by Emily Brontë and You
Gift Republic (February 8, 2010)
# ISBN-10: 1848960301
# ISBN-13: 978-1848960305

Your name in this novel! Star in the Brontë classic!
You and your friends become the main characters printed throughout the book: you choose who plays who!
For instance, Catherine Earnshaw can become: Elsie Earnshaw! The choice is yours!
Everything you need is inside. Simply substitute the names of the leading characters with your own chosen names using the Cast List to help you. Include your own message to appear in print at the front of your book. Then simply register: online or by post. Your tailor-made Personalised Classic novel – first edition – will then be sent to you.

Change the names of these characters:
Heathcliff
Catherine Earnshaw
Edgar Linton
Isabella Linton
Hindley Earnshaw
Ellen ‘Nelly’ Dean

Categories: Books, References, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

Spring by Witold Wojtkiewicz

Painting of the Day Archive

John Buchan wrote The 39 Steps in 1915, creating the genre of the espionage thriller, particularly that subset involving the upper-class gentleman spy. In the book, Richard Hannay, had recently returned to London after years of living in Africa, serving in the Boer War and then working as a mining engineer. It is late spring of 1914; he is bored blind by his present life, and ready for some action. He gets his wish when his neighbor, Scudder, entrusts a mysterious notebook and story of spies about to destroy the British Navy to Hannay and gets killed by German spies in his flat. Naturally, Hannay is assumed guilty of the murder, and, with both spies and police searching for him, he goes to Scotland to unravel the story and thus be found innocent. Like all stories of intricate and slightly implausible plot, the tale unfolds at breakneck speed. Buchan’s book is filled with chance encounters, plot twists, double crosses, chases across the Scottish moors, once with an airplane tracing his movements, and ends with Hannay back in England, uncovering the traitor and foiling the German plot. The book was a huge success.

In 1935, Alfred Hitchcock undertook the challenge of making The 39 Steps into a movie. It was a challenge because of the intricate details and large cast in the book, so Hitchcock developed a very different version: he kept Hannay’s name, the murder of the agent in Hannay’s apartment, and the trip to Scotland to discover whatever he could. But Hitchcock updated the time of the action to the mid-30s, made Hannay Canadian and the spies vaguer in nationality, incorporated a music hall performer named Mr. Memory, and changed the 39 steps from a physical location to a conjuring trick. He also brought in a woman to provide the requisite cinema love interest; they meet cute and dash across the moors of Scotland, handcuffed together for some of the time. Robert Donat played the hapless Canadian Hannay; he was the best part of the movie.

The 39 Steps, as broadcast by PBS Sunday night, is much truer to the original. Rupert Penry-Jones, who has the jaded upper class part down cold, plays Hannay, once again the bored Brit. He is aloof when Scudder barrels into his apartment, disbelieving of the story, until the milkman breaks in and Scudder is murdered. Penry-Jones, who previously appeared as Captain Wentworth in Masterpiece’s broadcast of Persuasion, plays a somewhat understated hero. He is quick off the mark, and, in the manner of such heroes, good looking in face and form. Lizzie Mickery, who adapted the novel for this screenplay, also added female interest: Victoria Sinclair, played with spirit by Lydia Leonard, is a suffragist and also a British agent. Again, there are a number of runs across the moors displaying some really splendid scenery. And once again, Hannay is chased by an airplane; although in a clear homage to Hitchcock, the folks in the plane don’t simply spot him, they shoot at him a la North by Northwest – another great Hitchcock spy caper.

Captain Maynard, my trustee co-viewer, was delighted to note that the cars and guns were all authentic to the 1914 date. He loves the wonderful Masterpiece productions for this reason. And in my fashion, I liked the accuracy of the costumes, both men and women. The story starts very quickly and tautly, and unwinds without a moment wasted; we were both drawn into it immediately.

We enjoyed the Hitchcock version of the movie, although I thought the addition of the music hall unnecessary, even while recognizing that this was a favorite Hitchcock device. (See also, The Man Who Knew Too Much.) And I could see no purpose to have Donat be Canadian; things were already difficult enough. Hitchcock also likes his hero to be pretty clueless, bumbling from one near-disaster to the next, until he finally adds up the pieces and solves the riddle. Over all, I like my hero to have a little more on the ball, and in this 2008 update, Penry-Jones is quick-witted and in charge; he solves the cipher, recognizes his foes, and works through the puzzle ahead of the Secret Service. He is a nice combination of James Bond and Lord Peter Wimsey: not so over the top or predatory as Bond, a little more physical than Wimsey. The love story is believable, not the comic relief of the Hitchcock version. Victoria is also sharp, has a photographic memory, runs without falling down in a swoon, and altogether plays an effective sidekick. One thing did strike a false note: Victoria calls herself a suffragette rather than suffragist, the less derisive term used always by those indomitable women. The story plays out against the beginning of World War I, building both tension and reality for the spy plot. The last scene shows Hannay, now an officer in the British Army, at St. Pancras station setting off for France. The tantalizing hope is that he and Victoria will have a future after the war. And at this point, Co-viewer and I have changed our allegiance: truer to the book, while building in a female character, this remake is by far the better 39 Steps.

Gentle Readers: My good friend, Lady Anne, an avid fan of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, wrote this review for my blog. I am, as always, ever so grateful for her learned insights. Watch The 39 Steps online at PBS until March 30. 2010.

The conference program and registration information for the 2010 NVSA “Fighting Victorians” conference, to be held at Princeton University on April 16-18, 2010, is now available.

You can also download a pdf fill of the program information here.

“FIGHTING VICTORIANS”

FRIDAY, APRIL 16th

1:00-4:00 pm	Registration and Dinner Sign-Up	010 East Pyne Foyer
2:00 -3:00 pm	Special Victorian Curiosities Library Visit and Museum Tour: (Space is limited and prior registration is required; see below.)	Firestone Library and Princeton Museum of Art
4:00 pm	Welcome	010 East Pyne
4:15-5:45 pm	Staged Fights: Ulrich Knoepflmacher (Princeton U), Moderator

• Greg Vargo (Columbia U), “Revenge in the Age of Insurance: Villains and
  Institutions in Chartist Melodrama”
• Evan Rhodes (U of Virginia), “‘Hitting Below the Intellect’: Oscar
  Wilde’s Libel Trial and the Aesthetics of Boxing”
• Daniel Pollack-Pelzner (Harvard U), “Bardolatry Battles Burlesque!!”

010 East Pyne 6:00-7:00 pm Reception Chancellor Green Rotunda 7:00-9:00 pm Dinner
At Friday registration, we will have a list of local restaurants (all within walking distance) with blocks of seats reserved for the NVSA conference. Please sign up for one of these restaurants at the conference registration. Groups can leave for dinner directly from the reception. in Town 9:00 pm Following dinner, please join us for a special Fighting Victorians event:Dramatic Reading: The Pickwick Papers, Trial Scene 010 East Pyne

SATURDAY, APRIL 17th

8:00-9:00 am	Registration, Breakfast, Book Tables	010 East Pyne Foyer
9:00-10:45 am	Keynote Panel: Seth Koven (Rutgers U), Moderator

• Anna Clark (U of Minnesota)
• Elaine Hadley (U of Chicago)
• Alex Woloch (Stanford U)

010 East Pyne 10:45-11:00 am Coffee 010 East Pyne Foyer 11:00 am-12:30 pm At the Limits of Conflict: Sarah Gates (St. Lawrence U), Moderator

• Rachel Ablow (SUNY Buffalo), “The Feeling of Belief: Victorian Fictions of Disagreement
• Jonathan Farina (Seton Hall U), “Not Thrashing and Not Knowing; Or,
  ‘That banging about of another man with a stick is always disagreeable and seldom successful’”
• Rebecca Rainof (Catholic U), “Victorians in Purgatory: The Poetics of
  Conciliation, Or Why The Dream of Gerontius was So Popular”

010 East Pyne 12:30-2:15 pm Lunch
The Saturday lunch, a convivial event at which topics are proposed and voted on for the following year, is a long-standing tradition; everyone is warmly encouraged to attend and participate. Chancellor Green Hyphen 2:30-4:00 pm Solidarity, Separation, and the Nation: Jonathan Loesberg (American U), Moderator

• Sebastian Lecourt (Yale U), “Religion, Culture, and the Mormon Problem”
• Richard Bonfiglio (U of Chicago), “Bringing Home the Fight: Barrett
  Browning’s Domestic Warfare”
• Sarah Gracombe (Stonehill College), “Fighting for Englishness:
  Anglo-Jewish Bodies and the Body Politic”

010 East Pyne 4:00-4:15 pm Coffee 010 East Pyne Foyer 4:15-5:45 pm Session A Sanctioned Violence: Will Lee (Yeshiva U), Moderator

• Ingrid Hanson (U of Sheffield, UK), “‘I saw the battle awake’: William
  Morris’s Late Poems and the Uses of Violence in Verse”
• Lawrence Poston (U of Illinois, Chicago), “‘These Oxford Squabbles’:
  Zeal on Behalf of the Church”
• Judith Plotz (George Washington), “The Moral Torturers: Kipling and the
  Uses of Comic Cruelty”

010 East Pyne 4:15-5:45 pm Session B Genres of Disagreement: Linda Shires (Yeshiva U), Moderator

• Meredith Conti (U of Pittsburg), “Pugilism in Print and the Ibsen
  Controversy: Reevaluating the Codes of Victorian Debate at the Fin de Siècle”
• Kelly Mays (U of Nevada, Las Vegas), “The ‘Battle of Styles’ and the
  Emergence of the Term Victorian”
• Anne DeWitt (Princeton U), “Genre and Victorian Argument: What Fiction Did for Antivivisection”

036 East Pyne 6:15 pm Reception Prospect House 7:00 Dinner
Post-Dinner Entertainment: Music Hall Performance and Sing-Along Prospect House

SUNDAY, APRIL 18th

8:00-9:00 am	Breakfast and Book Exhibit	010 East Pyne Foyer
9:00-10:30 am	Histories of Violence: Stefanie Markovitz (Yale U), Moderator

• Muireann O’Cinneide (National U of Ireland, Galway), “‘His own mind was
  the theatre of a breathless strife’: Fighting, Feelings, and Genres in Alexander
  Kinglake’s Eothen and The Invasion of the Crimea”
• Patrick O’Malley (Georgetown U), “Fighting Irish: M. L. O’Byrne’s Battles”
• Aaron Worth (Boston U) “Fighting Neanderthals: Prehistoric Violence in
  the Victorian Age”

010 East Pyne 10:30-10:45 am Coffee 010 East Pyne Foyer 10:45 am-12:15 pm Figuring Struggle: Judith Wilt (Boston College), Moderator

• Jessica Kuskey (Syracuse U), “Vampires versus Socialists: The Politics
  of Violence and Victimization in the Working-Class Press”
• Katherine Matson (U of Virginia), “‘Is it peace or war?’: Aggression and
  the Limitation of Liability in Tennyson’s Maud”
• Aviva Briefel (Bowdoin College), “Crimes of the Hand: Detection and the
  Belgian Congo”

010 East Pyne 12:15-1:00 pm Conference Wrap-Up

• Jeff Nunokawa (Princeton U)
• Carolyn Williams (Rutgers U)

Victorian Studies, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 7, Autumn 2009.

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Victorian Studies, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 127-129, Autumn 2009.

Victorian Studies, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 140-142, Autumn 2009.

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Victorian Studies, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 106-113, Autumn 2009.

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Victorian Studies, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 120-122, Autumn 2009.

Victorian Studies, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 145-147, Autumn 2009.

Victorian Studies, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 159-160, Autumn 2009.

Victorian Studies, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 31-41, Autumn 2009.