The Brontës and Wycoller Dene

Back in 2012, I visited the Chelsea Flower Show for the first time. It was all wonderful but the garden which really touched me was The Brontë Garden, created by Tracy Foster for the tourist agency, Welcome to Yorkshire. Not only did it win a gold medal, it also, deservedly, won the People’s Choice for the best Small Garden.

So I thought that a touch of countryside beauty – with a literary association – might be cheering.

Bridges over Wycoller Beck Continue reading The Brontës and Wycoller Dene

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Is Mr Rochester really a Woman in Disguise?

Is Charlotte Brontë’s Edward Rochester, the darkly sardonic hero of Jane Eyre, really a woman in disguise?

Was Sir Leslie Stephen’s 1877 Cornhill Magazine review of Jane Eyre which first suggested it, meant to outrage readers? He argues that Rochester, that archetypical Byronic hero loved by so many female readers, is, in reality, a ‘spirited sister of Shirley’s (Charlotte Brontë’s eponymous heroine from her novel of 1849) though he does his very best to be a man, and even an unusually masculine specimen of his sex.’

 

Charlotte Brontë by George Richmond, chalk, 1850. National Portrait Gallery

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Jane Austen’ Novels by her contemporaries

I want to look at what three of Jane Austen’s contemporaries thought of her novels: Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), the inventor of the historical novel, nick-named the ‘the Wizard of the North’ for his spell-binding stories; Princess Charlotte (1796-1817), daughter of the Prince Regent, who died in childbirth; and Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), author of Jane Eyre. Miss Brontë was one year old when Jane Austen died. But she has some interesting things to say, so I’ve allowed her to remain.

Sir Walter Scott’s marble bust by Sir Francis Chantry, 1841, National Portrait Gallery

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Celebrating Charlotte Brontë

2016 is the bi-centenary of the birth of Charlotte Brontë and the National Portrait Gallery is celebrating it with a small exhibition which looks at what inspired her writing.

3 sisters by Bramwell

The Brontë Sisters by Bramwell Brontë

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