I'd read it! It's the curse of being the least melodramatic one I think - both in terms of the books (no mad women in the attics or ghosts on the moors) and biographically speaking (she made the best fist of being a governess of all of them etc)
I'm not really one for melodrama so maybe it's for me! This is from Peter's Room on Anne: "everyone around her describes her as Dear-Gentle-Anne in a despising way, but she was the only one who didn't collapse into a nervous breakdown when things got too much and bolt for home."
I enjoyed the essay and it makes me determind to read the book! I have never read Mrs. Gaskell's book of the life of Charlotte Bronte or any others about the Brontes until fairly recently though inevitably I have seen bits and pieces of their life and tv programmes - but I have loved the writing of the Bronte sisters since I first read them as a teenager. I rarely see them as melodramatic - rather as passionate. There are pages in some of their books I have read so many times. The major popular works such as Jane Eyre, Vilette and Wuthering Heights and others I've also seen as films many times. No film or tv production of any of the books comes anywhere near to expressing the novels as I feel Charlote and her sisters intended. I cannot imagine not having read their novels they have so enriched my life - perhaps it's just because the women in their books do express their feelings of love, rejection and longing and avoid the stiff upper lip that I so loved them. They knew what I felt. I certainly see dry humour in Jane Eyre. Their heroines have to struggle. I identified with that. Maybe my life was not such a struggle but there is no doubt I could understand how much they wanted to earn and still be independent of difficult employers. When I visited Haworth for the first time a few years ago - I went in mid-winter weather. It was icy and cold with light snow around. It certainly seemed a bleak place to me. I had no idea either until I visited the Parsonage that Charlotte had been pregnant when she died. It may give away my age as no teacher ever mentioned it. It was so sad to see from writings in the Parsonage that she very much wanted to live and that she commented on how loving her husband was. I suspect she had a very serious condition in pregnancy where she couldn't stop being sick. It surely was a hard life - I understand because of insanitary conditions and sewage running down the streets of the village that typhoid was rife there. I'm going on a search for a few books mentioned - as a result of your article! Thanks.
Thanks for this, it makes me see the Brontës' through a new perspective and to want to go and try Jane Eyre again! I certainly recognise what you are saying with Wuthering Heights, and the unashamed passion. Graham's book is very readable and probably even more fascinating for someone who knows the novels well .
So enjoyable. I think Juliet Barker was an early highlighter of how Mrs. Gaskell shaped a Brontë iconography that drove an entire industry...
But Peter's Room! Love Antonia Forest; and she was so good in her discussion of the B's, as well; especially making the excellent point that Anne was the only one who actually grapples directly with life. (The ToWH is brilliantly radical; although stylistic fireworks aren't really her style.)
The Invention of Charlotte Brontë has been on wish list since I heard about it so I'm delighted to see this positive write up! The Brontë industry is a fascinating thing and it's interesting to reflect on the emphasis put on Charlotte as the survivor, and Emily and the moors, while Anne languishes rather unfairly behind. (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is my favourite of all the Brontë novels)
There is humour in Villette when Charlotte Bronte writes about Lucy Snowe looking at a painting and making caustic comments. At the start of Wuthering Heights, Emily B makes Lockwood a hapless, even comic, figure :-)
Thank you. I think someone commented - here or elsewhere - that the humour is much more evident if listening on audiobook, which is maybe something I should try. Maybe as a reader I come to the books with preconceptions which means I don't always pick up the humour in them.
I think it's probably impossible to come to big classics like the Brontes' books without preconceptions of one sort or another. And the Brontes certainly do a lot of gloom! There isn't much humour. You have to be ready to be taken by surprise.
I'd read it! It's the curse of being the least melodramatic one I think - both in terms of the books (no mad women in the attics or ghosts on the moors) and biographically speaking (she made the best fist of being a governess of all of them etc)
I'm not really one for melodrama so maybe it's for me! This is from Peter's Room on Anne: "everyone around her describes her as Dear-Gentle-Anne in a despising way, but she was the only one who didn't collapse into a nervous breakdown when things got too much and bolt for home."
I think I'm going to have to try and track a copy of that down!
I enjoyed the essay and it makes me determind to read the book! I have never read Mrs. Gaskell's book of the life of Charlotte Bronte or any others about the Brontes until fairly recently though inevitably I have seen bits and pieces of their life and tv programmes - but I have loved the writing of the Bronte sisters since I first read them as a teenager. I rarely see them as melodramatic - rather as passionate. There are pages in some of their books I have read so many times. The major popular works such as Jane Eyre, Vilette and Wuthering Heights and others I've also seen as films many times. No film or tv production of any of the books comes anywhere near to expressing the novels as I feel Charlote and her sisters intended. I cannot imagine not having read their novels they have so enriched my life - perhaps it's just because the women in their books do express their feelings of love, rejection and longing and avoid the stiff upper lip that I so loved them. They knew what I felt. I certainly see dry humour in Jane Eyre. Their heroines have to struggle. I identified with that. Maybe my life was not such a struggle but there is no doubt I could understand how much they wanted to earn and still be independent of difficult employers. When I visited Haworth for the first time a few years ago - I went in mid-winter weather. It was icy and cold with light snow around. It certainly seemed a bleak place to me. I had no idea either until I visited the Parsonage that Charlotte had been pregnant when she died. It may give away my age as no teacher ever mentioned it. It was so sad to see from writings in the Parsonage that she very much wanted to live and that she commented on how loving her husband was. I suspect she had a very serious condition in pregnancy where she couldn't stop being sick. It surely was a hard life - I understand because of insanitary conditions and sewage running down the streets of the village that typhoid was rife there. I'm going on a search for a few books mentioned - as a result of your article! Thanks.
Thanks for this, it makes me see the Brontës' through a new perspective and to want to go and try Jane Eyre again! I certainly recognise what you are saying with Wuthering Heights, and the unashamed passion. Graham's book is very readable and probably even more fascinating for someone who knows the novels well .
An ardent Bronte lover, I didn't know of Peter's Room, so this is a very happy discovery!
So enjoyable. I think Juliet Barker was an early highlighter of how Mrs. Gaskell shaped a Brontë iconography that drove an entire industry...
But Peter's Room! Love Antonia Forest; and she was so good in her discussion of the B's, as well; especially making the excellent point that Anne was the only one who actually grapples directly with life. (The ToWH is brilliantly radical; although stylistic fireworks aren't really her style.)
Not a Wuthering Heights fan myself...
Hail to a fellow Antonia Forest fan!
I think AF’s sympathies were very much in the Jane Austen camp.
Yes! Though she did say she loved Villette.
Fascinating. Glad I’m not the only one who’s never finished Jane Eyre.
Suspect we're not that rare!
This is a fascinating essay, though depressing.
The book wasn't depressing though, despite the subject matter.
The Invention of Charlotte Brontë has been on wish list since I heard about it so I'm delighted to see this positive write up! The Brontë industry is a fascinating thing and it's interesting to reflect on the emphasis put on Charlotte as the survivor, and Emily and the moors, while Anne languishes rather unfairly behind. (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is my favourite of all the Brontë novels)
I've never read TofWH which is fairly typical, I guess. Maybe there should be a book on the Disappearance of Anne?
There is humour in Villette when Charlotte Bronte writes about Lucy Snowe looking at a painting and making caustic comments. At the start of Wuthering Heights, Emily B makes Lockwood a hapless, even comic, figure :-)
Thank you. I think someone commented - here or elsewhere - that the humour is much more evident if listening on audiobook, which is maybe something I should try. Maybe as a reader I come to the books with preconceptions which means I don't always pick up the humour in them.
I think it's probably impossible to come to big classics like the Brontes' books without preconceptions of one sort or another. And the Brontes certainly do a lot of gloom! There isn't much humour. You have to be ready to be taken by surprise.