Home Resources Livejournal Feed Wordpress

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

More pretty pictures...

I had to return most of the Brontë books I took out, alas. I did renew the ones by Juliet Barker because they're so interesting 'light' reading! I'm going to try once again, to continue my project to share all of the illustrated Brontë lovliness I have hoarded away on my PC. These are some of my favourites, illustrated by John Huehnergarth in 1954. The glorious Kristin sent them to me, along with other things to keep up my obsession- I mean... collection.









I have collected a lot of illustrations but have only come across two like the one on the left, which illustrate Mr Rochester's affairs on the continent. The other is from the 1940s. The edition is one of my favourites. There are many beautiful illustrations which cleverly comment upon the action in the text itself. These are good examples, but there are several ways he goes about this. The expressions of these illustrations are what speak for the accompaning text.

The one on the right is straight-forward, it seems. But if you read more into it, the illustrator has answered the question a few readers might have- would Mr Rochester make a good father? The other is more tricky. He certainly seems rather ridiculous, and flattered I think, by Celine's vivacious clinging. In the context of Mr Rochester's narrative, this image has strong ironic overtones.

2 comments:

The HoneyNerds said...

Thank you for posting! Do you have all of them scanned? I would like to see more. Cause the ones you posted are very nice. And of course I trust in your opinion. :)

And I would even like to see pointy nosed Jane and top heavy Rochester. I guess Nell Booker is more comfortable with coloring.

Brontëana said...

I have most of them scanned. In truth, I am woefully behind in my project to catalogue all of these illustrations. The one of Bertha is very odd as well... she has a knife and there's a male face in the shadows but I can't tell who it is supposed to be. Spooky ;)

Will do- as soon as I can settle in after all of the stress of this week. *sigh*