Dear Readers,

Never fear, more Bronte posts will be coming along shortly. I have only just finished the coursework section of my master's and am plunging into the thesis. My advisor is doing a great job keeping up the pace with the writing, however I don't find time for much else nowadays. For instance, I am required to present a conference paper based on the thesis (what there is so far...) at a colloquium next week. So, as I toil away on that, I will have to post here only intermittently, and depending on how difficult I find revision.

I do have some news- quite a lot, but this will have to wait. I will mention that the highlight is that I have corresponded with Dr. Jo Baker who is currently working on the first film adaptation of Charlote Bronte's Shirley since the 1920s- and, when it is released- the only available adaptation of the novel. There isn't much to tell, except that she is still working on getting the script right. Encouraging news, nevertheless, for those of us waiting in breathless anticipation. It is still on track!

Film Adaptation of Shirley?

From today's News and Star:

40k Euros to develop screenplay

A CUMBRIAN-educated lecturer has been awarded 40,000 Euros to develop her screenplay of Charlotte Bronte’s Shirley.

Dr Jo Baker, who attended Queen Elizabeth School at Kirby Lonsdale and now lectures in English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, won the funding from the Irish Film Board.

The screenplay is now in development with the independent production company Green Park Films.

Dr Baker said: “It was a great sense of satisfaction to be taken seriously for my screenplay because I’ve never done anything like this before and it’s very exciting.

“I have my own dream wish list of who I’d like to be in the film but it’s early days yet. But the fact that we’ve got investment makes me feel more confident.”

Published in 1849, the novel is set the industrialising England of the Napoleonic wars and Luddite revolts of 1811-12.

Illustration from the Bronteana Resource Site. Other illustrations can be found here.

Janian Media Presentations

I am overwhelmed by the amount of media handed to me this week, mostly thanks to Thisbeciel. Since my earlier post about the Doyle/Harris musical I have been offered a DVD of the production- so watch out for a review of that sometime later. Off the top of my head, there are the two television films from 1957 and 1949 with Patrick McNee and Joan Ilan, and Charleton Heston and Mary Sinclair. There's the renown Bloom/Quayle audiobook, an opera, a Romanian audiobook (perfect for a family friend...), perhaps a dozen radio adaptations? One of these features Ingrid Bergman as Jane, another has Michael York as Mr. Rochester. On top of this, there's the BBC radio adaptations of Wuthering Heights, Villette, The Professor, Shirley, and Jane Eyre (with Sophie Thompson and Ciaran Hinds).

Phew.

And that's just what is relevant to Bronte studies. In addition, there's this Multimedia Presentation for the BBC's 1973 mini-series. It is described as a 'teaser' of sorts. I have not seen it yet, since I am still on the old dial-up connection but others have complimented it. From the same site there are also three video clips from the 1944 Jane Eyre with Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles here.

Bronteana Book Meme!

Glaukopidos informs me that I've been tagged for a book meme that has been circulating on Classics blogs. I've never posted a meme on Bronteana before, and it isn't news or an anecdote. So, I suppose this is an interview with myself.

1. One book that changed your life:

Villette, by Charlotte Bronte. It was only after I read Villette that I became interested in the Brontes. And this was not that long ago either: perhaps two years ago. I took it to heart, and owe to it my determination to become a Bronte scholar.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:

Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. I imagine that the novel will change when I read it again. It is a totally different experience each time.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte (really, are you surprised?).

4. One book that made you laugh:

An Aislinge MacConglinne (The Vision of McCongline), annonymous medieval Irishperson. Well. It has a saga in it about the 'mighty peerless chieftains of the tribes of food,' with such characters as Cakey MacWrist-y-hand and Filch MacSmooth-juicy-bacon.

5. One book that made you cry:

Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte. I believe it is the only book that made me cry, while Villette came very close.

6. One book that you wish had been written.

I wish Charlotte had finished Emma. Those were some of her finest opening chapters. The rewrite, by Clare Boland was not convincing.

7. One book that you wish had never been written.

Wide Sargasso Sea would be the smart answer, just so I would save time in explaining that it and Jane Eyre are not narratively compatible. I can't say I wish any book were not written. No, wait... There Was Mr. Cristi. I helped publish the thing. I edited it. I nearly went mad trying to write backcover copy for it. 'Just pretend to like it- say why people should read it.' I drew a blank for so long that I finally snapped and, looking at the Penguin copy for Charlotte's The Professor which makes it sound like a tale of seduction, I set to work. I believe I did use the phrase 'Mrs. Christi sucks the marrow out of life' but only in desperation. I even hinted at illicit goings-on and sinister implications surrounding the completely benign Mr. Bedlington, but as the publisher said: 'the backcover is the only place where hyperbole and lies are encouraged.' (Thus, in an anthology I am actually published in I am hearalded as one of Canada's emerging authors (very emergent- as that is my one and only publication to date). And that the books is 'the best ever'. I kid not). Anyway, no one- the publisher, the author's family, the 30 or so editors working on it- thought it had the slightest merit as a novel. I think we went with Gritty Realism in the end, which is good for anything!

8. One book you’re currently reading:

I am currently between books. I just finished Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:

North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell. Would you believe it, they don't have a copy in the entire library system of this city!

10. Now tag five people: I tag Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog, Mysticgypsy, Frankengirl, Pennyforyourdreams, and Austenblog!

Brontes on BBC Radio

Thanks to Thisbeciel and Biedroneczka for the tip that Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers is playing on BBC Radio (which you can listen to online). Tea with Mr Rochester. A schoolgirl comes face to face with her literary idol. Read by Romola Garai.

More traditional fare is available as well. There's a production of Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

For about a week you may also download these three radio adaptations of Jane Eyre (not from the BBC). Thisbeciel just cracked into a pile of these things, apparently:

Matinee Theatre- Gertrude Warner, Victor Jory (reported to be hilariously bad and heavily influenced by Rebecca.)
Favorite Story- Peggy Webber, William Conrad
Radio Hall of Fame- Joan Fontaine, Frederic March
Playhouse of Famous Authors- actors unknown

There's also the complete Shirley adaptation: Episode one, two, three, four, five, and six.

The Folly of Adaptation?

Still enjoying the bliss. I asked a favour of Thisbeciel, and it was granted. She has provided this screencap of the filmographies main screen, featuring a great moment from the volume 1 DVD of the BBC's Jane Eyre 1973:


Only now did I realise that unfortunately, it looks like they have grafted Mr Rochester's head onto Lord Ingram's body... just behind Blanche. Oh dear.

So far the folk reviews of the production are very positive. We have young men 'enthralled', older married gentlemen in tears, older ladies in giggles (my mom responding to the repartee, which she had me play over again), and several young ladies in stages of excitement and joy (myself included).

In my search for more news on Jane Eyre 2006 today I came across several very interesting discussion threads. When it first became definate that there would be a new production, the reaction was largely positive with only a slight inital disappointment that it wasn't one of the other novels, one which has not been adapted yet- like Shirley- or one whose adaptation will probably never again see the light of day- such as Villette. I would like to know, now, what you think. How do you feel about another remake of Jane Eyre? Secondly, one of the opinions I came across was not in favour of another adaptation on the grounds that the novel had 'long since outlived its time' meaning the modern world has moved on in some way, that Jane Eyre no longer works or speaks to modern human beings. What are your thoughts on this?

Bronte family helps launch book

Thank you, if you're still reading along, Kate Bower, for sending us the news about this book last year! Kate, a descendent of Alice McClory, mother of Patrick Bronte and grandmother of the Bronte sisters, had first tipped us off that Imelda Marsden was writing this book. Kate also shared her story and thoughts on Rose Ann Heslip, cousin of the Bronte sisters in a special Brontëana post here.

From dewsbury today:

DESCENDANTS of the Bronte family helped launch a book about the literary sisters' father written by a former Dewsbury Reporter editor.

The Father of the Brontes was written by WW Yates in 1897, and has been out of print for decades. But Mirfield Bronte enthusiast and Spen Valley Civic Society member Imelda Marsden has resurrected the book, complete with new material from her own research.

The book was launched at the Healds Hall Hotel in Liversedge – a suitable venue for the occasion as it featured in Charlotte's novel Shirley as the home of the Rev Matthew Helstone.Among the guests were Carol Bronte and Margaret Thompson – both Bronte descendants who travelled from their home in Northern Ireland for the occasion. Carol brought along an array of crafts which are being produced by Brontes in the 21st century. Imelda said the launch had gone really well with copies now gracing the shelves of universities in Japan and America.

"We've even got one at Harvard!" she said.

"We're really pleased with it and it all helps put North Kirklees on the Bronte map. So much of the Bronte story is naturally about Haworth, but this area is steeped in Bronte history as well and we want to shout about it."

Imelda said that during the launch event, the idea of twinning North Kirklees with the Emdale and Newry area of Northern Ireland, where the Brontes came from, had been mooted.

Copies of The Father of the Brontes are available from the Spenborough Guardian office at 1 Market Street, Cleckheaton, the Dewsbury Reporter office in Wellington Road, Red House Museum in Gomersal and Oakwell Hall in Birstall. They cost £14.99 with profits going to Holly Bank School, Mirfield.Do you think a twinning scheme would be beneficial to North Kirklees? Contact the Spenborough Guardian at margaret.heward@ywng.co.uk and we will pass your views on to Imelda.

T. H. Robinson Shirley Illustrations


I have been quite busy this morning uploading a lot of illustrations at the Bronteana Resource Site. It will take me some time to actually get all of them linked, but I hope to have each artist catalogued over the next few days. For now, something a little different. There are 8 full-colour illustrations of Charlotte Bronte's Shirley available here. I have scanned them from my own edition so I have a few things to say about the volume. It is a Collins Clear Type Press edition, although not one of their lovely palm-sized books. This one is very large by comparison (I have the Collins Clear Type Press editions of Jane Eyre and Villette as well- their illustrations will be scanned in eventually...). Also, since these are from my own edition, I have them in 100 dpi, but they are also available in a much higher resolution upon request.

The Butterfly, by Emily Bronte

I've just finished transcribing Sue Lonoff's translation of Emily's Belgian devoir entitled 'Le Papillon' ('The Butterfly'). I've transcribed the translation rather than the original French this time so that the anglophone readers of Bronteana can enjoy some of Emily's work as an essayist as well. I will transcribe the French at a later date. The transcript is available here.

I have also begun to scan the rest of the illustration I have for Villette, and these will soon be appearing on the site. Thereafter, I have some for Shirley, The Professor, and Jane Eyre to add in time.

Le Papillon is my favourite of Emily's devoirs, at least of those I have read so far. Here are a few excerpts from the transcript:

In one of those moods that everyone falls into sometimes, when the world of the imagination suffers a winter that blights its vegetation; when the light of life seems to go out and existence becomes a barren desert where we wander, exposed to all the tempests that blow under heaven, without hope of rest or shelter-- in one of these black humors, I was walking one evening at the edge of a forest. It was summer; the sun was still shining high in the west and the air resounded with the songs of birds. All appeared happy, but for me, it was only an appearance. I sat at the foot of an old oak, among whose branches the nightingale had just begun its vespers. "Poor fool," I said to myself, "is it to guide the bullet to your breast or the child to your brood that you sing so loud and clear? Silence that untimely tune, perch yourself on your nest; tomorrow, perhaps, it will be empty." But why address myself to you alone? All creation is equally mad. Behold those flies playing above the brook; the swallows and fish diminish their number every minute. These will become, in their turn, the prey of some tyrant of the air or water; and man for his amusement or his needs will kill their murderers. Nature is an inexplicable problem; it exists on a principle of destruction. Every being must be the tireless instrument of death to others, or itself must cease to live, yet nonetheless we celebrate the day of our birth, and we praise God for having entered such a world.

A Very Random Act of Brontë

I am half-way through my week of trails. There's still the in-class essay and the conference to prepare for. This afternoon I met with several colleagues also presenting at the Classics conference. They were drafting a letter accepting invitations to the conference's luncheon. The three of us are in some way students of English and Classics. We amused ourselves with writing the most grandeloquent prose humanly possible, describing our professors as "most sapient", and beginning with terms such as "Lord Admiral Nelson (Ph.D)," and "*professor's name here*, Duchess of Lambton Tower," and ending with something like "your most obliguing and obedient servants." I think 'conference' was consistently replaced with 'confabulation.' When it came to how I would be mentioned in this letter, the first option proposed was to make me an esquire. But then I explained how ladies can't be esquires...

"Unless you are Shirley, from the novel of the same name by Charlotte Brontë- She is the only one allowed to break this rule!"

And a hush falls, since no one knows what I'm talking about. But it's a start! I just have to keep mentioning it and eventually someone will ask me to explain. I do not remember how they resolved my title. It was troublesome:

"You're not married to a baronet, are you?"

"...Not to my knowledge."

Click here if you do not remember Random Acts of Brontë.

More Video Clips from JE the Musical and Transvestism in CB

This is sure to please Esther! Thanks once again to Thisbeciel for these clips from the Jane Eyre Musical! Some of these are repeats from the last time, but I don't think anyone will mind too much?

An Icy Lane
You examine me
Waking Rochester
I know who heals my life
the Gypsy
the Proposal
Wild Boy/Farewell Good Angel

Thisbeciel also came across this interesting poem, 'Transvestism in the Novels of Charlotte Bronte' by Patricia Beer

1 When reading Villette, Shirley and Jane Eyre,
2 Though never somehow The Professor
3 Which was all too clear,
4 I used to overlook
5 The principal point of each book
6 As it now seems to me: what the characters wore.

7 Mr Rochester dressed up as the old crone
8 That perhaps he should have been,
9 De Hamal as a nun.
10 There was no need
11 For this. Each of them could
12 Have approached his woman without becoming one.

13 Not all heroines were as forthright.
14 Shirley in particular was a cheat.
15 With rakish hat
16 She strode like a man
17 But always down the lane
18 Where the handsome mill-owner lived celibate.

19 Lucy, however, knew just what she was doing.
20 And cast herself as a human being.
21 Strutting and wooing
22 In the school play
23 She put on a man's gilet,
24 Kept her own skirt, for fear of simplifying.

25 Their lonely begetter was both sister and brother.
26 In her dark wood trees do not scan each other
27 Yet foregather,
28 Branched or split,
29 Whichever they are not,
30 Whichever they are, and rise up together.

Bronte Berry Lip Balm?

Thanks CC for this excellent product from the fine people at Literati Balm! Do visit their website. Not only does it have literati vegan lip balm, it has very silly use of Bronte quotes:

Vegan Lip Balm with a blushing berry bouquet. "Your lips are parched." (Shirley - 1849)

At which point Shirley offers some Bronte Berry lip balm, of course!

Also available in: Alcott Apricot, PoeMegranate, and ...oh wow, ShakesSpearmint!!!

"For the cerebrally chapped!"

Another Audio Adaptation of Jane Eyre

Yes, I am still here. I have not had a minute to do any transcribing since my last post but I will soon have all the free time I can handle, certainly more than you can shake a stick at if you'd want to try doing something like that. It's finals time, the holidays, and time for the family business to go bankrupt. But the Brontës go on.

Here, for example, is what has been termed 'anything but a decent adaptation' of Jane Eyre, brought to you by Biedroneczka from LERO, who has also provided us with at least two or three other audio adaptations! This time we have Sophie Thompson as Jane Eyre, and Ciaran Hinds as Mr Rochester. I did listen to part one of this when it aired on the BBC. It was awful indeed, but as for the rest, I cannot say. ;) I think I heard once that this production predates Mr. Hinds' stint as Mr Rochester in the A&E adaptation. I am bound to express myself... I think his portrayal is terrible but I cannot tell how much blame goes to the director. There is a scene where he actually drags Jane down the stairs after he tries to blame her for the whole thing ("I was prepared to committ bigamy for you because I knew that marriage was important to you!"). Notwithstanding, he still seems to strut and shout his way through nearly all of his scenes without much variation. He reminds me of the kind of Mr Rochester Charlotte feared she might see on the stage, actually. All grimaces and strutting.

Jane Eyre with Sophie Thompson and Ciaran Hinds

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

As always, these will only be available for about a week. I wish I had a copy of their adaptation of Shirley. That one really made me laugh. In fact, I couldn't help writing a parody of each installment! The accent of Mr Moore was very amusing.

Tenant of Wildfell Hall Month!

I am sure I have fallen behind the times, and become neglectful of announcing the LERO Brontë book reading months. I believe Wuthering Heights month has just passed us by- but I am in time to spread the word for Tenant of Wildfell Hall! If you haven't read the novel yet, there is no time like the present. I was introducted to the novel when I enrolled in the Victorian seminar at my university- which happily that year was explusively on the Brontës. We read Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Shirley in that order. By the end of the course, Tenant had been declared the best of them all by the majority of the class, and a request was made for the instructor to include Agnes Grey as well, and to replace Jane Eyre with Villette the next time the course is taught. I read it with some unfortunate expectations. I was curious to know why Anne is so often treated slightly by academics and critics. She is certainly not the less loved than her sisters are by the readers! It would have been best not to have these ideas at the back of my mind, but I could not help it.

I was baffled. There was nothing lacking, in my opinion, in Tenant. There's a peculiar power which is evidenced in the work of all three sisters. I forget that I am reading sometimes. I intend to read it again as soon as I can find the time (not this month at least. As you have no doubt noticed, I have been quite busy lately). It seems to me that it begins strong, and remains a very engrossing book until near the end. There is something not quite solid about it on first glance. This might not necessarily be a criticism. Often when I stumble over something it more often than not points the way to something deeper happening beneath the surface of the narrative somewhere. A second reading might clear this up. Does anyone else have similar issues with the ending?

Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the only work by Anne Brontë to be adapted for film. In 1996 it was made into a three hour television movie. I believe it is currently out of print, which is a real shame. I have a first edition of 'Charlotte Bronte and her Circle'. The chapter on Anne is really unbelievable in the way it completely discredits her as a writer. I do not have it on hand, but the editor claims, in the introduction (it may even be the first sentence...) that it is a certainly that if it wasn't for her sisters, she and her works would be forgotten. In my humble opinion, an easy test of this claim is to imagine what we truly would have thought of her works if she had not had her sisters' works to compete with. Would they really be so uninteresting, so skilless?

Here is an interesting, although far too brief, article on the Critics of Wildfell Hall by Glen Downey.

Rose Ann Heslip and the Living Cousins of the Brontës

Today we have a very special guest post here at Brontëana. Without further ado, here is an article written by Kate Bower, to give us all more information on Rose Ann Heslip and the modern descendants of the Irish Brontës- who are not quite so scarce as it seems. (It probably suits the mystique of the Brontes to think of their extended family fading away but such is hardly ever the case). Thank you, Kate, for taking the time to write this for Bronteana.

The commemorative event for Rose Ann was held on 6th October and the sun shone, it turned out to be a glorious day. There was a dinner held at Healds Hall Hotel attended by family members including Rose Anns’ 89 year old great grand daughter Olive Emily, members of the Bronte society and SpenValley Civic Society, and the Deputy Mayor & Mayoress and the Deputy Sheriff of Yorkshire.

“Healds Hall was one of the most fashionable residences in the district when built in 1764. It was the largest house in Spen Valley. The Hall first became famous through links with the Bronte family when it was owned by the Reverend Hammond Roberson, immortalised as the Reverend Matthew Helstone in Charlotte Bronte's novel "Shirley".”

www.healdshall.co.uk

After a very good meal and a ‘photo opportunity’ session, the party (slowly!) made its way to Dewsbury to the church of St Luke with Whitechapel. Flowers were laid on the grave and the local press were there in force – we all felt like minor celebrities for the day! Then into the lovely church for a memorial service (forgive me for saying so, but it has to rate as one of the dullest services I have ever attended). This was followed by a reading of some of Emily Bronte’s poems and a posy was presented to Olive.

Rose Ann was a very special lady I think. She was the kind of indomitable woman beset by tragedy and hardship you often find in a certain kind offiction. She was born in 1821 in Ireland and therefore lived through the famine - she must have seen some terrible things in her life.

Her parents were Sarah (nee Bronte) and Simon Collins and she was the only one of their ten children to marry. She had five (perhaps six) children only to watch them succumb one by one to consumption. Only one daughter, Emily, lived to marry. Emily, and her husband Hugh Bingham emigrated to Scotland where all their five children were born. Then Hugh moved down toYorkshire to take up work as a foreman at a gas works. By this time Emily was sick with consumption herself and her widowed mother aged over 70 came over to nurse her dying daughter.

Together the elderly lady, the sick daughter and five small children made the long and arduous journey by road from Scotland to Yorkshire. Aged just 33 Emily died and was buried at St Lukes with Whitechapel. Rose Ann stayed to look after her son-in-law Hugh and her grandchildren. What a sense of love and duty she must have had to stay in late Victorian industrial Yorkshire after the open spaces and close knit network of family and friends she had left behind in Ireland. It must have been a very grim place indeed.

“Salthorn was a deserted, forlorn place, surrounded by black pit-hills and standing amidst swamps and pools on the rough uncultivated common – at night lighted up by the lurid flames which belch from the furnaces at Low Moor and Bowling.”

Heckmondwike Herald, 24th August 1893

Eventually Rose Ann seems to have developed some kind of dementia and was admitted to the infirmary at the local work house. Full of character to the end, she climbed over the wall and made her way back home on the back of a cart on at least two occasions, according to family tradition. She lived to94. I would have loved to have known her.

Her eldest grand daughter, Mary Jane – my great grandma also died in her thirties of breast cancer, leaving three children – Leonard, Ernest andOlive Emily. But the younger grand daughter Elizabeth Anne lived to a grand old age, and I can just about remember her as a very old lady who smoked imaginary cigarettes (having been banned them by the doctor) and who frightened me very much when she once threw the ‘stub’ into the grate and asked me “Did it go in?”. I wasn’t used to grown ups behaving like this and I had absolutely no idea what to say to her! This aside, my mother and aunt tell me that she was a lovely lady, and ‘Aunty Annies’ sponge cake’ is a recipe which is still used in the family.

I have known that we had a Bronte connection for as long as I can remember. When I was around 16 I wrote to the Bronte Society to try and confirm this particular family tradition. Sadly, they were not really very helpful. They confirmed that Emily Heslip had married Hugh Bingham, but stated that they had no record of any children of the union. It was clear from the tone of their letter that, as far as they were concerned, the matter was closed.

It was only this year, when Imelda Marsden of the present day Bronte Society, ‘found’ us as the present day descendents of Rose Ann. She is researching a book on the relations of the Brontes and she is particularly interested in Rose Ann. This provided the first concrete proof that we did have a blood connection with the Brontes. After the brush off I had previously received, I wondered if Mary Jane and the others were perhaps Hugh’s children from a previous or subsequent marriage.

Because of this I can trace an unbroken maternal line back almost 250 years to Eleanor (Alice) McClory, born around 1759/60, the mother of Patrick and Sarah and the grandmother of the Bronte sisters and Rose Ann. Since I have a particular interest in womens’ history, and tracing a female line is usually quite difficult, this has been a source of special satisfaction to me - even without having famous cousins.

'Cottage Poems' by Patrick Brontë

At last! The Cottage Poems have been published by Project Gutenburg! Click here to read the full texts. They were released on november 16th. Could 'Maid of Killarney' be far behind? How very exciting! Other Bronte texts available through the Project include:

A, C, and E Brontë: Poems by Currer, Ellis and, Acton Bell
Anne Brontë: Agnes Grey, Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre, Villette, The Professor.

Il y a <<Jane Eyre ou Les mémoires d'une institutrice>>, le roman en Francais aussi. Je ne sais pas qu'est le traducteur de cet roman. C'est tres intéressante. Je pense qu'il est comme lire la roman encore- pour le premier fois. Il a un peu plus ...de melodrame. Ou plus de poésie, peut-etre. D'accord. Chacun langue chante son poésie. And, no, there is no text for Shirley! Shame, shame! (Nothing for Branwell either).

Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights.

Also: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell: The Life of Charlotte Brontë volume one and two.

A friend of mine is responsible for Really Slow productions of Shakespeare. People volunteer to record their lines, and then this is all pasted together with the magic of the internet into... a really slow production of Shakespeare. Some of my other friends and I were then inspired to try a really slow production of Jane Eyre the Musical. The trouble here was that all of my friends are ladies (the ones who sing, at any rate). And so, we had a soprano Rochester and myself who plays St.John Rivers (also a soprano, although I can sing alto as well). I forget how Brocklehurst came out... Our Jane was a certain classicist from Nova Scotia. Alas, before we ever even took our little horrendous productioni seriously, she ran away to a religious order.

And now, she's back! And she's not a nun. She found true love... in the religious order. I am astounded and amazed, and it is beautiful. She is no longer my soon-to be nun friend who despaired of leaving behind her copy of Villette. I now have a deliriously happy non-nun friend who can have as many books as she likes- and the true love thing is rather nice too.

ps. Don't worry, Martha- I got your email! I think this deserves a post of its own :)

'Eyre Apparent' exhibit at UVA...

After the absurdity of the last post, it feels good to have something substantive to report on, thanks to Cheshire Cat of the JE Musical forum, and the Brontë Society, would that I could attend!:

"Below is the latest information on the Jane Eyre exhibit. Please contact Barbara Heritage (the co-curator) if you have any questions. It will greatly assist Barbara in planning events if she hears from members who plan to visit.Eyre Apparent: An Exhibition Celebrating Charlotte Brontë's Classic Novel

Brontë enthusiasts are cordially invited to a day-long celebration of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre at the University of Virginia (UVa) on Friday, 9 December. The occasion features special tours of a major exhibition opening this fall and on view in the principal room of the University, the Dome Room of Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda.

The show, which commemorates the 150th anniversary of Brontë's death, is titled "Eyre Apparent" and offers up evidence of the book's ubiquity and enduring popularity. From the 19th century to the present, the exhibit follows Jane Eyre from the bookshop to the stage to the classroom to the dollhouse, from the printed word to household word. Displaying everything from series books to Greek comics, and objects ranging from thimbles to cigarette cards, the show sheds light on how Jane Eyre became a classic text and reveals how shifting cultural contexts have affected and continue to shape its meaning.

Gallery tours led by the show's curators will be offered throughout the day. Other events scheduled for December 9th include:-Morning and afternoon screenings of television and film adaptations of Jane Eyre-Guided tours of the Rare Book School collections led by RBS Founding Director and University Professor Terry Belanger, a 2005 recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship-Adjunct exhibit of the first edition and early printings of Jane Eyre owned by UVa, on display in the University's new Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library-Afternoon refreshments and evening reception
All events are free and open to the public. In addition, those who attend the event will receive a 10% discount on purchases made at several of Charlottesville's used and rare bookshops, from 9-11 December. Charlottesville has in recent years become a flourishing center for antiquarian books, with more used and rare bookshops than any other city in Virginia.
A block of hotel rooms has been reserved for Brontë Society at two hotels within walking distance of the Uva campus and all related events taking place that day. Rooms at the Courtyard Marriott will be available at $82 per night (434-977-1700) and at the Best Western Cavalier Inn at $68 per night (434-296-8111). Please mention "Rare Book School at UVa" when you call to make your reservation.

"Eyre Apparent" is co-curated by John Buchtel (Curator of Rare Books, the Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University) and Barbara Heritage (Curator of Collections, Rare Book School). It is the latest in a continuing series of exhibitions devoted to book history sponsored by Rare Book School, an independent, non-profit and tax-exempt institute supporting the study of the history of books and printing and related subjects.

The show, which is free and open to the public, will remain up through April 2006. UVa's Rotunda is open daily from 9:15 am - 4:45 pm. For directions, complete schedule, or other useful information (including advice on parking), please contact Barbara Heritage at beh7v@virginia.edu. "