I Have Failed You

Yesterday I travelled north with a friend of mine to do a little shopping. There is a shopping centre in Bayer's Lake which has several 'big box' stores and the like. There is a branch of Chapters there. Chapters is the only major mainstream bookstore left in Canada, if I'm not mistaken. Long time readers will know my feelings about them and their practices, but I went all the same. To my relief, their selection was a slight improvement on the one back home (although an entire section on poop was unnecessary... It was called 'the scoop on poop.' What the deuce...)

Anyway, to my delight, I kept bushing up against Bronte novels. Back in my part of the country, it took me months to find a copy of Agnes Grey, and the Chapters stocked a grand total of one copy of Villette, three of Jane Eyre and two of Wuthering Heights. They had some very nice editions of the collected works.

And here is where I have failed you all. As my eyes glittered with the book lust, I neglected to note any information on the publisher or other details. Priced at about $30 was a hardcover edition of the Bronte novels- illustrated. Illustrated with images from turn of the century editions of the novels. My only complaint was that the book was laid out in the same way as the editions of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, with the text in two columns on the page.

I also had the chance to personally handle one of those Jane Eyre journals I reported last year. The journal is made to look like bugundy, aged leather with a page from the Jane Eyre manuscript embossed in gold on the front. Interestingly, the page chosen for the journal is from the interrupted wedding scene and begins somewhere near Mr. Brigg's first lines about the 'impediment.' Not exactly what I expected. Also, the signature they chose was probably one of Charlotte's messiest, but messy is in. In fact, at first glance I could not even read it... I would suspect that it was fabricated, but that the cross on the T is very high. Yes, I may be just a little too methodical.

Jane Eyre Illustrations - 1890

These really are extraordinary illustrations. These are from the Thomas Crowell 1890 edition of Jane Eyre. I have often wondered when the first illustrations appeared. Charlotte Bronte was approached by her publishers to illustrate the novel herself, but she refused saying that her characters were so unattractive that she could not think there would be any interest in illustration. I don't think that I have come across older representations. They form part of an online project at the University of Nebraska called Love and Seduction, part of the Nineteeth Century Studies Resources for an Interdisciplinary Curriculum.

"You do not hesitate to take a place at my side, do you?"

Bowling down the Drive

One of my dearest friends has allowed me to post her license plate, sans number. It is a tribute to Bronteism, is it not?

Jane Eyre the really Big Musical

I don't know how else to title this post. It is not easy to conceive a mental image of a production from a sound track alone, but there is one song from this... 'Jane Eyre: The Musical' (v. 4? 5?) the Skousen, Thompson, Kilpatrick version, that is. There is a song called 'Morton,' which consists of stanzas ending with the cry: "MORTON!" It is all very cheery, as all Jane Eyre musicals before Paul Gordon seem to be. It is entertaining enough to be enjoyable, however, which is the main thing.

Morton!

Mr Rochester's song 'It Takes a Woman' strongly recalls Victorian ideals of 'The Angel in the House': "Why are some women always right- those that are pure like an angel of light?"

Bertha has her own song: 'Sever Them.' Of all such songs, there's probably the most character development. Parts of it have a surrealness to them, but the hag-like voice ruins most of the effect.

This production has its own homepage, here.

Day in the Life of a Bronte Scholar

I have received some mail asking for updates on how my thesis is progressing. A few weeks ago I submitted a proposal to the graduate committee at Dalhousie University, and received the approval letter and comments today. So far everything seems to be going well.

I am very nearly finished the coursework section of the master's degree, then I will spend the next few months writing the thesis, and probably watching Jane Eyre many many times.

In other news, my novel is very near completion. Using my rough plan, there ought to be five to six more chapters. It will not be following the plan. There could be another ten but we will see how the plot unfolds and go from there. I'm very excited because this is the section I have been looking forward to since I started. This would be my Jane Eyre experiment. A few of my readers will remember that I set out last year to explore a question about the novel by writing one of my own. I will soon have results. I hope that I have proved myself wrong!


I am also preparing a poetry manuscript, hopefully, for publication (if you are wondering when I sleep, the answer is that I don't. It's difficult to sleep when a hoard of drunken teenagers charge past your door at three in the morning so one might as well be productive. At the moment I am going on four hour's sleep!). I have been published before but only in anthologies. I hope this will be my first 'real' work.

I neglected to mention, last night I wrote two chapters of my novel which explains the four hours' sleep. I can't sleep when I am inspired. If I don't write, I will just lie there visualising or hearing it until it is all worked out anyway.

Lastly, my good friend Thisbeciel has again supplied me with an adaptation of Jane Eyre. It says something about the state of my collections when I could not tell if I had heard this one before. Hopefully I can provide a review this evening or tomorrow. She tells me that it is horrible but fun to listen to. I like that almost better than a work of art.

Jane Eyre Finally gets to See 'Jane Eyre'

From the ToledoBlade:

Seventy years ago, a little girl named Jane Eyre was looking forward to a big treat.

Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Eyre, who lived on Walbridge Avenue, had promised to take their daughter to see a production of Jane Eyre, starring Katharine Hepburn and Orson Welles, which was coming to the Paramounton March 4, 1937. But young Jane never got there.

As Jane Eyre Kittle recalls, her sister came down with whooping cough, and the entire household was quarantined.

"At that time, they posted a big red ticket on your door, meaning no one could go out or in," she said in a telephone interview from her home in Hillsdale, Mich.

Learning of the child's disappointment, Hepburn sent Jane a large autographed photo, which she hung in her bedroom.

Seven decades later, almost to the day, Jane Eyre is returning to Toledo, and Mrs. Kittle will be attending the show in the Valentine Theatre with her husband, two daughters, and sister Donna, the one who had whooping cough.

They won't be seeing Katharine Hepburn, but Mrs. Kittle doesn't really care. "I just love the book so much," she said. "And I'll probably even enjoy it more now than I would have when I was 6. I probably wouldn't have understood much, then."

As for Hepburn's photograph, "Somehow it got lost," Mrs. Kittle recalled, so she wrote to both Hepburn and Welles, in hopes of getting another one. Hepburn never answered, but Welles did, and Mrs. Kittle still has his gift.

Mrs. Rochester, MP?

From The Guardian:

Mrs Rochester

Mr Brown came under fire from shadow chancellor George Osborne who claimed his "personal pollster" had pointed to "public dissatisfaction" over the government performance on the environment.

And Mr Brown was again mocked as "Mrs Rochester", the mad first wife imprisoned in an attic in the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

But Mr Brown hit back, highlighting differences in the Tory leadership over tax breaks for married couples.

New Clips from Wichita Jane Eyre: The Musical

These clips are from the first public version of Jane Eyre: The Musical as performed in Wichita, Kansas in 1996. Marla Schaffel is Jane, Anthony Crivello is Mr Rochester.

Secret Soul


'Oh God' A piece cut from the show (and new to me!)


The Proposal

10th Anniversary for Bronte Country Website

This month the Eagle Intermedia Bronte Country website celebrates its 10th birthday.

Launched back in February 1997, the Bronte Country website was originally set up by Eagle Intermedia Publishing Ltd. as an initiative to help promote theBronte Birthplace and its environs in Thornton on the outskirts of Bradford. However the site quickly expanded to include tourist information on Haworth, Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale, as well as other places in the West Yorkshire and East Lancashire Pennines having associations with the Brontes. The area was of course already world famous for its literary connections, but the internet has proved a highly effective medium in communicating interest and helping visitors plan their travel arrangements.

Today Eagle Intermedia's Yorkshire websites attract hundreds of visitors a day from all over the world. Says Roger Poultney (Internet Marketing Consultant): "The Bronte Country website has gone from strength to strength, and several spin-off sites covering specific places within the region (including Haworth, Bradford and Saltaire) have subsequently been developed, as well as separate websites for the nearby Yorkshire Dales, the North York Moors and Yorkshire Coast. I have no doubt whatsoever that Eagle Intermedia's online marketing efforts have made a significant contribution to local tourism in raising the profile of the area at home and abroad, not only to the benefit of clients who advertise on the Bronte Country website, but also to the West Yorkshire tourism economy as a whole..."

This view is backed up by the website's advertising clients, which include hotels, guest houses and self-catering holiday cottages in the area. Says David Sisley, of the Apothecary Guest House in Haworth:

"I am delighted with the bookings and interest which I have received since joining the Bronte Country website. Bookings have increased, and I am receiving enquiries from all over the world because of my listing. Congratulations on the 10th anniversary, and looking forward to seeing how the site develops over the next ten years !"

These links will also be available shortly, once I have reconstructed our links, on the left-hand sidebar of this blog.

Bronte Country
http://www.bronte-country.com

Haworth Village (in Bronte Country)
http://www.haworth.yorks.com

And thank you to Dr.Poultney for contributing this news item.

Blogging in Brussels

I would like to welcome the latest Bronte blog to join us online. The Brussels Bronte Blog has just started publishing this month. Be sure to add it to you lists!

http://www.brusselsbronte.blogspot.com/

The Brussels Brontë Group was originally formed by Brontë Society members in Belgium and the Netherlands to bring together people interested in the Brontës and in the Brussels places with Brontë associations. It soon grew to include members of many different countries and nationalities: British, Belgian, Dutch, French, German and others. We welcome anyone in any country who is interested in the works and lives of the Brontës (and 19th century literature in general) and would like to know more about the history of the Pensionnat Heger (the school where Charlotte and Emily Brontë stayed in 1842-43 and which inspired Villette and The Professor), the Quartier Isabelle where it stood, and the city of Brussels in the 19th century.

The Blog provides a forum for members to keep in touch with one another, and we welcome contributions by anyone who is interested in our Group.

Jane Eyre: The Musical in Dorset

The Big Little Theatre School’s production of Jane Eyre – The Musical Drama is being staged at the Regent Centre, Christchurch, Dorset from April 11th – 14th. Tickets are available from the Regent Centre box office on 01202 499148.

For more information, read this post on the Bronte Parsonage Blog.

Bronte Spirit

Brontë Spirit is the name of a partnership between Haworth Parish Church and The Brontë Society. Its aim is to lease, redevelop, maintain and administer the School Room building, which is owned by Haworth Parish Church.

We are concerned with the preservation and restoration of this Grade II listed building in which Charlotte Brontë taught.

We are hoping to open up the building, which is situated on the other side of Church Street from the Parsonage Mueum. We hope and intend to heighten awareness of the Brontë heritage through the successful education programme of the Parsonage Museum, to develop education in all areas of the Arts, provide space for artists and crafts people and a place for local community groups to meet.

So far we are in the planning and fundraising stages.

We are going to add information to this website periodically to keep you informed, so look at it regularly to find out about the progress we are making.

To find out more about the projects, you can visit their blog at: http://www.brontespirit.blogspot.com/

The Brontë Influence

From Yorkshire Today:

THE Brontës' lives and their books have been inspiring writers, They will look at the remarkable power of the Brontës' writing and its influence on their own work.
The event, organised as part of the Brontë Parsonage Museum's contemporary arts programme, will bring together a number of writers who have acknowledged a debt to the Brontës, including Booker Prize nominated novelist Michele Roberts.
Rather like the Brontës', Roberts's writing has often been referred to as "feminist", although she has stated that it is primarily about "food, sex and God". She has won many literary prizes and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999. Other panelists will include Patricia Duncker and Stevie Davies.Andrew McCarthy, deputy director, Brontë Parsonage Museum, said: "The Brontës' influence on other writers has been profound and it's wonderful to have contemporary writers of such prominence here in Haworth to talk about the Brontës in relation to their work. The writers who will be joining us are hugely talented."

Bronte Digest

In an effort to catch up on recent news, I have compiled one of my Bronte Digests. This should also save stress on those who receive Brontëana post through a feed (and especially Livejournal).

The Acting Company's production of Jane Eyre at Ball State University.
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Emens Auditorium
Cost: $5 for Ball State students

And in North Carolina:

JANE EYRE: An adaptation by Polly Teale of Charlotte Bronte's novel; 8 p.m., Farthing Auditorium, Appalachian State University, Boone. Presented by The Acting Company. Admission $16, $14 for seniors, $8 for students. Call 800-841-2787 or 828-262-4046.

See this post for other scheduled performances.

A glowing review of the North American DVD release of Jane Eyre 2006, praising its non-canonical approach:

[Jane]'s damaged, and this makes her undemonstrative to a fault – a bit of a pain, actually. She has to go on a journey to find her true character.
...
This Rochester is wrestling with a highly-developed dark side, losing, and rather enjoying it.

This article on muses is remarkable for mentioning dear Monsieur Heger:

A muse is used regularly by many well-known male artists. However, there are few instances where female artists have turned men into muses. The few examples include Charlotte Brontë's unrequited yearning for the married Monsieur Constantin Heger, her tutor, who became the model for Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre and for Paul Emmanuel in Villette, and Emily Dickinson's passion for her unidentified "Master" to whom she addressed some of her most fevered poems.

The times, they are a changin'? Apparently people are less interested in love nowadays:

Heather Schell, an assistant professor of writing, picked up similar attitudes when she taught a course called "Love, American Style" at George Washington University. Her female students loved to discuss the chick-lit book "Bridget Jones's Diary" and the sexual follies of Jones and her boss, Daniel Cleaver. But they were not enthralled with Edward Rochester's lengthy courtship in "Jane Eyre." Quick flings, or hookups, were okay, "but love was rarely mentioned in class discussions," Schell says.

Their favorite assigned reading? A poetry anthology called "The Hell With Love."

Science (and literature?) show that money can't buy love:

And there are precedents. Jane Eyre could only have Mr Rochester after he had lost his money and been blinded. Cathy's passion for Heathcliff deepened as he went mad and destroyed everything about him. Scarlett only loved Rhett when he was down on his luck. Could it be that there is something seriously damaged in the feminine psyche?

Multimedia Exploration of Jane Eyre in Bartlett.

When a classic novel is brought to life on the silver screen, things change. One such great book gets a through examination of its media conversions at a captivating lecture.

Plymouth State University's Dr. Gaye Gould is presenting a multimedia exploration of Charlotte Bronte's classic romantic novel, "Jane Eyre." This popular novel has been adapted to the screen several times, each with its own distinct perspective. Delve into the story and its renditions on Tuesday, Feb. 13 at Bartlett Library.

Gould has chosen clips from a variety of these movies to compare them with the novel. A movie never seems to do justice to a book, yet with over a dozen media renditions there is something that is fascinating about capturing the essence of a book on film.
The "Jane Eyre" media exploration is at 7 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

Maintenance Note

For those of you reading Bronteana without benefit of feeds, you should have noticed some changes to the format. Blogger has finally made a beta big enough for this journal, but switching over to the new system hasn't gone smoothly so far. I've managed to wipe out all of the links along the side of the page, including all of my vain attempts to provide some order to the anarchy of the archives (which are still a hopeless mess). I hope to find the time to restore the links list and etexts before long. In the meantime, there is a new visitor map, which should be fun. If you scroll to the bottom on the blog you will now see a map showing where some of the visitors are from!

Jane Eyre 2006: Deleted Scenes

Denarios has posted clips of the deleted scenes from the BBC's mini-series. There are several clips included in each of the following:

Deleted Scenes from Episodes 1 and 2:



Deleted Scenes from Episodes 3 and 4:

Performance Schedule for Jane Eyre: The Musical

Thanks to Mrs. Dionysius O'Gall:

CHARLOTTE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL
CHARLOTTE, NC US From 3/8/2007
Until 3/10/2007

HIGHLANDS RANCH JR SR HIGH SCH
HIGHLAND RANCH, CO US From 4/12/2007
Until 4/21/2007

HOMESCHOOL PERFORMING ARTS
ALTO, MI US From 4/26/2007
Until 4/28/2007

NIAGARA-WHEATFIELD HIGH SCHOOL
SANBORN, NY US From 3/29/2007
Until 3/31/2007

NOCCA/RIVERFRONT
NEW ORLEANS, LA US From 3/14/2007
Until 3/18/2007

VIEWMONT HIGH SCHOOL
BOUNTIFUL, UT US From 3/9/2007
Until 3/17/2007

WATERTOWN LYRIC THEATER PRODUCTIONS, INC.
WATERTOWN, NY US From 5/3/2007
Until 5/5/2007

WESTMINSTER ACADEMY
FT LAUDERDALE, FL US From 3/16/2007
Until 3/17/2007

Win a DVD of Jane Eyre 2006

Digital Spy is giving away three copies of the region 2 version of the new BBC mini-series:

Charlotte Bronte’s novel is brought to life in this lavish and complex adaptation. Newcomer Ruth Wilson (Jane Eyre) and Toby Stephens (Edward Rochester) head up an all-star cast including Francesca Annis, Tara Fitzgerald and Pam Ferris.

After a wretched childhood as an orphan and two years of being a teacher, Jane Eyre yearns for new experiences. She accepts a governess position at Thornfield Hall, where she tutors a lively French girl. She soon finds herself falling in love with the brooding owner of Thornfield, the dark and impassioned Mr Rochester. Jane gradually wins his heart but first they must overcome the dark secrets of his past before they can find happiness as man and wife.

When Jane saves Rochester from a fire, which he claims was started by a drunken servant, she begins to suspect that she has not been told the whole story. Her fears are confirmed when Rochester’s secret past is revealed, forcing Jane to flee Thornfield. Penniless and hungry, she finds shelter and friendship in the shape of a kind clergyman and his family, but she is soon shocked to uncover the hidden truth of her own past.

Adapted by Sandy Welch (North and South), produced by Diederick Santer (Much Ado About Nothing) and directed by Susanna White (Bleak House).

As well as all four 50 minute episodes, this 2-disc DVD includes extras such as interviews with cast and crew, commentaries on episodes 1 and 4, deleted scenes, photo gallery and BBC trails.

A Brief Note About Emails Etc.

I have only just begun to tackle the emails that have built up inside my inbox (there's only 841 new messages now!). It's slow going. I hope that no one's message gets lots but if you have sent word to me and I have not replied, remind me please. I am also aware that I am behind in replying to comments as well. It is more difficult to keep up with those.

This week is going to be quite hectic. I will be readjusting my Bronte thesis proposal. I've met with my advisor who has advised me to trim it down to two adaptations. The reasoning behind this decision is that I have such a huge amount of new material I could contribute it seems wasteful to retread adaptations which have already been studied. These two adaptations will be the 2006 mini-series and the 1996-2001 musical by Paul Gordon and John Caird. (Which reminds me, Anthony Crivello, if you're reading this, I have been carrying the package I prepared for you in my backpack for months now. I WILL post it! I feel like the world's worst fan...).

To make matters more interesting, I am once again in the middle of marking essays (some of which make my brain feel like bursting and not in a good way), I have a paper of my own due monday, and I will be presenting my first lecture on thursday (it is on Dickens, monomania and class tensions in Victorian England. I only briefly contemplated throwing in a Wuthering Heights reference but I've been good about sticking to Mr. D's work).