"To Walk Invisible"

A scene from the television film "To Walk Invisible"
Photo via here

If you are a fan of the Bronte sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne), the authors of some of the most iconic novels in the English language, you will be very happy to hear that a dramatization of their lives will soon be airing on PBS.  Sally Wainwright, the creator of television shows such as "Happy Valley" and "Last Tango in Halifax," has just completed a new film for the BBC, "To Walk Invisible." It has been shot in Haworth, Yorkshire, where the Bronte family lived, and from the photos I have seen it looks breathtaking. I have always been enthralled by the story of the Brontes -- their humble beginnings, remote setting in Yorkshire, tragically short lives, and the literary masterpieces they produced  --  a personal story as riveting as any of their books. Now it will be told in what looks to be a brilliant television production. The lucky viewers in Britain will get to see it this month. We will have to wait until March when it will be broadcast on Masterpiece Theatre.

Here are a few things I have learned about this upcoming television production:

Sally Wainwright was approached by the BBC to do something for the 200th anniversary of Charlotte's birth in 2016. Rather than do a series about their entire lives, she decided to focus on the four surviving Bronte siblings (Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell) as mature adults. Siblings Maria and Elizabeth had died of tuberculosis as young children.

The film will be 90 minutes long and covers the years 1845-1848. These are the last years of their brother Branwell's life. He was a troubled young man and during this time he sank into alcoholism, drug addiction and disturbing behavior. He died from alcoholism in 1848 at age 31.

The film depicts the domestic situation of these three women living with a disturbed brother and how they dealt with his problems. This is also the time that they tried to publish their books. It was an uncomfortable situation at home and yet they continued to write and create their literary masterpieces. I can't wait to see this!

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Another wonderful event in honor of the 200th celebration of Charlotte Bronte's birth is the Charlotte Bronte exhibition in New York at the Morgan Library which I just visited for the second time. It's up until January and if you are in New York be sure to see this.

The original manuscript of "Jane Eyre" on loan to the Morgan Library
Photo via here

Here are the highlights:

A portion of the original 1847 manuscript of "Jane Eyre" ( photo above) on loan from the British Library and shown in the U.S. for the first time. It is open to the page on which Jane tells Mr. Rochester: "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will; which I now exert to leave you." Seeing this treasure was very special and I have to admit to getting a little emotional.

The only surviving portrait of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte painted by their brother Branwell which has never been seen in this country before. It resides in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

A blue floral dress worn by Charlotte in the 1950's 

Drawings and watercolors by Charlotte that demonstrate her artistic talent

The tiny books written by the Bronte children in a nearly microscopic handwriting. Magnifying glasses are nearby to help viewers read them. The children wrote fantasy fiction set in Glass Town, Angria and Gondall, imaginary lands populated by aristocrats, poets and swashbuckling heroes. 

I walked out of this exhibition touched by the poignancy of Charlotte Bronte's short life. She died three weeks before her 39th birthday while pregnant with her first child. Just nine months earlier she had married the curate at Haworth, Arthur Bell Nicholls.  She had watched all of her siblings die, including Emily at age 30 and Anne at age 29. It is awe-inspiring to think of all that she wrote and the celebrity she achieved considering her personal life. After her death her father Patrick Bronte and her husband Arthur Nicholls worked hard to protect her literary legacy. Fans of her books began making the pilgrimage to the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth, England just a few years after her death. The flow of visitors continues to this day. Nothing has changed except the sheer volume of admirers and each year the streets of Haworth teem with devoted fans of the Brontes. I am planning a trip for 2017. I am so happy that I got a chance to see this exhibition twice!    

 I would love to know:
Do you have a favorite Bronte sister? What is your favorite Bronte book?
Have you visited the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth?

A Very Good Prologue

It's not too often that I think about the prologue to a book. In fact, sometimes when I am in a hurry to begin a book, I skip it. But I did take the time to read Claire Harman's brilliant prologue to her fabulous new biography of Charlotte Bronte and I am so glad I did. It was a reminder of the power of literature. It also set the stage and the mood for what has so far been a fascinating read. I am 100 pages into this biography and really enjoying it.

The prologue tells a fascinating story: in September of 1843 Charlotte Bronte, age 27, is alone at the Pensionnat Heger in Brussels, a girls' school where she is a teacher. Everyone has left for vacation but she cannot afford to go home. She is lonely and unhappy. It is not only her solitude that is making her feel this way. She has fallen in love with the husband of the headmistress of the school and it is obvious he doesn't return her love. When she was a student at the school, he paid her a lot of attention and singled her out as a shining star. But after she became a teacher, his behavior changed and he acted coldly towards her. She feels rejected and ignored by both the husband and wife.

On one of these days alone at the school she takes a long walk through the town and winds up at the city's great cathedral. Although she is not Catholic, she decides to go in and hear the service. Afterwards she enters the confessional and makes a confession to the priest. For the daughter of an Irish Protestant minister, this was very strange behavior. But she was desperate to talk to someone about her feelings. She later wrote to her sister Emily about her sense of relief in unburdening herself. Later, when she wrote her first novel The Professor, she would learn how to deal with her pain by turning it into art.

Two weeks after Charlotte's visit to the Cathedral, a young Queen Victoria was in Brussels. Charlotte went out to see the royal party procession and wrote to Emily about her excitement at seeing the young queen. Claire Harman ends this little story with the following line:

"Five years later, the insignificant little Englishwoman in the cheering crowd who had watched Victoria flash by would be keeping that queen and half the nation awake with the novel she had written."

That novel would be Jane Eyre.

Would this prologue make you want to read the book?
It definitely pulled me in!

Charlotte Bronte Exhbition

"I am no bird and no net ensnares me. I am a free human being with an independent will."

-- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Sometimes I think the National Portrait Gallery in London and I are on the same wave length. Every time I turn around they are mounting an exhibition of one my favorite writers. And because I'm planning a trip to London in the spring my radar is attuned to all that is happening there! I am very excited about a new exhibition that has just opened: "Celebrating Charlotte Bronte: 1816-1855." This year marks the 200th anniversary of her birth and the National Portrait Gallery is celebrating with an historic exhibition. I love the exhibitions put on by the National Gallery. Last year I saw one on Virginia Woolf and it was spectacular. This exhibition on Charlotte Bronte promises to be just as special. As an assistant curator at the National Portrait Gallery said, "We wanted to bring her to life because we are the museum of biographies, the museum of people, and she is one of the most important people in British Literature."

The exhibition will include the author's letters, journals, and drawings as well as a first edition of Jane Eyre. There will be 26 personal items from the Bronte Parsonage Museum, the Bronte sisters' home, on display alongside portraits from the National Portrait Gallery's collection. It is the museum's largest-ever loan, with some of the paintings, drawings, letters and journals previously unseen. Key items in the exhibition include the famous "little books" written by the Bronte sisters as children.

But the centerpiece of the exhibition will be the only surviving group portrait of Charlotte and her sisters painted by their brother Branwell. This haunting painting of the Bronte sisters, which includes Branwell's own ghostly shadow in the middle, resides in the National Portrait Gallery and is a piece I visit whenever I am there. I have been reading the Bronte novels and biographies since my early twenties. The story of their lives is almost as riveting as their novels. They all died young: Anne at 29, Emily at 30, Branwell at 31, and Charlotte at 38, just two months after getting married. And yet she and her sisters wrote classic novels that will live forever.

This portrait is fascinating because it is the only one to show the three sisters together. It seems that Branwell began sketching himself only to change his mind immediately. And it is a painting that was almost lost. It was found folded carelessly on top of a cupboard in 1906 by the second wife of Charlotte's husband Reverend A.B Nicholls. The museum acquired it in 1914.

For this exhibition experts have worked hard to show the most accurate image of what Branwell's picture would have looked like before he painted a solid pillar over his own face and took himself out of the family group. The curators have used the latest technology to show what the original image looked like in its most detail yet and tell the full story of how it came to the public eye. They will explore the intriguing story of its discovery folded on top of a cupboard, subsequent acquisition by the gallery and restoration.

Juliet Barker, former curator of the Bronte Parsonage Museum and Bronte biographer has written, "It is the iconic portrait of the Brontes and anything more we can learn about it is obviously of great interest."

I look forward to learning about the new research on this piece. It will be so interesting to see it in the context of the many personal treasures from the Bronte Parsonage Museum. I have always wanted to visit Haworth and hope to make it there one day. In the meantime, I have been reading a fascinating book on the Brontes: The Bronte Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects by Deborah Lutz. The author examines the meaningful  objects in the Bronte family home and through them recreates the sisters' daily lives. It will be wonderful to see some of these objects at the National Portrait Gallery. They are sure to illuminate Charlotte Bronte's life. The curators wanted to illustrate her literary career and success but also her home life which is lesser known. I cannot wait to see this exhibition!

The Bronte sisters lived in Yorkshire

Go here to see a beautiful series of photos of this part of England

Since this is the two hundredth anniversary of Charlotte Bronte's birth, I am planning to reread Jane Eyre. Have you read it lately?

Beginnings

Do you ever wonder about the beginning of a writing career, such as that of the brilliant writer Charlotte Bronte? Most of us would assume that she had unimaginable hurdles because of the time and place in which she wrote. And that was true. She lived in the nineteenth-century when women were generally not published authors. She grew up in the remote depths of Yorkshire, England in a parsonage with her clergyman father Patrick Bronte and her three brilliant and troubled siblings Emily, Anne and Branwell. Their lives were filled with tragedy. All of them died young: Anne at 29, Emily at 30, and Branwell at 31. Charlotte herself died at 38, just two months after getting married. And yet she and her sisters wrote classic novels that will live forever.

This past weekend was cold and rainy here in Los Angeles and I spent some quiet time browsing through my bookshelves. I love doing this because either I get reacquainted with some old friends or discover some new ones. In this case the book I took down was one I had bought many years ago but had never given much attention to. There was a time when I bought everything I could find on the Bronte family and consequently have a pretty big collection of books about them. I especially loved Juliet Barker's biography from 1994 which was reissued a couple of years ago. (Go here to read more.) The book that caught my eye over the weekend was The World Within, The Brontes at Haworth by Juliet Gardiner, published in 1992. It is filled with letters, diaries and writings by the Brontes. Dipping into it, I was reminded of the challenging beginnings of one of the most brilliant and short writing careers, that of Charlotte Bronte. I came upon some fascinating quotes by Charlotte and others about the beginning of her career and the difficulty of getting published. Here are a few of the most revealing:

Charlotte wrote:

"We had very early cherished the dream of one day becoming authors. This dream, never relinquished even when distance divided and absorbing tasks occupied us, now suddenly acquired strength and consistence: it took the character of a resolve. We agreed to arrange a small selection of our poems, and, if possible, get them printed."

After much trouble finding a publisher, the sisters finally found one that would take them on and the poems were published at the end of May, 1846. The title page read:  "Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell." Charlotte wrote:

"Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily) and Acton (Anne) Bell: the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because, without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called 'feminine' -- we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice..."

The poems were not a great success. Out of an initial run of 1,000 copies, only two were sold. But the sisters weren't discouraged. They were each writing a novel and Charlotte had written to their publisher to consider taking that on as well.  Either as a work of three volumes, or separately as single volumes. The books were The Professor by Charlotte, Agnes Grey by Anne and Wuthering Heights by Emily. Their publisher declined and was one of several who missed out on publishing one of the most famous works in English literature.

Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey were eventually accepted by a publisher, though The Professor was not. Fortunately Charlotte had another book in waiting and it was Jane Eyre. She finished it while taking care of her father who was recovering from cataract surgery. She sent the manuscript off to Smith, Elder & Co. on August 24, 1847. George Smith was so captivated by it that he read it in one sitting, canceling all appointments for the day and refusing to go to bed until he had finished. Six weeks later on October 16, 1847, Jane Eyre: An Autobiography was published. It was an instant success.

William Makepeace Thackeray, upon finishing it, wrote to the publisher George Smith:

"I wish you had not sent me 'Jane Eyre.' It interested me so much that I have lost...a whole day in reading it at the busiest period with the printers wailing for copy. Who the author can be I can't guess, if a woman she knows her language better than most ladies do, or has had a classical education. It is a fine book...some of the love passages made me cry, to the astonishment of John, who came in with the coals...I don't know why I tell you this but I have been exceedingly moved and pleased by 'Jane Eyre.' It is a woman's writing, but whose? Give my respects and thanks to the author, whose novel is the first English one...that I've been able to read for many a day." 

A reviewer for one of the biggest British magazines called it:

"One of the most powerful domestic romances which has been published for many years...it is full of youthful vigor, of freshness and originality, of nervous diction and concentrated interest...It is a book to make the pulses gallop and the heart beat, and to fill the eyes with tears."

The 2011 film adaptation of Jane Eyre 

For a long time Charlotte's family and friends had no idea that she was the writer of Jane Eyre. Her brother died without ever knowing that his sisters had published any writing. It was a while before she told even her closest friend Ellen Nussey. But it was not until January, 1848 when Charlotte saw an elderly gentlemen reading Jane Eyre at Haworth that she decided to tell her father. Her biographer Mrs. Gaskell tells the story:

"She (Charlotte) informed me that something like the following conversation took place between her and him (I wrote down her words the day after I heard them; and I am pretty sure they are quite accurate).

'Papa, I've been writing a book.'
'Have you, my dear?'
'Yes, and I want you to read it.'
'I am afraid it will try my eyes too much.'
'But it is not a manuscript; it is printed.'
'My dear! you've never thought of the expense it will be! It will be almost sure to be a loss, for how can you get a book sold? No one knows your name.'
'But, papa, I don't think it will be a loss, nor will you if you will just let me read you a review or two, and let me tell you more about it.'
So she sat down and read some of the reviews to her father; and then, giving him a copy of 'Jane Eyre' that she intended for him, she left him to read it. When he came in to tea, he said, 'Girls, do you know that Charlotte has been writing a book, and it is much better than likely?'"

 I think that it's time for a rereading of Jane Eyre. I would love to know if this is one of  your favorites. And have you read any other books by Charlotte Bronte?