To walk invisible

[Dowser]

Really looked forward to this but am finding it all a bit. Meh!

Anyone else watching
It might just be me
I'm a bit tired tonight

I had a lovely day out on Haworth moor today didn't get as far as Top Withens there was a brisk wind. Walking back into the town I always feel a sadness and picture how Emily must have seen it. Nice cafes these days though!

I read this a few years back "the taste of Sorrow" by Jude Morgan - sort of fictionalised account of their lives - heartbreaking
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005DXP7IO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Their father was an interesting man - getting to Cambridge from a poverty stricken background back then (even now) - amazing!

Trying to watch To Walk Invisible on Virgin catch up right now (everyone still in bed due to last night excesses) so thought I would have a cosy quiet time. There are no subtitles available on catch up and I am really struggling to hear some of the dialogue. Not loving it - a bit flat. Does just seem like they whipped the books out with no effort.

Charlotte seemed quite scathing of her sisters books, didn't she?

To be fair to Charlotte, I think she was under quite a lot of pressure as the eldest, and it must have stung to have had The Professor rejected. However, she was also a realist and must have despaired at the disintegration of her brother; they were close as children.

I think jealousy and sibling rivalry played a part. Charlotte was also an obsessive person, as is evidenced by her infatuation with Mr Heger (the muse for The Professor and no doubt, after reflection Rochester).

WHY DID THE BRONTËS ALL DIE SO YOUNG?

The 1850 Babbage Report into public hygiene in Haworth showed that villagers reached an average age of just 25.8 years of age. In this context the Brontës' lifespans seem fairly healthy. Somehow they managed to avoid numerous epidemics of dysentery, cholera, typhus and smallpox, possibly because they lived at the top of Main Street rather than the bottom, so that sewage was draining away from them; possibly because they had access to their own water supply via a well in their back yard.
Branwell died at the age of 31, officially from 'marasmus' (chronic bronchitis), although it is now believed he was probably suffering the same tuberculosis as his sisters Anne and Emily: symptoms had been masked by his alcohol problem. Emily died three months after him, aged 30, from tuberculosis. Anne died, aged 29, five months after Emily, also from tuberculosis. Finally, Charlotte died, aged 38, in 1855, from what was recorded on her death certificate as 'phthisis', or tuberculosis. It is now widely believed, however, that her pregnancy may have caused her death, since she seems to have been suffering excessive morning sickness (hyperemesis gravidarum).

If it wasn't for Charlotte, Emily and Anne are highly unlikely to have published any work at all, though. C was the one pushing it all, from the collection of poems onward. And she wasn't scathing so much as protective of their novels, really, at least most of the time.

E and A were screwed over by their publisher, and once Jane Eyre became an immediate success, they started getting reviews which were shocked at the 'indelicacy' and brutality of their novels - some reviews of JE were similar, but it also had incredibly enthusiastic ones and sold astonishingly, which drew the sting. Then, after they died, Charlotte was left as their spokesperson - her preface to her edition of WH is terribly sad on their deaths but is also busy trying not to let her little sisters' posthumous reputation be sullied by the perceived 'raciness' of their work. She did think Tenant of Wildfell Hall was a mistake, admittedly, while she obviously admires WH as much as she's shocked by it, but she tended to be mildly dismissive of Anne, even though in some ways she was the best survivor of the three of them in the outside world.

My most fevered Bronte speculation is the fate of Emily's second novel - there's a reference in letters to Newby that she was working on one, but no MS survives. Some people think Charlotte destroyed it afterE's death, because she was afraid it would add to the accusations of brutality and unfeminine indelicacy...

Maybe scathing was the wrong word.

I'd sure that I read somewhere that she thought the subject of "Wildfell Hall" "unsuitable".

Sorry but have to give this site a shameless plug as a mate of mine works there from time to time, theirs a lovely old steam railway running through Haworth where that old classic the railway children was made, they used the Bronte museum parsonage for some shots as well as the high street!.

If you have younger children with you a ride might impress them:)

kwvr.co.uk/explore/plan-your-visit/the-railway-children/

Meant to add that I thought Finn Atkins who plays Charlotte is exactly how I'd picture and imagine the original Charlotte!

justaboy this photo is claimed by some to be of Charlotte. Just wondering if Wainwright, when casting Atkins, was thinking of it? Intriguing...

I'm glad I found this thread. DD and I are halfway through watching this. I have visited Haworth many times, often via the Keighley Worth Valley Railway, and this thread is making me want to go back.

I have the Gaskell biography and I also found it rather dry and hard going. I remember reading that Charlotte Bronte suffered from a lot of headaches (migraines?)

I adored Jane Eyre. Wuthering Heights less so, and found Villette and Shirley rather boring. I have only watched a dramatisation of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, but want to to read the book now that so many of you have recommended it.

I am now off to see what I can download onto my Kindle.

Finn Atkins as Charlotte (I read an interview with her, and she looks utterly different as herself) reminded me of John Everett Millais' painting 'Waiting', which has been used on at least one occasion as a cover image for a Penguin edition of Jane Eyre.

There is only one authenticated photo of Charlotte, taken towards the end of her life, and of course Branwell's Pillar Portrait likeness, and Richmond's highly idealised one...

I'm not convinced by the photo linked by another poster above, but the website on which its finder analyses it, the costumes, the likenesses to other images of the Brontes, is very interesting if you enjoy losing time to quibbles about straw hats and nose types, which I confess I do.

www.brontesisters.co.uk/

I visited Springhill House at Moneymore, Co Derry during the summer and one of the paintings on display is Mending the Tapestry by Daniel Pasmore. It was used as a cover for Jane Eyre. Such a spine tingling moment to see the painting.

www.ntprints.com/image/353665/mending-the-tapestry-an-oil-painting-by-daniel-pasmore-1829-65-in-the-library-at-springhill

I watched Invisible again yesterday and found it even more interesting. I also started Tenant and so far finding it superior to any Brontë work I've read.

fat is the photo in the middle the authenticated one?

Why did Branwell paint himself out of the Pillar portrait?

absolutely, yes, the middle one - though I should say that more recently, doubts have been cast on that one too. Some scholars think it's of Charlotte's friend Ellen Nussey. There are various theories about why Branwell painted himself out of the Pillar Portrait - that it made the portrait too crowded, spoiled the composition, or that his sisters laughed at him for making himself the tallest of them, instead of Emily.

The whole issue of paintings and photos of the Brontes is so messy and interesting in general!

For years the 'profile portrait' from the destroyed Gun Group portrait by Branwell (now in the National Portrait Gallery alongside the Pillar Portrait) was thought to be of Emily, but now it seems generally accepted it's Anne. Mrs Gaskell, who would have been able to compare the Pillar Portrait with Charlotte's actual appearance when she visited Haworth, thought it was a good likeness of her, and lots of people thought that the Richmond one was very flattering. Lots of her contemporaries remark on her bad and missing teeth, over-hanging forehead and smallness, though many people also remark on her extraordinary eyes.

Even Arthur Bell Nicholls (if I remember rightly) when he was contacted by biographers in the late 19thc, after he'd gone back to Ireland and remarried, said that one of the figures in a photo of the Pillar Portrait looked a bit like Anne but that he didn't recognise the others - meaning that the first image of the painting to be published had Charlotte labelled as Aunt Branwell!

The pic of the three women title "Bronte sisters" in French.

Why is it thought to be the three sisters?

It seems odd to me that only one is wearing a hat-not sure why though!

absolutelynotfabulous well it might but we have some pictures of some of our mob waay back in the 1870's and the women look shall we say rather hard faced and as if they were covered in coal dust least their complexion looks so!.

None of them look happy not one of them smiles perhaps as alluded to their teeth may well have been missing or very bad. Mind you reading that report on the denizen's of Haworth makes me wonder why as they never seemed to age as they died so young.

Thereby hangs a question why did father Bronte last so well and his daughters didn't?

Explanation here. It includes quite a lot of analysis of the hat and the different types of cloak the three women are wearing!

www.brontesisters.co.uk/Bronte-Connection.html

I find Branwell a fascinating figure too. I'm just wondering if his talent was overrated somewhat and he couldn't live up to the expectation...also interesting is his relationship with the woman-a real relationship or was he simply after her money?

I'm tempted by the Julia Barker biography and also the Gaskell one. Strange to think Gaskell -another great writer- knew Charlotte personally.

The Juliet Barker one is by far the best, for me. Having said that, it's an enormous tome which devotes a huge amount of time to Patrick and various evangelical controversies before any of his children are even born, so unless you are very interested in having old myths dispelled, it may seem a bit dry at times. JB's edition of the Bronte letters is also excellent.

The Gaskell biog is pretty problematic, though of course hugely interesting, as written by someone who knew CB - she had to tone down her account of Cowan Bridge School after complaints from the former director, and because her main source is Ellen Nussey, there's nothing about CB's unrequited love for her Belgian teacher Constantin Heger, or for her publisher George Smith. She was very concerned to protect Charlotte's reputation, and of course lots of the people she was writing about were still alive, so it's very sanitised.

If you really want to read some real filth then Babbage's sanitary report takes some beating the whole place was a festering death trap 41 % of the residents barely reached 6!, yes 6 years old and the average age at death was 25!.

www.bl.uk/collection-items/sanitary-report-on-haworth-home-to-the-bronts

Yes, Just, that has already been established on this thread, though worth repeating.

Regarding teeth, Charlotte was said to have many gaps. I guess dental hygiene was not on top of the list in the olden days.

What I find fascinating was that this huge volume of work was done by quill and ink. Oh how the winter months must have flown by. Not.

Has anyone recommended Lucasta Miller's 'The Bronte Myth' yet? Very entertaining and de-bunky.

I suspect that Branwell's talent was overrated, and, unlike his sisters, his writing never really matured beyond the Gondal fantasy stuff. Or it may be that his talents were wasted away by the damage that alcohol did to his brain and motivation. I've always felt that if I had ever met him in RL I would have found him intensely annoying and infuriating to deal with - he reminds me in many ways of my brother, who has always been convinced of his innate superiority but somehow has never got around to doing anything useful with the abilities that probably are there, buried underneath a fairly boastful surface.

I imagine Branwell was the adored only boy, who was doted on by father and sisters, and excuses made for everything he did, until his life went to pieces and it was too late for him to recover. Sad.

fat that's a brilliant site. Having had a look, I'm now of the opinion that the "authenticated" photo you posted is, in fact, of Ellen Nussey, not Charlotte.

I'm also trying to convince myself that the "sisters" photo is in fact genuine! There's lots of evidence supporting its authenticity to me, anyway.

So the photo of "Charlotte" I posted way upthread may actually be her after all.

Wow!