I’m Just Going to Write Because I Cannot Help It: Reality Versus Fantasy in Charlotte Brontë’s Roe Head Journal.

The 21st April 2019 marks the 203rd birthday of my favourite writer of all time, Charlotte Brontë.  Strong willed, fierce, determined, and incredibly talented, I am in complete awe of her. To celebrate Charlotte's birthday in 2018 I wrote a post about some of her lesser known works from her Glass Town and Angrian saga…

Advertisements

Grief Is…

On Wednesday 10th April, the time finally came to say goodbye to my best friend and partner in crime, the sweetest dog the world has ever known, Bob the Bichon. Regular readers of my blog may remember my post from last year, Bob the Bichon and the Brontës where I documented Bob's arrival with our family 8…

Remembering Charlotte Brontë

March 31st 2019 marks the 164th anniversary of the death of my favourite writer of all time, Charlotte Brontë. Best known to the world for her literary masterpiece Jane Eyre (1847), Charlotte also penned the novels Shirley (1849), her second masterpiece, the magnificent but sadly underrated Villette (1853) and The Professor (posthumously published in 1857). In addition to these adult novels, she…

A Hidden Hero of English Literature: Remembering Patrick Brontë on St. Patrick’s Day

Sunday 17th March 2019 is St. Patrick's Day, Ireland's national day, and traditionally a celebration of the life of St. Patrick himself, a 5th century Christian missionary from Roman Britain (some sources say Scotland, some Cumbria which is just south of the border between England and Scotland). There are various different sources and accounts of…

Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit by DM Denton

Regular readers of Brontë Babe Blog will know by now how much I love not only the works of the Brontë siblings, but works inspired by them. In the past year I've discovered some truly wonderful Brontë inspired fiction including Lena Coakley's Worlds of Ink and Shadow; Juliet Bell's re-imagining of Wuthering Heights, The Heights, and, my…

Charlotte Brontë’s Unfinished Novels: The Story of Willie Ellin

Introduction In her childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, Charlotte Brontë wrote hundreds of stories and poems which were set in her childhood fantasy worlds of Glass Town and Angria. Initially shared with all three of her surviving siblings, this creative collaboration fractured in 1831 as her sisters Anne and Emily moved away to create their…

7 Days 7 Covers Challenge

If you have social media, then you might have seen the 7 Days 7 Covers challenge doing the rounds on Twitter. A few weeks ago I was challenged by a few of my followers to join in. The concept is that you post a picture of a book every day for 7 days that you…

We Wove a Web in Childhood by Cally Phillips and Charlotte Brontë

It's the end of January and I'm already making a good start to my 2019 Reading Challenge. In addition to my Goodreads target of 30 new books, I also came up with a list of specific challenges, including some Brontë related ones. I've already boxed off a book originally published in a language other than English and…

Aunt Branwell and the Brontë Legacy by Nick Holland: Re-Examining a Key Figure in the Brontë Mythology

So much of the Brontës' lives remains shrouded in mystery despite the popularity of their works. We probably know more about Charlotte and Branwell, and their characters, than the rest of the Brontë family due to their surviving correspondence and the recollections of the friends they made during their lifetimes. However, there are still misconceptions…

Happy Birthday, Anne Brontë

This is a short post to wish Anne Brontë, the youngest member of our beloved Brontë family, a very happy birthday. Anne was born in Thornton, Yorkshire to Patrick and Maria Brontë on the 17th January 1820. It's strange to think that the baby of the family would have been the ripe old age of 199 today. Anne…