Month: October 2024

I don’t mean to scare you – but Halloween is here again! The Brontë sisters loved spooky stories, so every year on this blog I share a Brontë-related spooky tale or two.

The Brontës were more than capable of writing a scary passage or two as well, which has led to them being acclaimed masters of the gothic genre. Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights gives us one of classic literature’s most chilling moments as Catherine’s ghost shrieks ‘let me in’ at the window.

Charlotte included a ghostly nun in her novel Villette and in her letters she talks of having seen visions – also a recurring theme in Emily’s poetry.

The Brontë sisters loved to read spooky tales and they could write spooky tales, but some people have claimed that they star in their very own spooky tales! For a long time there have been sightings of Brontë ghosts, and they aren’t confined to Haworth.

Today I have launched my very own Brontë channel – The House Of Brontë. In it I will tell the Brontë story from beginning to end, as well as taking diversions into other literary and historical matters. These will also be available as audio-only podcasts shortly.

As followers of this blog or readers of my book will know, I’m passionate about telling the Brontë story, and I hope this YouTube channel will allow me to share this passion, and the stories of this incredible family, even further. That’s why I would love it if you could subscribe to my The House Of Brontë YouTube channel – and don’t worry, just like this blog it’s completely free and always will be.

The first episode is a light hearted Halloween Special, where I investigate Brontë hauntings and other Brontë-related ghost stories. You can watch it above – don’t be scared!

Pop singers and groups are often wary of second album syndrome – will their second offering live up to the expectation generated by the success of their first? That’s not confined to modern music of course, for Charlotte Brontë must have been feeling second novel syndrome on this week in 1849. In today’s post we’ll look at the publication of Shirley.

Shirley was published on 26th October 1849 making it the second published novel by Charlotte Brontë – although it was her third written novel, The Professor was only published posthumously. Charlotte, who was still using the pseudonym of Currer Bell, could never have guessed the success that Jane Eyre enjoyed. Within weeks of her sending her manuscript to Smith, Elder and Co. it had been published, was in shops, and was selling at a ferocious rate. Her publishers were understandably keen to have a second novel by this hot author, but they would have to wait for over two years.

A succession of tragedies delayed Charlotte’s production of this second novel, as her brother Branwell and her sisters Emily and Anne all died, at far too early an age, during its composition. After Anne’s death in May 1849 Charlotte found it hard to continue with Shirley, but eventually she found solace in creativity, and she gave the novel its most moving moments: Caroline, who is clearly based upon Anne Brontë, is dying of a condition reminiscent of tuberculosis:

“Not always do those who dare such divine conflict prevail. Night after night the sweat of agony may burst dark on the forehead; the supplicant may cry for mercy with that soundless voice the soul utters when its appeal is to the Invisible. ‘Spare my beloved’, it may implore. ‘Heal my life’s life. Rend not from me what long affection entwines with my whole nature. God of heaven, bend, hear, be clement!’ And after this cry and strife the sun may rise and see him worsted. That opening morn, which used to salute him with the whisper of zephyrs, the carol of skylarks, may breathe, as its first accents, from the dear lips which colour and heat have quitted, ‘Oh! I have had a suffering night. This morning I am worse. I have tried to rise. I cannot. Dreams I am unused to have troubled me.’

Then the watcher approaches the patient’s pillow, and sees a new and strange moulding of the familiar features, feels at once that the insufferable moment draws nigh, knows that it is God’s will his idol shall be broken, and bends his head, and subdues his soul to the sentence he cannot avert and scarce can bear.”

In real life Charlotte had to watch this happen with Anne, all her prayers and supplications could not save her – but in the novel, she would prevail. Miraculously Caroline recovers. It’s believed that initially it was intended that Caroline would die in the novel, but real life events made Charlotte change the narrative: she could not save Anne in reality, but she could save her in fiction. This, along with her depiction of people and places she knew in the novel, is one reason I love Shirley. I think it’s as good as any of Charlotte Brontë’s novels, but what would the critics think?

On 4th October 1849 Charlotte wrote to her publisher George Smith:
“The thought that Shirley has given pleasure at Cornhill [the headquarters of her publisher] yields me much quiet comfort. No doubt however you are – as I am – prepared for critical severity – but I have good hopes the vessel is sufficiently sound of construction to weather a gale or two, and make a prosperous voyage for you in the end.”

On 24th October, Charlotte again wrote to Smith:
“I am glad Shirley is so near the day of publication, as I know and then feel anxious to know its doom and to learn what sort of reception it will get. In another month some of the critics will have pronounced their fiat – and the Public also will have evinced their mood towards it. Meanwhile – patience.”

In fact Shirley gained mostly positive reviews – except for one review in The Times newspaper. Its reviewer said: “Shirley is at once the most high-flown and the stalest of fictions.” This pronouncement reduced Charlotte Brontë to tears. Then, as now, there were critics and commentators out there who were only too eager to tear down those who had been successful, but both author and novel have now a fame and reputation that those envious critics could never claim.

Incidentally, throughout this post I have used illustrations from the 1905 Dent edition of Shirley – one of the series of Brontë novels containing illustrations by Edmund Dulac. I’m lucky enough to have a complete set of these beautiful books, and they’re part of my Brontë collection which I will be selling/auctioning soon – look out for more details in next week’s post – I hope you can join me for it next Sunday.

One thing that Britain can be incredibly proud of is its culture, its art and its literature. For a relatively small island we have created some of the world’s greatest and most enduring art, music and books. The Brontë sisters are one unique example of creative genius that this country can rightly be proud of. One reason, I feel, for their enduring success is that their novels and characters are oh so human and relatable – in the near two hundred years since their creation fashions, technology and the way we live and work have changed rapidly, yet these books are still as popular and as relevant today as they have ever been. Humanity, and human genius, is at the heart of the Brontës’ success, but is this brand of creativity coming under increasing threat from AI? That’s the question I’m posing in today’s special post, as I ask AI to generate new Brontë novel ideas.

ITV have been responsible for some of the greatest television of the past decades. Much loved comedies such as Rising Damp and George and Mildred, classic adaptations of Brideshead Revisited and Poirot, groundbreaking shows like The Prisoner, Upstairs Downstairs, Armchair Theatre, The South Bank Show and Cold Feet. All reached our screens thanks to ITV – and thanks to the humans who devised and wrote them. That could be about to change as the result of a job  advertisement placed by ITV this week.

The ad was for an £80-95,000 job as ‘Head of Generative AI’. The successful candidate will “drive the strategy and execution of AI-driven transformation across ITV Studios and ITV’s streaming services,” and would be expected to use “implementation tools like AI-generated ideation, character development, and enhanced production graphics.”

In short, ITV is looking for someone to head up the creation and writing of TV shows made completely by AI. This is extremely problematic for more than one reason: not only can we expect the quality to drop considerably, there would also be a downgrading of human skills throughout the process and a loss of jobs involved in this creative process. Another, and increasingly controversial, process also rears its ugly head. Artificial Intelligence is a misnomer: there is no intelligence, as we could define it, being used by these computerised systems; in stark contrast, it actually trawls through material available on the internet at a vast pace and mashes it up into a finished piece that it hopes, through its algorithms and rules, will make some sort of sense. This means that AI writing and AI art is actually taking and utilising material created by humans without their knowledge or permission, and with no recompense to them. It is cyber plagiarism.

This advert makes quite clear that ITV are at this very moment planning to create AI television shows, and be under no illusion that this will affect the world of literature too. AI splurged books are not a dystopian future – they are already available and selling on sites such as Amazon. In fact Amazon itself is now advertising its own Titan AI creation system. For a price it will provide image and text generation, but how good will the results be?

AI graphics are already ubiquitous, but it seems to struggle particularly with not only capturing the human spirit but human form – we see people with ears on their shoulders and extra fingers on their hands. How does AI text fare? I asked ChatGPT, the leading AI system, to give me the title and outlines for new novels by Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. I then asked an AI image generator to create suitable covers. Here is what they came up with:

Charlotte Brontë: Title: The Shadows of Windcliff

Plot: “In a remote, windswept region of northern England, nestled on the edge of jagged cliffs overlooking a tempestuous sea, lies Windcliff Hall, a sprawling manor house as mysterious as the family that inhabits it. Margaret Elwood, a quiet but resilient young woman, is hired as a governess to care for the strange, reclusive daughter of Sir Arthur Windcliff, the brooding master of the estate.

As Margaret settles into life at the forbidding manor, she is drawn into a world of secrets and suppressed emotions. The hall is filled with whispers of a family curse that haunts the Windcliffs – each generation marked by tragedy, madness, and mysterious disappearances. Sir Arthur, distant and brooding, carries a profound sorrow, and his daughter, Eliza, is unnervingly perceptive for her age, often speaking of shadows that move in the night and voices only she can hear.

Margaret is determined to uncover the truth of the curse and what happened to Sir Arthur’s late wife, whose death remains shrouded in ambiguity. As she digs deeper, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Sir Arthur, despite the storm of emotions that roils between them. But the more Margaret uncovers, the more dangerous her situation becomes. The halls of Windcliff seem to pulse with an otherworldly presence, and Margaret must confront not only the mysteries of the past but also the shadows lurking within her own heart.

Gothic romance, eerie atmospheres, and Brontë’s signature exploration of internal struggle blend to create a tale of love, redemption, and the battle between light and darkness in the human soul.”

Emily Brontë: Title: Stormsong

Plot: “On the edge of the wild, untamed moors stands Darkswell Hall, an ancient mansion steeped in myth and mystery. The inhabitants of the nearby village whisper of curses, lost loves, and the restless spirits that haunt the windswept land. Into this world comes Lirael Morrow, a fiercely independent and headstrong young woman, who returns to her ancestral home at Darkswell after the sudden death of her father. Once a place of childhood wonder, Darkswell now feels suffocating, as though the very stones of the house are alive with unspeakable grief.

Lirael’s return sets in motion a chain of eerie events, beginning with the discovery of a strange, otherworldly song that seems to emanate from the heart of the moors on stormy nights. No one else can hear it but her, and its haunting melody draws her deeper into the desolate landscape, where she encounters a mysterious figure – a man who seems to belong as much to the moors as the sky and wind. This stranger, named Aidan Storme, is an enigmatic wanderer who speaks in riddles and appears only when the storms rage fiercest.

As Lirael becomes more entangled with Aidan, she learns of a long-buried feud between their families, one rooted in ancient betrayals and a love that defied both time and death. The curse that binds them is older than the moors themselves, a curse that stirs whenever the storm sings. Torn between her growing attraction to Aidan and the dangerous forces surrounding them, Lirael must unravel the mysteries of Darkswell Hall and her own family’s past before the storm’s song claims them both.

In the windswept desolation of the moors, Lirael is caught between the wild, untamable force of nature and her own tempestuous emotions. As passions run deep and hidden truths rise to the surface, she must decide whether to confront the dark legacy of her ancestors or be swept away by the storm.

Stormsong is an atmospheric tale of love, vengeance, and the powerful pull of destiny, filled with the gothic beauty, elemental fury, and deep emotional resonance that define Emily Brontë’s work. The novel explores the primal connection between the human soul and nature, the consuming force of desire, and the devastating power of secrets long kept hidden.”

Anne Brontë: Title: Whispers of Wildfell Wood

Plot: In the quiet village of Windmoor, nestled at the edge of a dense, shadowy wood, lives “Clara Lyndon, a young governess who has spent her life caring for others, always putting duty before her own desires. After the untimely death of her father, she takes a position at Wildfell House, a crumbling mansion on the outskirts of the village, owned by the reclusive Mrs. Thorburn and her melancholic son, Edmund. The estate is surrounded by a thick, foreboding wood, which the locals believe is cursed, filled with whispers of past tragedies.

Clara, sensible and pragmatic, dismisses the superstitions, but she soon discovers that Wildfell House holds dark secrets of its own. Mrs. Thorburn is a shadow of a woman, haunted by the memory of her lost daughter, Eleanor, whose mysterious disappearance years ago is still spoken of in hushed tones. Edmund, brooding and deeply troubled, seems bound to the house and its secrets, battling unseen demons as he retreats further into himself.

As Clara becomes more entangled in the lives of the Thorburn family, she stumbles upon Eleanor’s old journals hidden in the house, chronicling a life of stifled dreams, forbidden love, and unbearable sorrow. The more Clara reads, the more she is drawn into the mystery of what truly happened to Eleanor – and why her name is whispered among the villagers with such dread.

Against her better judgment, Clara begins to grow close to Edmund, whose despair mirrors the emotions she’s kept buried within herself for so long. Together, they try to uncover the truth about Eleanor’s fate and the secrets that linger in the depths of Wildfell Wood. But the more they search, the more they realize that some truths might be better left buried.

In Whispers of Wildfell Wood, Anne Brontë crafts a story of quiet courage and inner strength, exploring themes of loss, isolation, and the power of speaking out against oppression. As Clara unearths the truth about the Thorburn family, she must also confront her own fears, finding the strength to carve out a path for herself in a world that has always told her to stay silent.”

I think we can all agree that whilst these plotlines have picked up some of the more obvious Brontë tropes, there is little to differentiate these efforts ‘by’ Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. It’s fair to say that they have failed to pick up on any of the subtlety of these incredible authors. Is that what we have to look forward to? I for one will prefer to read books, films and television shows written by actual humans.

I hope you can join me, as usual, on Sunday for another new Brontë blog post, and as always I promise it will be 100% written by a human – for better or worse.

On this week in 1847 a new author made their writing debut. Published by Smith, Jones & Co. the book Jane Eyre: An Autobiography marked the first appearance before the public of the mysterious Currer Bell. Nobody knew who Bell was or where he had come from, including his own publisher, but the reading public, if not necessarily all the critics, soon agreed that he had written a very excellent book indeed. Two centuries later the reading public still agrees with that, although we now know of course that Mr Currer Bell was in fact Miss Charlotte Brontë.

The precise date of the publication is unknown, but it is generally thought to be on the 16th October 1848 as Elizabeth Gaskell wrote that the date of publication of Jane Eyre was ‘no later than 16th October’. What we do know for sure is that three days later on the 19th October Charlotte received her six free author copies – and what a proud moment that must have been to her. Here is Charlotte’s letter thanking her publisher:

This day was a triumph for great storytelling, a triumph for literature, but it was also a triumph over adversity. Jane Eyre was written in a time of mental and physical darkness for Charlotte. Her first written novel The Professor had been rejected by every single publisher it was sent to, whilst at the same time her sisters Emily and Anne had their novels Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey accepted. This must have sown great doubts in Charlotte’s mind: she was the older sister, it was she who had always led their writing endeavours, but could it be that whilst her sisters were talented writers she was not?

At the same time, Charlotte had accompanied her father to Manchester where her father Patrick had received eye surgery to restore his sight. Elizabeth Gaskell recalled the scene as recounted to her by Charlotte:

“Among the dispiriting circumstances connected with her anxious visit to Manchester, Charlotte told me that her tale came back upon her hands, curtly rejected by some publisher, on the very day when her father was to submit to his operation. But she had the heart of Robert Bruce within her, and failure upon failure daunted her no more than him. Not only did The Professor return again to try his chance among the London publishers, but she began, in this time of care and depressing inquietude – in those grey, weary, uniform streets, where all faces, save that of her kind doctor, were strange and untouched with sunlight to her, – there and then, did the genius begin Jane Eyre.”

Charlotte’s publisher George Smith recounted the effect that receipt of Charlotte’s manuscript had upon him and his assistant W. S. Williams. Smith began reading it in his stately London mansion on Sunday morning, cancelled his lunch, cancelled a meeting and read it all in one day. It was published just as quickly, and in fact it reached the shops and circulating libraries before Emily and Anne Brontë’s work had yet been published.

A little over a week after its publication it was clear that Jane Eyre and Currer Bell were an overnight success. Even Charlotte’s hero William Makepeace Thackeray had read the novel and approved of it, as we see from a letter Charlotte, still hiding behind her Currer Bell nom de plume, sent to William Smith Williams:

Typically modest, and typically full of self-doubt, Charlotte ended her letter hoping that the novel would be a success, and ascribing any success that did accrue not to herself but to the efforts her publisher had made! 

Elizabeth Gaskell was right, as she was on so many things connected to her great friend: Charlotte Brontë had the heart of Robert the Bruce, she triumphed because she refused to give in. Let that be an example to us all, and I hope to see you next week for another new Brontë blog post.

Charlotte Brontë is associated with many places – Haworth obviously springs to mind, as does Thornton, the birthplace of the Brontës near Bradford, Scarborough where she travelled with Anne Brontë at the close of Anne’s life, and Brussels, where she went to school. In today’s post we look at another location Charlotte Brontë enjoyed, but one whose association with Charlotte is today little known: Hornsea.

On this very day in 1853 Charlotte Brontë was making her way home after spending a week in Hornsea, the then fashionable resort in the East Riding of Yorskshire, 15 miles northeast of Hull. It expanded greatly after 1864 when the railway arrived in Hornsea, but at the time Charlotte visited a decade earlier it was still very popular among the middle and upper classes who came to seek out its healing waters.

Like Bridlington and Scarborough further up along the east coast, Hornsea had a spa which attracted those who could afford to luxuriate and recuperate there. Charlotte Brontë, however, did not come to Hornsea for the spa but to see one of her oldest friends: Margaret Wooler. Miss Wooler, as Charlotte always respectfully called her, had been Charlotte Brontë’s teacher, then employer and then enduring friend. By 1848 as well as the home in Gomersal which Margaret shared with her sisters she also had a retirement home in Hornsea at which she spent her summers until cold weather sent her back to the West Riding again.
Margaret’s Hornsea abode was 4 Swiss Cottage, now known as 94 Newbegin. Thanks to the power of Google Maps above is a picture of that very building in modern times, hidden behind a vast hedge, and it was here that Charlotte Brontë stayed in October 1853. Hornsea Museum now lies opposite this house. At the time it was home to the Burns family, and in the local paper it advertised that “hot water sea-showers” were available in an adjoining cowshed.

We know little of the day to day details of Charlotte’s visit, but it remained on Charlotte’s mind as two months later she wrote to Margaret:
“I did enjoy that week at Hornsea. I remember it with pleasure and I look forward to Spring as the period when you will fulfil your promise of coming to visit me. I fear you must be very solitary at Hornsea.”

We also have an account that Charlotte gave after arriving back in Haworth from Hornsea – and it reveals rather an eventful journey home on a coach that would take her from Hornsea to Hull train station before a train back to Keighley and from thence on via gig or on foot to Haworth:

That brings a whole new meaning to ‘homesick’. If only Charlotte had had access to those sea-water showers after alighting from the coach! Charlotte didn’t get the chance to return to Hornsea; Margaret did indeed visit Charlotte Brontë in Haworth in the following year, but she did so to give Charlotte away at her wedding to Arthur Bell Nicholls. There is no plaque to Charlotte Brontë in Hornsea today, but until recently she was remembered in a way unique to this rather lovely little town. Hornsea was famous across Britain and beyond for its pottery. Alas, Hornsea Pottery stopped production in 2000, but not before they had brought out a range of crockery bearing the name ‘Brontë’. I have some pieces of Hornsea Brontë-ware myself.

I think this range would have looked very much at home in the Brontë kitchen. I hope you can join me next week for another new Brontë blog post.

This Thursday saw National Poetry Day arrive. I think poetry is too good to confine to just one day, and I’m sure the Brontës would have agreed – after all poetry was their first, and enduring, love and the very first Brontë book was a collection of poetry put together by Charlotte, Emily and Anne: the pseudonymous Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

If you live in the United Kingdom you can’t have helped but notice that there is more than an autumnal hint in the air. There is a wuthering chill developing and it won’t be long until we are all saying “winter draws on”. I think it’s fitting therefore that in today’s post we celebrate national poetry day/week with one of Anne Brontë’s poems which celebrates this kind of weather.

‘Lines Composed In A Wood On A Windy Day’ was one of the 21 poems by Anne Brontë selected for inclusion within ‘Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell’. Anne is at long last gaining recognition as one of the finest novelists of the nineteenth century, but I think she deserves to be remembered as one of its finest poets as well, as this composition shows. Composed in December 1842, Anne was seized by the poetic muse as she walked through the Long Plantation woods to the north of Thorp Green Hall where she was then governess (that’s the hall above).

“My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring
And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;
For above and around me the wild wind is roaring,
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.
The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing,
The bare trees are tossing their branches on high;
The dead leaves, beneath them, are merrily dancing,
The white clouds are scudding across the blue sky.
I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing
The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray;
I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing,
And hear the wild roar of their thunder today!”