Romancing Miss Bronte by Juliet Gael

What a terrific book, just recently published in 2010 by Juliet Gael. I couldn't put it down!

Here's an excerpt from the website for this book:

In this masterful novel of historical fiction, Juliet Gael skillfully and stylishly captures the passions, hopes, dreams and sorrows of literature's most famous sisters–and imagines how love dramatically and most unexpectedly found Charlotte Brontë.

The book starts from the time of Arthur Bell Nicholl's arrival in Haworth and is a mixture of fact and fiction. Of course as we know, he was patiently waiting to propose to Charlotte for many years, while he was her father Patrick's curate. In fact Charlotte did make fun of curates in her books, but he seemed to be a very hardworking and steadfast man and protective of Charlotte. Quite different in size from the petite Charlotte too being a big man.

The book describes Charlotte's time being feted in London by her publisher George Smith who was quite an eligible bachelor, but 6 years younger than Charlotte. His mother was a good friend to Charlotte through her nerve racking times when forced out in public when she suffered from nervous illnesses and headaches. Sounds like Charlotte was quite attached to him but things didn't go so smoothly when he realised he was the basis of a character in one of her books and the letters diminished.

Eventually Arthur plucked up the courage to propose to Charlotte, without asking Patrick Bronte first. Patrick was incensed with rage thinking Arthur wasn't good enough for Charlotte who was now famous. (Even Thackeray was a fan of hers!!). Even Charlotte's best friend Ellen Nussey wasn't happy with Arthur proposing and their friendship suffered because of this. Charlotte didn't accept him at first, she didn't love him then, but after he persisted and she saw how much he loved her, she stood up to her father and they eventually got married. The author describes Charlotte becoming more and more attached to Arthur as she saw all his good qualities and how much he loved her. As we know, she became pregnant shirtly after her marriage but suffered from the most debilitating morning sickness and wasted away and died. What a shame the medical people couldn't do anything for her.

Arthur did inherit from her, but he remained in Haworth and looked after her father until his death a few year's later. Then Arthur went back to Ireland and became a farmer, as even though he had worked as Patrick's curate for so long, he missed getting the job after Patrick's death. Arthur later married his cousin Mary Anna who was housekeeping for him (she was disabled, but they shared separate bedrooms.). He preserved Charlotte's wedding dress, had the watercolours that were on the walls at Haworth and also the grandfather clock that Patrick wound faithfully every night on his way to bed (after Patrick went to bed Charlotte, Emily and Anne kept writing their books without their father's knowledge). Arthur lived to 90 years old, he bequeathed Charlotte's wedding dress to his niece, with instructions that it be burned before she died so that it wouldn't be sold. Interestingly at one stage Patrick cut bits of Charlotte's letters up and sent strips of her handwriting all over the world. He did this secretly as Arthur wouldn't have approved of people making money from his wife's writings.

All in all a fascinating book, very easy to read, and hard to put down. Its not often you read a book like that.
I heartily recommend it to any Bronte fans.

Review of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol (being a Ghost Story of Christmas) and Little Dorrit

I decided to read A Christmas Carol for the first time. Like many others I have seen a few versions of this classic on TV, but never read it myself. So this was a small challenge I set myself.

Its not very long unlike most of Dicken's books, so it was an easy read. Very good descriptions of sights and scenes as he is renowned for. One of my favourite lines is:

"There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence"

Can't you just picture that!!

I must say that it wasn't really scary reading the book, the film versions are much more scary!!

I also finished watching the DVD (well 4 DVDs in the series) of Little Dorrit. I haven't read Little Dorrit yet, but I must say the DVD was excellent, such great characters. I think Matthew Macfadyen is a brilliant actor, such a handsome chap and with a beautiful voice. If you watch it, make sure that you watch the "How they made it" special feature. The demure Amy speaks in real life with a country sort of accent, while the commoner sister in the film speaks with a high class accent in real life!! Funny how the casting people pick actors and then they have to change their voices!! It worked well anyway, so they were great choices. Tom Courtenay made a brilliant father, his brother was played by a chap from The Vicar of Dibley, not sure of his name.

Each episode was quite short, so it was good to watch one or two episodes an evening, rather like reading a Dicken's serial as they were originally published! I heartily recommend this to anyone, beautiful production.

As I am a bit ahead having done some of Laura's Feb challenge already, I might also read some of Dickens detective stories (will post later in the month), at the moment I'm reading a really great Bronte novel called Romancing Miss Bronte (only published in 2010) which I can't put down.

These challenges certainly help to broaden my selection of reading material: its great that our libraries have so many books about authors, I love reading biographical type novels which expand my knowledge of the real people.

Thanks Laura for this great challenge!!
cheers
Julie

Review of "Emily" by Dilys Gater

I borrowed three books from the library about the Brontes for the January Challenge. I just finished "Emily" by Dilys Gater which told the story of the Brontes from childhood, including their Gondal and Angria writings, their trials and tribulations at trying to live outside Haworth, illnesses, time abroad in Belgium, and the death in September of Branwell followed by Emily's decline late in the year. What a crying shame that the reviewers didn't appreciate Wuthering Heights during her lifetime, it was altogether too dark for the reviewers to commend it. Sad too, that Charlotte (who had the trustworthy and pleasant publishers) got such great reviews for Jane Eyre (and 500 pounds at least for it), while Anne and Emily's publishers gave them a pittance. For the last challenge I read a book on their father's life, amazing fellow too, he spent most of his life in his study, even had his meals solitarily there, and went to bed early while the girls did their writing unbeknownst to him. Amazing too how he had cataract surgery so long ago, but how sad it must have been for him to lose all his children so young.

It was an easy book to read, and I enjoyed reading it even though I knew the ending would be very sad!!

Now I'm trying to decide on the February challenge: Charles Dickens. I have read a few of his books (e.g. Oliver Twist, David Copperfield) but it would be nice to read one of his less famous books. Perhaps Bleak House, but I do have this on DVD to watch too. I'll keep you posted!

WIPocalypse 2012

I joined Measi's great challenge (I favour this sort rather than the sort where you start a huge number of projects!! Guess why: well, I have SO many projects on the go...and never seem to finish any of them).

So I chose just 3 projects to start with:
1. Persian bookmark
2. The Token by LongDogs (to finish pages 1 and 2)
3. A new start: Cherry Blossom biscornu by The Sweetheart Tree.

So, drum roll, don't fall over please! I have JUST finished the Persian bookmark!!! My first finish for months and months, thank you so much Measi, I needed a kick-start and now really feel like I have accomplished something!!

For the next week, I think I'll progress on projects 2 and 3 then will go through my stash and find another SMALL project to finish.

Happy Stitching
Julie

2012 Wipocalypse

Well as most of my goals seem to vanish quietly without being achieved, I am going to just post three goals for the WIPocalypse.

1. Persian bookmark by Anchor
2. Cherry Blossoms biscornu by Sweetheart Tree (can you believe it, my first biscornu!!).
3. The Token by LongDogs, to finish pages 1 and 2.

Then when I finish one of them I'll add another one!!

Thanks so much to Measi for organising the

2012 Wipocalypse!!

 

cheers

Julie in Oz where it is 40 C  :(

Honiton lace win!!

I was thrilled to find that I had won the Best Lace exhibit in a local show (the Geelong Show) with a Honiton piece. It also won first prize in its section. Honiton lace for those that don't know is the finest English lace, made with thread size 180 (the larger the number the finer the thread). The bobbins used don't have spangles (beads at the bottom), their ends are just pointy as it is a freeform lace (rather than making a long strip) and you need to join sections, this is accomplished by drawing one bobbin thread through a previous stitch forming a loop, and putting the second bobbin through the loop (thus easier with a pointy end) and tightening. Not many people do this type of lace here, but the results are worth the effort.

Lucky win for me!!

I was so excited last night as I received a prize from The Needlework Show from Darlene Lara, the designer for The Marking Samplar. It had travelled from Knoxville, Tennessee, took 3 weeks Airmail. Funny how you can travel to USA from Australia in 1.5 days but mail can take up to 4 weeks.

Anyway it is a most darling sampler, a miniature sampler reproduced by Darlene from the original made by Mary Clark in 1848. Here it is below for you see.

Aren't I a lucky girl!!

Thank you so much Darlene, I was really touched to receive this!!