Anne Brontë is 200!

If she were more perfect, she would be less interesting

 

Finally

it’s Anne’s own Brontë200:

Today is the 200th Anniversary
of Anne Brontë’s birth, January 17, 1820!

A very special day as

she is subject of my novel …

Above all, through the well-measured words of Denton, a young Anne emerges more and more. She frees from the web of religiosity with which she traditionally is painted, [and] tries to leave something good in the world through her measured but deliberately targeted writing. A different Anne at the beginning of the book, timidly in love; then resigned to accept her own death with dignity and fortitude. A meaningful homage to the memory of Anne Brontë.

~ Maddalena De Leo, Italian Representative of The Bronte Society

STC98097 Portrait of Anne Bronte (1820-49) from a drawing in the possession of the Rev. A. B. Nicholls, engraved by Walker and Boutall (engraving) by Bronte, Charlotte (1816-55) (after)
engraving
Private Collection
The Stapleton Collection
English, out of copyright

Thanks to her dear sister Emily, who is reported to have been a wonderful baker, Anne celebrates her birthday in Chapter Nine of Without the Veil Between.

It was years since Anne was home on her birthday. Emily baked an oatmeal and treacle cake a couple of days ahead of the teatime designated for its consumption to soften it in a tin.

“I’ll allow no one to refuse a piece of Annie’s parkin.” Emily, unusually, looked very pleased with herself. “I mean to give my bet’r sen some happy thoughts.” She even sang some lines from an old ballad supposedly from the time of Robin Hood. “‘Now the guests well satisfied, the fragments were laid on one side when Arthur, to make hearts merry, brought ales and parkins and perry.’”

“‘When Timothy Twig stept in, with his pipe and a pipkin of gin,’” Branwell followed on singing.

“Always the spoiler.” Emily didn’t look at him.

“Well, part of a song doesn’t tell the whole story.”

Anne briefly escaped their argument to take a piece of cake out to Tabby in the back kitchen. Easily wearied and hard-of-hearing, the old servant was trying to nap in a straight-backed chair positioned in the draft from the back door.

“Where’s your shawl?” Almost as soon as she wondered, Anne found it draped over the handle of a broom leaning against a wall.

“Eh? What yer fuss?”

Anne gently laid the loosely-knit shawl around Tabby’s shoulders and gave her the plate of cake.

“Dear angel-lass.”

Later, as the sisters spent a final parlor-cozy evening before Anne returned to Thorpe Green, Branwell off to take advantage of his last chance for a while to “stept in” at the Black Bull, even Charlotte admitted the liability he presented to their progress.

“The way it’s going with him, it’s better our school scheme comes to nothing. No doubt he’ll soon be home again, unemployable, even less able to provide decent company. Certainly not an example of manhood young girls should witness.”

Anne never told Charlotte as much as she did Emily, but there was no way to prevent the disturbance of her and Branwell returning home for the holidays together but estranged. As soon as they arrived, Anne fled the hours of traveling with him as though nothing ever disgusted her more. Over the weeks Branwell tried to converse with her beyond yes and no and maybe. Normally, her forbearing nature wouldn’t allow her to slight anyone, but with agitated busyness she dismissed him—to comb Flossy or clean Dick’s cage or help in the kitchen, which she rarely did, or beg Charlotte to let her read to their father who didn’t know of his son’s latest sin but might notice his guilt, so Branwell kept out of his way.

For a while Anne was as cowardly avoiding her brother, even if it meant staying in her room when he was in the house.

She wasn’t proud of her behavior. Gradually she felt more ashamed of her own choices and failings than Branwell’s, blaming her intransigence and righteousness for her failure to persuade him to stand stronger against temptation. Love was what she was made for, understanding, forgiveness and faith at the heart of her, good memories soothing the bad. Flashes of the gentle brother with his little sister on his knee, proving his talent for telling stories too entertaining to question and drawing pretty pictures he inscribed for Anne, tempted her to once more hope he might yet chose rationale and, especially, what was right, over ruin.

“Let’s expect he’ll be better and do better.” It was as if Emily had read Anne’s thoughts. “Speak no more of it tonight. Are you still working on the same poem, Annie?”

“Still wrangling with it. You know how it is, thinking it might be better with a different word or different order of words, more metaphors or less. That it might benefit from leaving some sentiments out altogether.”

“I hope it isn’t gloomy.” Charlotte was sitting across the parlor table from Anne, the paper she was fingering easily in view as the beginnings of a letter in French.

Emily’s lounging took on the look of someone double-jointed with her right leg slid off the sofa and her left one lifted and bent, its stockinged foot pressed against the back of the couch. She made a feeble effort of controlling her skirt for modesty’s sake. “It’s rather pleading.”

“Entreating,” Anne corrected as she knew Emily would appreciate.

Emily winked. “If you say so.”

“Let’s hear it entreat then,” Charlotte challenged.

Anne didn’t want to read the poem out loud and spoil the evening with dread of what she was going back to the next day. For a moment, she considered sharing a little of Passages instead, an excerpt that was well-worked and entertaining. Sensing her sister’s impatience, she stood with one of her journals, opening it to its middle and flipping a few pages further. With a slow, almost tiptoeing stride, she recited as she moved around the table, because of the limited space brushing Charlotte’s back with each passing by.

“‘God. If this indeed be all that Life can show to me; if on my aching brow may fall no freshening dew from Thee; if no brighter light than this the lamp of hope may glow, and I may only dream of bliss and wake to weary woe—’”

Emily sighed as dramatically as she never naturally did.

“You always cheer us so.”

“I’m sorry, Charlotte. I won’t continue.” Anne had reached her chair after a second circling.

“No, go on. The writing itself is lovely.”

“‘If friendship’s solace must decay, when other joys are gone, and love must keep so far away—’”

“Enough.” Charlotte groaned.

“Not for me.” Emily threw her head back and closed her eyes.

Anne continued, realizing the poem was quite good and nearly as she intended. However, she hesitated when she reached the fourth verse, mustering up the courage to take a risk.

“Vice and sin?” Emily echoed. “Nothing to do with anyone we know, of course.”

“That’s it for now. I have yet to perfect the rest of it.”

Illustration by DM Denton from “Without the Veil Between”

I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it.
~ Anne Brontë, from her introduction to the second edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

I allow she has small claims to perfection; but then, I maintain that, if she were more perfect, she would be less interesting.
~ Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Happy Birthday, Anne Brontë
and
thank you

for taking me on
an extraordinary and transformational
 writing experience!

 

This is the most beautiful novel about Anne Brontë and her sisters that I’ve read in a very long time. I couldn’t put it down once I’d started. I fell into the author’s languid writing style and was captivated by her research and depth of scope of the life of the sisters. The novel is beautifully illustrated by the author herself. It is a book to be savored and enjoyed.

~ Kimberly Eve, Victorian Musings

Don’t forget that, in honor of Anne’s bicentennial,
I’m running a giveaway contest!
Deadline to enter is January 31, 2020

Find out more …

© 2020 Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Celebrate Anne Brontë’s Bicentennial: Enter to Win!

2020 is the Bicentennial of Anne Brontë’s Birth!

This coming Friday is the actual 200th anniversary of her birth on January 17, 1820.

To mark this special occasion, I’m running two giveaway contests of Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit: one for those haven’t yet read the novel and one for those who have. The deadline to enter is January 31, 2020.

 

To be eligible to win a signed copy of Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit, please put you name in the comments to this post or the one on the novel’s Facebook page.

To be eligible to win the five illustrations as limited edition signed prints, please leave a recommendation on the Facebook Page of Without the Veil Between. (If instead or in addition, you post a review on Amazon and/Goodreads you will be eligible to also win a signed print of the novel’s back cover illustration of the Brontë Parsonage. In that case, let me know with a link to the review you have posted.)

Winners will be determined by random drawing.

Good Luck!

 

Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit – Bicentennial Book Trailer from Diane M Denton on Vimeo.

 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

The Blessed Moon Arose on High and Shone Serenely There

Today, January 17, 2019, marks 199 years since Anne Brontë was born in Thornton, West Yorkshire, England, youngest of the six children of Maria Branwell from Penzance and Irish clergyman Patrick Brontë. Anyone who has visited this page in the last couple of years knows I have written a novel about her, which was published by All Things That Matter Press at the end of 2017.

Anne’s unfinished ‘Portrait of a girl with a dog’

This will be a anticipatory year as it leads up to Anne’s bicentennial celebrations in 2020, especially those planned by The Brontë Society at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth. (I continue to live in hope that the society and Museum will recognize my novel Without the Veil, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit. So far, other than the Society’s Italian Representative, Maddalena De Leo, who read the novel and wrote a lovely review, I haven’t had any luck in getting a response from the society about it).

For the past week I’ve been thinking about how I would commemorate this day this year. By yesterday, perhaps because of the physical and mental exhaustion of taking care of my mother along with everything else, I realized there isn’t anything I can express about Anne that reveals my understanding, affinity, respect, and, yes, love of her better than what I’ve already written in Without the Veil Between.

Drawing of Anne Brontë by Charlotte Brontë

So an excerpt it will be (with a few omissions … to account for it being presented out of context). One I haven’t share before, but I think encapsulates much of what I personally, as a writer and an artist who wanted to present a well-researched and thought-out intimate portrait of Anne, discovered of her intellect and resilience, faith and spirit, hopes and heart.

 

Copyright 2017 by DM Denton

Anne thought of … a word, more than a word, a philosophy, simple but profound, out of the mouth of someone who spoke simply and succinctly, not unlike Tabby, or, in the old days, Nancy and Sarah Garrs, who sometimes shared wisdom with just a comment on the weather.

“Fluctuations.”

Now it was a title for a poem …

Anne stroked Flossy’s ears as she began to quietly read out loud, “‘Fluctuations. What though the Sun had left my sky—’” Her doe-eyed companion looked up, understanding nothing and everything, wagging his tail and letting it drop limply, whining because he didn’t like it when his mistress was upset. “Shh, shh. It’s all right, sweet pup. ‘To save me from despair the blessed Moon arose on high, and shone serenely there.’”

It was all right. It would be all right. Perhaps not every moment, not when she thought of who she must wait until she died to see again, or how there was less heartache but more frustration in believing she would never feel fully useful in society or even at home unless she accomplished something meaningful. Still, it could be worse if she was without the resolve to make her life fruitful, pursue a well-cultivated mind and well-disposed heart, have the strength to help others be strong, or, especially, the faith to endure and rise above endurance.

“‘I thought such wan and lifeless beams could ne’er my heart repay, for the bright sun’s most transient gleams that cheered me through the day. But as above that mist’s control she rose and brighter shone—’” Flossy looked up at her again. “‘I felt a light upon my soul!’”

Anne knew life couldn’t fail her as long as she acknowledged the blessings of animals and nature, music and prayer. She also valued family and friendship, which, of course, could be one and the same. At times it was stifling back at the parsonage, as though all the windows and doors that held her to being the smallest, quietest, last and least likely to surprise were kept locked by those who loved her for their own conclusions. Anne could never think of home as a prison, but once she flew the nest and realized she had the wherewithal to, if not quite soar, make survivable landings, she knew it was restrictive. She had always suspected being overly protected was as dangerous as being unguarded, like enjoying the rose without noticing its thorns. It wasn’t as though her family was unaware of the world and its ways. Daily and weekly doses of newspapers and magazines initiated lively discussions, mostly between Branwell and Charlotte with Emily grunting, about religion and revolution and parliamentary reform, potato famine and, closer to home, the plight of the wool laborers and sick in their father’s parish.

Anne was afraid responding to political, social, and moral issues through the amusement of fantasy was more about outwitting these realities than addressing them. She even felt some shame at having gone along with the juvenilia that made believe the world was at her fingertips, its maneuverings entertaining, romantic, and escapist, although she could almost forgive the child she was then. Halfway through her twenties, having lived most of the last four years away from her family, she was finally fully-fledged, the nature she was born with at last standing up for itself, wanting its voice to be heard, with the courage to admit she was meant to wear truths not masks.

In or away from Haworth, the best companionship was often with herself alone: the best being the reflection that wouldn’t falsely flatter for the sake of avoiding hard feelings, wasn’t eager to congratulate in order to keep her friendship, and didn’t encourage self-pity because it was wanted in return. Anne had long since decided to be honest with herself even when it meant facing a harsh reality, like the prospect of never marrying and having children. Whatever God’s will, she hoped a few of the schemes in her head, humble and limited as they were, might come to something. She could hear Emily guffawing. Why shouldn’t they? You worry too much. Yes, she did, a correction that was one of the most difficult to make if she thought she must choose between passion and dispassion.

 

Illustration (from Without the Veil Between) by DM Denton

 

Just a reminder that today is the last day to enter a contest I have been running since early November. So if you’ve read Without the Veil Between and haven’t posted a review of it yet, by doing so, today, January 17, 2019 by midnight EST, you still have a chance to win a limited addition signed print from the novel and signed copies of my first two novels.

 

WHAT though the Sun had left my sky;
  To save me from despair
The blessed Moon arose on high,
  And shone serenely there.

I watched her, with a tearful gaze,
  Rise slowly o’er the hill,
While through the dim horizon’s haze
  Her light gleamed faint and chill.

I thought such wan and lifeless beams
  Could ne’er my heart repay,
For the bright sun’s most transient gleams
  That cheered me through the day:

But as above that mist’s control
  She rose, and brighter shone,
I felt her light upon my soul;
  But now–that light is gone!

Thick vapours snatched her from my sight,
  And I was darkling left,
All in the cold and gloomy night,
  Of light and hope bereft:

Until, methought, a little star
  Shone forth with trembling ray,
To cheer me with its light afar–
  But that, too, passed away.

Anon, an earthly meteor blazed
  The gloomy darkness through;
I smiled, yet trembled while I gazed–
  But that soon vanished too!

And darker, drearier fell the night
  Upon my spirit then;–
But what is that faint struggling light?
  Is it the Moon again?

Kind Heaven! increase that silvery gleam,
  And bid these clouds depart,
And let her soft celestial beam
  Restore my fainting heart!

~Acton Bell (Anne Brontë)

 

Happy birthday, dearest Anne!

 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

 

Contest! Review “Without the Veil Between”: Deadline to Enter Extended!

Have you read, are you reading,

or are you planning on reading

 Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine & Subtle Spirit?

Would you like to win a lovely, limited edition prize?

go to:

 Contest! Review “Without the Veil Between” and Enter to Win!

 

Deadline extended to Anne Brontë’s birthday, January 17!

 

Please note in comments on this post or the linked page
that you have written and posted a review and where.
Or contact me to let me know.
Thank you in advance!

What we shall be like and what and where we shall be

It was November 24, 1834. Emily Brontë was sixteen, her youngest sister Anne fourteen, when they wrote the first of their diary papers (this one jointly, although it is thought the majority of it was Emily’s doing, noting the use of the pronoun “I”, the references to Anne, the run-on sentences and spelling errors, and the sudden slip from reality into fantasy: Gondal).

These are the kind of tidbits from the past that inspire my writing the most, coming, as they do, out of everyday, intimate moments in time, very ordinary and uneventful, but, also, extraordinary, revealing, and, certainly in this case, poignant considering these two adolescent girls living in the moment with such innocent hopes for the future … that never came.

I fed Rainbow, Diamond, Snowflake Jasper pheasent alias this morning Branwell went down to Mr Drivers and brought news that Sir Robert peel was going to be invited to stand for Leeds Anne and I have been peeling Apples for Charlotte to make an apple pudding and for Aunts [illegible] and apple Charlotte said she made puddings perfectly and she was of a quick but lim[i]ted Intellect Taby said just now come Anne pillopatate (i.e. pill a potato) Aunt has come into the Kitchen just now and said where are your feet Anne Anne answered on the floor Aunt papa opened the parlour Door and gave Branwell a Letter saying here Branwell read this and show it to your Aunt and Charlotte – The Gondals are discovering the interior of Gaaldine Sally mosley is washing in the back- Kitchin

It is past Twelve o’clock Anne and I have not tidied ourselves, done our bed work or done our lessons and we want to go out to play We are going to have for Dinner Boiled Beef, Turnips, potato’s and applepudding the Kitchin is in a very untidy state Anne and I have not Done our music exercise which consists of b majer Taby said on my putting a pen in her face Ya pitter pottering there instead of pilling a potate I answered O Dear, O Dear, O Dear I will derictly with that I get up, take a Knife and begin pilling (finished pilling the potatos papa going to walk Mr Sunderland expected

Anne and I say I wonder what we shall be like and what we shall be and where we shall be if all goes well in the year 1874 – in which year I shall be in my 57th year Anne will be going in her 55th year Branwell will be going in his 58th year And Charlotte in her 59th year hoping we shall all be well at that time we close our paper
Emily and Anne November the 24 1834

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have you purchased your copy of Without the Veil Between: Anne Brontë, A Fine and Subtle Spirit yet? Have you read it or is it on your TBR list? I’m running a contest for anyone who posts a review on Amazon and/Goodreads and/their blog before December 31, 2018. Follow link or click on image below for more details.

Diane Denton has narrated, through Anne’s sensibility, the cruelest yet most beautiful part of this remarkable family’s story.
~ Recommendation on Without the Veil Between’s Facebook page

 

 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Contest! Review “Without the Veil Between” and Enter to Win!

Have you read, are you reading,

or are you planning on reading

 Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine & Subtle Spirit?

Would you like to win a lovely, limited edition prize?

go to: Contest! Review “Without the Veil Between” and Enter to Win!

Please note in comments on this post or the linked page
that you have written and posted a review and where.
Or contact me to let me know.
Thank you in advance!

The holidays are coming! Have some Brontë aficionados on your gift list?

Just a reminder that there are prints, notecards, and other items created from the artwork from Without the Veil Between
that are available for purchase.

For more information, click here.

Announcing Winner of “Without the Veil Between” Contest!

Thank you to everyone who commented on my May 17th post, A Word or Two about the Cover of Without the Veil Between – Win a Signed Copy and More and, therefore, entered the contest.

I enjoyed reading and was heartened by your lovely, thoughtful, lyrical, creative, generous comments.

 

The drawing for the winner was done online at Random Picker.

 

Congratulations

Veronica Leigh!

 

 You’ve won a signed copy of Without the Veil Between
and a limited edition signed print of one of the illustrations in the novel.

You can choose the illustration by going to
the gallery on my artspan website.

I will be in touch with you via Facebook to find out your choice
and get your address

To celebrate the first day of June 2018, let me offer a little excerpt from
Without the Veil Between, Anne Bronte: A Fine and Subtle Spirit:

Anne’s anxieties usually cleared away, at least temporarily, while she was on her own out of doors. June continued pleasant, the sun intensifying so scattered clouds were welcome, along with trees touching their fresh canopies across the road from Great Ouseburn to Thorpe Underwood. She frequently stopped to study and sketch whatever flora caught her eye. Hawthorn blossoms clustered out of bramble hedges and chickweed didn’t quite succeed in creeping unnoticed through roadside grass. Dandelions invaded the road, some already bursting into seed. Anne enjoyed their bravado, quickly drawing a couple of them head to head but not their simple, lobed leaves before she was distracted by bees finding sustenance in clover flowers.

Copyright 2012 by DM Denton

 

Happy June Everyone!

 

 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

A Word or Two about the Cover of Without the Veil Between – Win a Signed Copy and More!

The nature of my work is my subjectivity meshed with other people’s subjectivity. So there’s a correspondence with that… Even if you write about me, it will reflect on you; everything is a kind of weird collaboration.
~ Tino Sehgal, artist of German and Indian descent, based in Berlin

Recently my new novel about the youngest Brontë sister, Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit, was reviewed by the Historical Novel Society. All in all the reviewer was positive about the novel. However, the very last sentence offered a blow I couldn’t help taking as personally as if the writing itself had been criticized:

This novel about Anne, the youngest and least-known of the Brontë sisters, deals sensitively with the trials of a young woman who struggled through a difficult life. It reveals Anne as a combination of poetess in the style appropriate for an English lady and as an early feminist writer keenly aware of her submissive role as a young lady in Victorian society.

Anne’s poems are lyrical, illustrative of the depth of her feelings. As befits the daughter of an Anglican clergyman, they also demonstrate her belief in the closeness of God. Yet Anne Brontë is known as one whose beliefs about the role of women in many ways formed the basis of the later feminist movements.

This book illustrates the life of Anne the sister and daughter. It reveals her despairing affection for her brother Branwell, with his Byronic good looks and gradual descent into alcoholism. Her sisters, too, are well characterized—Charlotte, the eldest, practical, bossy and dismissive of Anne’s talent as a writer; and the warm-hearted Emily.

Anne’s adult life is shown as she progresses from unhappy governess—a role appropriate but unsuited to her—to published poet and novelist. Her two novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are less well known than her sisters’ novels but demonstrate no less talent and insight.

Denton has clearly researched Anne Brontë’s writing in all forms. The quoted poetry and prose in the end notes add depth to the whole. The scenes of Anne and her sisters are sensitively imagined and show a sisterly mix of affection and irritation. Despite the overly lengthy title and the unattractive cover art, it is worthwhile to open the book to discover more about Anne, the least appreciated of the Brontë sisters.
~ Valerie Adolph through the Historical Novel Society

Somehow, as we have examples every day, the negative can have so much more power than the positive over our thoughts and feelings and even actions, if we let it.

Making known on Facebook my own attachment to the part-of-a-sentence negativity in the review prompted many supportive comments, including this one:

Diane, even though I haven’t yet read your book, I think your art work is very pretty and intriguing. I love that you did it yourself as part of your total response to Anne. I would pick up your book *because* of the art, expecting to find an equally sensitive and original response in your words.
~ Rachel Sutcliffe, Rachel: SCARBOROUGH, BRONTES, TEACHING, HEALTH, BUSINESS, ALL THAT IS UNSEEN AND THE ODD POEM (Please go to Rachel’s blog for her recent and excellent post entitled SUNRISE OVER THE SEA, ANNE BRONTE, 1839, reflecting on Anne Brontë’s drawing that inspired the opening lines, the ending, and much in-between in Without the Veil Between)

Of course, Rachel’s kind comment helped me to feel better, but, more importantly, she perceptively noted my motivation and intention in doing the art and design for my book covers. It is about my “total response” to the subject I have written about – inside and out. I am blessed that Deb Harris – whose opinion I trust implicitly – at All Things That Matter Press allowed me to participate in the book’s presentation.

The response of the Historical Novel Society reviewer to the cover of Without the Veil Between might be an indication that it isn’t a good idea for me to use my own artwork. No matter. I plan on continuing to risk offering the fullness of my vision for the stories I chose to tell, the characters I am drawn to uncover, the places and times I find myself exploring, the hearts, souls and minds I spend such a large part of my life with.

I have decided to deal with any residue of upset regarding the comment on the cover of Without the Veil Between, by having some fun and turning it into a contest for a free signed copy of the novel along with a limited edition signed print of one of the illustrations included in it.

Click on the image below or here
for a fuller view of the illustrations
the winner will be able to chose from.

All you have to do to enter is leave a word or two
(no more than a sentence)
that expresses your reaction to the cover
of Without the Veil Between.

I’m not going to prompt you further, except to quote Henri Matisse:

Creativity takes courage

The contest for a free signed copy and illustration print is open to anyone in the US or overseas who comments on this post and the cover of Without the Veil Between.

At this point, the deadline for entry is May 31, 2018.

 

Please don’t hesitate to enter!
(even if you already have a copy:
you could keep the signed one for yourself
and give the other as gift)

I look forward to your responses.

Good luck!

 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

Coming Attractions: “Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit” (Book Trailer)

If you’ve watched this space, you will know I have written a novel about the “other” Brontë sister, Anne.

So pleased to announce that it will soon be available in print, Kindle, and NOOK Book editions, published by All Things That Matter Press.

In the meantime, get a taste of the novel through its book’s trailer. Hope you will sit back for a few minutes and enjoy it, along with the music of Mendelssohn.

Thank you to Deborah Bennison of Bennison Books, Thomas Davis, author of The Weirding Storm, and Mary Clark, author of Tally, An Intuitive Life, Miami Morning, and Racing the Sun for words used in the text of this video. The music is Song Without Words, No 46 in C minor, OP 102 by Mendelssohn, Public Domain, Royalty Free music from Musopen

You can read more about the novel, including pre-publication reviews, on its Book Launch page where there is a link to add your name to be notified via email of the release of the novel and, also, to enter to win a signed copy.

You can sign up directly here.

I can’t wait to offer the transforming journey I took with Anne Brontë to the world!

The novel’s publication has taken on even greater meaning as my beloved eighty-eight-year-old mom, who introduced me at a young age to the Brontës, slowly recovers from a serious infection that had her hospitalized for a number of days. She is now in rehab and, I pray, after getting more of her strength and mobility back, she will be able to come home again.

Those who have followed this blog for a while will know that my mom did some lovely artwork in the past. If you watch the video above you’ll realize how relevant roses are to the subject of Anne Brontë.

Paintings by my mom, June, (left) and me Copyright 2015

 

©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.

The Brontës, A Destination for the World

As I research ways to reach out with news of my upcoming novel Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit, it has become evident there are an impressive number of Brontë aficionados worldwide.

Of course, the Brontë Society and Parsonage Museum have long been the pride of West Yorkshire and its natives. But, as it was for me since the threshold of puberty when I first became aware of Haworth‘s famous literary siblings, their home for most of their lives has long been a dream destination for countless visitors from hundreds and thousands of miles, oceans, continents and centuries away.

Brontë Parsonage, Haworth, llustration by DM Denton Copyright 2017

Once the identity of the author of Jane Eyre was no longer masked by a pseudonym, fans of the book started turning up in Haworth. A few years after Charlotte’s death, spurred on by the publication of Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of her, even more came, many from America where Jane Eyre was very popular. The local shops looked to benefit, for example, by selling photographs of the family that probably weren’t. Patriarch Patrick Brontë even began cutting up Charlotte’s letters in order to fulfill requests for samples of her handwriting.

The narrative of the Brontë sisters’ lives and the place they passed from childhood to adulthood in became as important to their legacy as the stories they penned. Not everyone agreed it should be so and others were skeptical but open to being convinced. Henry James (1843—1916) thought it unfortunate that the “beguiled fascination” with the Brontës’ “tragic history, their loneliness and poverty of life” got more attention than critical reaction to their writings. In 1904 Virginia Woolf  (1882—1941) wrote an extensive account of and reflection on her “expedition to Haworth” to discover if, as Mrs. Gaskell implied, “Haworth and the Brontës (were) somehow inextricably mixed. The curiosity (is) only legitimate when the house of a great writer or the country in which it is set adds something to our understanding of his books. This justification you have for a pilgrimage to the home and country of Charlotte Brontë and her sisters.”

I don’t believe searching for Charlotte, Emily and Anne through the rooms they lived in, church they worshipped in, pathways they walked, objects they used, books they read, clothes they wore, music they collected, pets they had, or weather they enjoyed and endured conflicts with discovering them as writers or detracts from what they wrote. If anything, their outer and inner worlds: the “poverty” (as Mr. James called it), constraints and remoteness of their lives, the struggles of their passions and intellect, the tragedies that took young loved ones from them (not unusual in families of the time), the persistence and fearlessness of their imaginations and efforts all constructed the foundation and framework that rose into the building of their poetry and prose to stand the test of time and with the best.

Crowd at opening of Parsonage Museum in1895

“The museum is certainly rather a pallid and inanimate collection of objects. An effort ought to be made to keep things out of these mausoleums, but the choice often lies between them and destruction, so that we must be grateful for the care which has preserved much that is, under any circumstances, of deep interest. Here are many autograph letters, pencil drawings, and other documents. But the most touching case – so touching that one hardly feels reverent in one’s gaze – is that which contains the little personal relics of the dead woman. The natural fate of such things is to die before the body that wore them, and because these, trifling and transient though they are, have survived, Charlotte Brontë the woman comes to life, and one forgets the chiefly memorable fact that she was a great writer. Her shoes and her thin muslin dress have outlived her. One other object gives a thrill; the little oak stool which Emily carried with her on her solitary moorland tramps, and on which she sat, if not to write, as they say, to think what was probably better than her writing.”
~ Virginia Woolf, Haworth, November 1904

The original Brontë Society was founded in 1893. Two years later a small museum opened above the Yorkshire Penny Bank on Main Street in Haworth. Brontë treasures began to be donated and also obtained by the Society at auction, monetary bequests allowing the Society to purchase them. The museum soon saw around 10,000 visitors. It wasn’t until 1928 that the deed for the Parsonage was put into the Society’s hands by Haworth native wool merchant and Society member Sir James Roberts, who had purchased it for £3,000 from the Church. A lot of Brontë memorabilia had found its way to the US and in 1926 a large collection that included Bronte manuscripts, letters, first editions and personal effects was willed to the Society by Henry Houston, a Philadelphia publisher.

Brontë possessions are still being found and coming to the museum from far and wide. In 2011 Charlotte’s mahogany desk was donated anonymously (it was known to have been owned by William Law, who collected rare Bronte material subsequently inherited by his nephew, its whereabouts a mystery after Sir Alfred Law’s death in 1939 until the desk and a few other precious items turned up). In 2015 the Society obtained the mahogany drop-leaf table, complete with ink blots, a large candle burn and a letter E carved into it, the sisters wrote on.

A table at which the Brontë sisters wrote has been brought back to the family home in Yorkshire after being purchased with a grant of £580,000.

No, there’s nothing new about the international interest in the Brontës. Less than a year after Charlotte’s death a German version of Jane Eyre—Die Waise vin Lowood (The Orphan of Lowood) was staged in New York. According to a biographer of Chekhov, the Russian writer was likely influenced by Olga Peterson’s biography of the Brontës when he wrote his play The Three Sisters. This link takes you to a Wikipedia page that lists adaptations of Jane Eyre, including, in the 1950s, a Hindi, Hong Kong, and, in the 1960s and 70s a couple of Mexican and Indian movie versions.

In the 1970s, the French produced a film, the aesthetic and atmospheric Les Soeurs Brontë, which takes a lot of liberties but I couldn’t help but be hypnotized by.

Still from Les Soeurs Brontë
Isabelle Adjani as Emily, Isabelle Huppert as Anne and Marie-France Pisier as Charlotte

The French also did an adaptation of Wuthering Heights: Hurlevent (Howling Wind) in 1985, and so did director Yoshishige Yoshida in 1988: Arashi ga Oka, neither of which I have seen (the former saved to my yet-to-be-released Netflix list). In 2009 a Japanese musical adaptation of Jane Eyre was released and I have to admit I was really drawn in by the video clips on YouTube:

 

Exhibit notes and footpaths signs in Japanese reflect the thousands from Japan who visit Haworth and the Parsonage and make the walks to the Brontë waterfall and Top Withens yearly, the largest group from a specific foreign (to the UK) country. There is a great article from The Japan Times titled Why are Japanese Women still Bewitched by the Brontës. Here’s the article’s opening:

Some years ago a sassy Osaka lady asked me to introduce her to the pleasures of Western literature. I duly handed her a variety of classic books, including “The Turn of the Screw,” “Heart of Darkness,” “Lolita” and “A Study in Scarlet.” They were all methodically if unenthusiastically read, but when I presented her with a copy of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre,” she devoured the book, raved about it, rereading it again and again.

Japan seem to be besotted with the three Bronte sisters: Charlotte, Emily and Anne. It’s a fascination that goes beyond reading and imagining. A disproportionately high number of Japanese women visit the Bronte’s home village of Haworth in the north of England each year, a pilgrimage …

The article explores possible reasons why Japanese women love the Brontës’ novels. I particularly liked, and, dare to admit, related to one:

The extravagance of the heroine Catherine’s passionate behavior and her ardor for the enigmatic Heathcliff is one aspect of the novel’s appeal to Japanese female readers, according to Pascoe.

“An older Japanese woman told me that the novel filled her with longing,” she says, “both for the foreign English locale and for the possibility of being a different, less subdued kind of person.”
Read full article …

The Bronte Society of Japan has its own Facebook page, website and blog. On the latter the administrators recently and very kindly added a post, in Japanese and English, about my upcoming novel Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit, which you can view by clicking here.

There is also a very active Australian Brontë Association that gave my new novel promotion on its Facebook Page. The ABA is independent of the (UK) Brontë Society but it grew out of a group of Australian members of the Brontë Society and … still maintain(s) strong links with the parent body.

And, of course, there is a US chapter. Because of the number of American Chapter members and their wide dispersion regions were created. Each region includes several states under a Brontë Society regional representative who acts as a liaison between their members and the American Chapter Representative.

On of my favorite foreign Brontë groups, which I discovered some time ago, is The Sisters’ Room, A Bronte Inspired Blog, Italian with a mirror English version that is administrated by two lovely young women, Selene Chilla and Serena Di Battista, who travel with others from Italy to Haworth on a regular basis. They met at university, where (they) developed a true and deep passion for the English language, literature and culture. Moreover, (they) have always been interested in the Brontë sisters’ lives, works and places, and over time this passion grew and grew … They also have a Facebook Page where they have kindly shared news of my upcoming Anne novel.

The Sisters’ Room works in conjunction with the Italian chapter of the The Brontë Society,  La Sezione Italiana della Bronte Society, which was born in 1997 when its two founders, Maddalena De Leo and Franca Musi, met at a conference called The Legacy of the Brontës organized by the British Council in Bologna. Maddalena De Leo is the representative of La Sezione Italiana della Bronte Society and on the Brontë Studies editorial board, who has worked very hard for many years to have the Brontë sisters known in Italy and worldwide. As well as writing various articles for the Brontë Studies literary journal, she has translated unpublished Brontë works. Here is a fascinating interview with Prof. De Leo The Sisters’ Room posted with her in 2015: Today’s Guest: Prof. De Leo, Representative of the Brontë Society in Italy. The Sisters’ Room has a page dedicated to the Brontë Society in Italy where you can read a number of fascinating articles by Prof. De Leo.

Maddalena de Leo’s fictional account of Maria Branwell’s life

There is also a Brussels Brontë Group. Thanks to its administrators for listing Without the Veil Between on its Recent and Upcoming Books page.

I’m sure there are more international groups/organizations/fans to discover. Knowing there is so much interest in the subject of Without the Veil Between is a new experience on the publishing journey for me, my first two novels focusing on more obscure figures in music and history. Hopefully, the global interest in the Brontës will translate into a larger readership than I have experienced before.

Readers are often fans of Authors, but I, myself, am a fan of readers. They are the ones who breathe life into the pages that we give birth to, after all.
~ Janae Mitchell

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