Midweek Open Thread: Leaving Jane Alone Edition

June 10, 2009

by Mags

We’re still finding our way out from beneath a mountain of boxes, slowly but steadily. Dorothy is being no help whatsoever, spending her days sunning herself by the pool as the Editrix earns their bread by the sweat of her brow and leaving all the work for us in the weary evenings. Imaginary servants have a tendency to be truly disappointing.

Despite the vampiric tendency that Austen-related paraliterature has taken of late, we are noticing a trend that might mean pop culture attention is moving away from Jane and towards the Brontës. (Batten down the hatches, BrontëBlog!)

The ~~Very~~ Secret Diary of Charlotte Brontë by Syrie James (many of you will remember her as the author of the Lost Memoir of Jane Austen) will be out at the end of this month. From the description at Amazon:

Syrie James takes us into the unquiet soul of Charlotte Bronte.

One almost expects another zombie book.

Poor, plain and unconnected, Charlotte, her sisters live in the wilds of Yorkshire. Their eccentric father allows no curtains on the windows and no rugs on the floors. Their brother is a drunkard and a drug addict. But these three sisters write some of the most beloved books ever created. Many don’t know that Charlotte’s life held hidden passions. And while many remember Jan Eyre, few know about her romance with Arthur Bell Nichols. After her death, he destroyed so much of the personal writing of her adulthood, but now, Charlotte’s secrets are about to be told.

Emily’s Ghost by Denise Giardina will be out at the end of July. From the press release:

At the center of the novel is the most mysterious and fascinating member of the Brontë family: Emily. She roams the moors by night, conversing with the otherworldly spirits who have been her closest companions since her bereft childhood at a cheerless boarding school. As an adult she lives at home with her sisters Charlotte and Anne, helping her widowed father, the curate Patrick Brontë, look after his largely destitute parish of Haworth in bleak northern England. Despite their intelligence, the sisters’ plain looks and lack of family wealth leave them

with no realistic hopes for marriage. While Anne attempts to land a secure future for herself by working as a governess, her frail health makes her ill suited for handling privileged children. Charlotte, the most socially vivacious of the three, remains ever hopeful for romance, but her fanciful notions approach delusions of grandeur—or so thinks Emily, the strangest sister.

No mention of “finding her Heathcliff,” one notices.

This is an open thread. What’s new in your patch of Janeiteville?