The Bronte Parsonage Museum

I took part in an English trip to the, as the title suggests, Bronte Parsonage Museum today. It's a really nice place, to be honest. Truly rural England at it's foremost best. Haworth is a tourist hotspot, if today can be any judge, and as such it has to look good - obviously.

A very nice lady, called Sue, from the museum gave us two lectures, one about the life of the Brontes in general, including the father, brother and two lesser known sisters; and another about Wuthering Heights in particular, because we are studying it for our second year.

The lectures were great, and I took plenty of notes - it's always handy to do that, as these erudite scholars are experts in their chosen fields and as such have some cracking quotes to include in essays. I didn't know anything, near enough, about the Bronte family before today, and definitely wasn't sure about the rest. Some interesting stuff there... for example, the sisters all published their first works under pseudonyms (because, let's face it, men were given more of the spotlight in those days) and they called themselves Currer, Ellis and Anton Bell; each respectively Charlotte, Emily and Anne.

Funnily enough, they were subject to much criticism when first published, and for Wuthering Heights in particular, got very bad criticism. However, in general, they were liked. Over the years, they have been very popular with the majority of the population, whilst critics have not been very impressed.

Also, I really like this bit: Charlotte first sent her novel The Professor to be published, but it was rejected, and Currer Bell was sent a nice rejection letter that had some great advice, "We don't like this, but you are very talented. Send us something more exciting!" And so, she did. Jane Eyre was sent to the same publisher and when he began reading it in the morning he couldn't put it down... and had to cancel his luncheon engagement, and carried on reading through the afternoon... and had to cancel his dinner engagements too! He finished reading the book and obviously decided to publish it straight away, with it actually getting published quicker than the other two novels. It became an instant success. I haven't read it, have you?

The museum is cool in other ways, for their bookshop has the Wordsworth Edition copies of the Bronte books and they actually own the copyright for them, and is allowed to sell them for £1.99 each! Actually amazing value. I bought Shirley and Villette, both by Charlotte - unintentionally, I might add. I wanted even more value for my money, so got the two longest ones there... I would have bought Jane Eyre if my friend hadn't picked the last one up!

Go visit, it's in Haworth.