In this new edition the writings of the young Brontës - Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and Branwell - are presented together for the first time in a single volume. The fantasy worlds of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal, experiments in romance and realism, provided a rich source for their later work and offer an insight into their developing creativity.
In 1834, Charlotte Brontë and her brother Branwell created the imaginary kingdom of Angria in a series of tiny handmade books. Continuing their saga some years later, the five 'novelettes' in this volume were written by Charlotte when she was in her early twenties, and depict a aristocratic beau monde in witty, racy and ironic language. She creates an exotic, scandalous atmosphere of intrigue and destructive passions, with a cast ranging from the ageing rake Northangerland and his Byronic son-in-law Zamorna, King of Angria, to Mary Percy, Zamorna's lovesick wife, and Charles Townshend, the cynical, gossipy narrator. Together the tales provide a fascinating glimpse into the mind and creative processes of the young writer who was to become one of the world's great novelists.
A graphic novel about the Brontë siblings and their inventive childhood from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Encyclopedia of Early Earth. NPR Best Book of 2020 Glass Town is an original graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg that encompasses the eccentric childhoods of the four Brontë children—Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne. The story begins in 1825, with the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth, the eldest siblings. It is in response to this loss that the four remaining Brontë children set pen to paper and created the fictional world that became known as Glass Town. This world and its cast of characters would come to be the Brontës’ escape from the realities of their lives. Within Glass Town the siblings experienced love, friendship, war, triumph, and heartbreak. Through a combination of quotes from the stories originally penned by the Brontës, biographical information about them, and Greenberg’s vivid comic book illustrations, readers will find themselves enraptured by this fascinating imaginary world. “This lyrical, endlessly inventive book will appeal equally to lovers of history, literature, and metatextual fantasy.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Drawn with a cheery and expansive sweep that belies its sometimes somber subject, Glass Town is a testament to the (usually) redemptive powers of imagination.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune “Greenberg pulls Glass Town and its characters directly from the Brontës’ juvenilia, giving readers a look into the early creativity of an iconic literary family with a playful visual style that captures the Brontës’ enthusiasm as they discover what fiction can do.” —AV Club
Illustrated throughout with black-and-white plates, this book offers a valuable selection of letters written by Charlotte Bronte ̈from her schooldays to her death in 1855 - chosen by the editor of the complete correspondence. Biographical notes introduce Charlotte's family, friends, and correspondents.
In this new edition the writings of the young Brontës - Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and Branwell - are presented together for the first time in a single volume. The fantasy worlds of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal, experiments in romance and realism, provided a rich source for their later work and offer an insight into their developing creativity.
This special edition of The Oxford Companion to the Brontës commemorates the bicentenary of Emily Brontë's birth in July 1818 and provides comprehensive and detailed information about the lives, works, and reputations of the Brontës - the three sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, their father, and their brother Branwell. Expanded entries surveying the Brontës' lives and works are supplemented by entries on friends and acquaintances, pets, literary and political heroes; on the places they knew and the places they imagined; on their letters, drawings and paintings; on historical events such as Chartism, the Peterloo Massacre, and the Ashantee Wars; on exploration, slavery, and religion. Selected entries on the characters and places in the Brontë juvenilia provide a glimpse into their early imaginative worlds, and entries on film, ballet, and musicals indicate the extent to which their works have inspired others. A new foreword to the text has been also penned by Claire Harman, award-winning writer and literary critic, and recent biographer of Charlotte Brontë. This is a unique and authoritative reference book for the research student and the general reader. The A-Z format, extensive cross-referencing, classified contents, chronologies, illustrations, and maps, both facilitate quick reference and encourage further exploration. This Companion is not only invaluable for quick searches, but a delight to browse, and an inspiration to further reading.
How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading. Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain reshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.
Charlotte Bronte Revisited looks again at Charlotte Brontë's life and work through 21st-century eyes. Discover her private world of convention, rebellion, and imagination, and how they shaped her life, writing, and obsessions—including the paranormal, nature, feminism and politics. Everybody knows Charlotte Brontë. World-famous for her novel Jane Eyre, she's a giant of literature and has been written about in reverential tones in scores of textbooks over the years. But what do we really know about Charlotte? This is a celebration of all things Charlotte Brontë, and emphatically shows why her writing was so far ahead of its time, and is as relevant today as ever.
Acclaimed Winnicott scholar Dodi Goldman offers an intriguing account of the psyche’s work of imaginative elaboration. Why does the world feel one way when we are imaginatively alive to it and quite another when we are not? How does one both imagine and see things as they are? What happens when we cannot do so? This book creatively explores the interplay between the imaginative and actual in psychoanalysis and life. Each chapter centers around an evocative visual image—a prehistoric figurine, a Hindu lithograph, an Italian etching, an Inuit statue, a painting by Magritte, and more—to reveal unexpected connections and novel insights into what enlivens experience to make the personal landscape shimmer. With a fresh and delightfully playful approach, this volume is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, humanities scholars, and anyone curious about the fragile alliance between the imaginative and actual in human experience.
