but let me laugh, i've mickle time to grieve

The moon, like a flower ~ In heaven’s high bower, ~ With silent delight ~ Sits and smiles on the night.

[glowpatrol]

[pinktinselmonstrosity]

Bought this beautiful set of Brontë novels at an antiques shop the other day and only just got around to opening them…

Turns out, they’re illustrated!

Can’t find a date of publication, but the date of one of the inscriptions (“with love + wishes for a very happy birthday, from Marion”) is 25th July 1916.

❤❤❤

[itsladyfuckingmacbeth-deactivat]

Better late than never!! Happy Book Lovers Day!! Source: BBC Britain.

[jawnkeets]

I almost think there is no wisdom comparable to that of exchanging what is called the realities of life for dreams.

— Horace Walpole

[victoriansuggestion]

romanticize the Renaissance and Medieval eras to, like, an honestly weird degree

[fanny-brawne]

all the extant paintings of la belle dame sans merci are canon, they're just different men she's subjugated

[gnossienne]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817)

[theheightsthatwuthered]

I was messing around with the photo editor on my phone the other day. The picture is Top Withens which is believed to be the building that inspired Wuthering Heights.

[fanny-brawne]

I also read and loved Villette -- although I was definitely too young to 'get it' the first time I read it, when I was . . . 15, maybe? I will say that the first third of the book, before she gets to Brussels, is really, really slow, especially if you're reading it for the first time, but it picks up the pace once Lucy is at the school. I read JE before V, and they're both such special books to me, but I get such joy from both of them that I could never choose between them.

I actually liked the parts where’s she’s staying with Mrs. Bretton. I believe I got to the point just after her arrival at the school, but I don’t remember much of it.

I’m the same way with Jane Eyre vs. Wuthering Heights. I’ll say Jane Eyre is my favorite, but whenever I think of WH, it’s always so intense that I feel like I can no longer choose.

[fanny-brawne]

I've heard that too but I'm also reluctant to believe it because Jane Eyre will always be The Novel to me.

Yeah, everything about Jane Eyre was just perfect so we’ll have to wait and see, but now I’m really getting the urge to start Villette again so I can find out...

[fanny-brawne]

Yes! I mean, I don't think I've gotten into the *good stuff* yet but I've really enjoyed following Lucy around. And naturally I'm in love with the writing.

I remember the writing was really good. Some people have said it’s on the whole even better than Jane Eyre, so we’ll have to see, although since Jane Eyre was what really got me into literature, it’s special enough that I don’t think anything will ever top it for me.

[fanny-brawne]

don't worry, i haven't finished villette either but i really like it so far!

Is it good? I read the first few chapters and they were really good. I also have a soft spot for fictional yet realistic places, so I’m excited to explore the city of Villette more once I get around to starting it again.

[fanny-brawne]

(re: book titles!) agnes grey, villette, northanger abbey

Agnes Grey

haven’t heard of it | will check it out | will not read it | haven’t read it yet |didn’t like it | it was okay | enjoyed it | a must read | this book is my life | LIFERUINER

I put both of these because I’m actually currently reading Agnes Grey, and I’m enjoying it so far. I’ve unfortunately never finished one of Anne’s books; I stopped about halfway through Wildfell Hall, which I’m going to pick up again soon. But I am enjoying Agnes Grey so far, and I’m excited to see where it goes.

Villete

haven’t heard of it | will check it out | will not read it | haven’t read it yet |didn’t like it | it was okay | enjoyed it | a must read | this book is my life | LIFERUINER

I haven’t read it yet, but I’m very excited to, because I heard it’s incredibly enthralling and that the ending is especially so, and I’m intrigued to discover why that is. (no spoilers please or I’ll bite your head off. Proceeding!)

Northanger Abbey

haven’t heard of it | will check it out | will not read it | haven’t read it yet |didn’t like it | it was okay | enjoyed it | a must read | this book is my life | LIFERUINER 

Again I bolded two, partly because I’m in the early chapters of this one, and partly because I needed to say it’s definitely been on my list for a long time, since, if I understand the main character correctly, she’s a lot like me. Besides, I love gothic literature, so it’s close to my interests.

[abookblog]

Send me a book title

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these and I’m a wee bit bored today. So lets do this!

haven’t heard of it | will check it out | will not read it | haven’t read it yet |didn’t like it | it was okay | enjoyed it | a must read | this book is my life | LIFERUINER

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

I am standing alone in rebellion, and growing very careless.

Emily Dickinson, from a letter to Jane Humphrey written c. April 1848 (via violentwavesofemotion)

[dduane]

Go look at the whole thread, it’s delightful. (Devolves into cat pics, but it’s not like that’s a bad thing.)

[katepentecost]

Okay, first of all, this isn’t even close to what happened. Mary was absolutely treated as an equal by Shelley and Byron (who were absolutely not dude-bros, by any stretch of the imagination.) She loved being there and they hung on her every word because both of them–yes, even Lord Byron–considered Mary to be their equal. She was also greatly respected basically from birth as the daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, to the point that she was considered a minor celebrity.

Furthermore, on the dude-bro thing, Shelley was an activist, proto-Marxist, abolitionist, and feminist, and found a publisher for Mary after editing Frankenstein himself. They read and edited each other’s work and considered each other to be equals in every respect. If anyone was treated unequally, it would have been Claire Clairmont (whom Byron actively ignored, even though they were literally next door to each other) or Polidori, who was routinely left behind when Byron and Shelley would go boating.

Mary also greatly respected Lord Byron and counted him among her closest friends for the rest of her life. This bullshit thing about her being mistreated by either of them is just patently untrue. Was her married life with Shelley entirely happy? Absolutely not–mainly due to the majority of her children dying of illnesses and both of them plummeting into major depression. But did he creatively stifle her? Absolutely not. And she wouldn’t have stood for it if he had. Give her more credit than that! Mary Shelley was a badass.

Dr. Frankenstein, in many ways, is totes based on Shelley. He experimented with electricity and was a bit of a mad scientist himself. The monster could totally be seen as a Byronic figure, sure. But! They’d been up for hours talking about philosophy, death, etc. To reduce this to her being ticked off about a bunch of dudes ignoring her is absolutely untrue and really fucking ignorant, since there is so much documentation of exactly what was discussed and what led to the creation of Frankenstein. It was a contest. It was inspired by what they’d discussed and events in her own past and Shelley’s, and that’s literally it.

There are plenty of cases of female artists being treated terribly by their artist spouses and their boys’ club circle of male friends, but Mary Shelley is NOT one of them. She is NOT Zelda Fitzgerald or Frida Kahlo, and Percy Shelley is NOT F. Scott Fitzgerald or Diego Rivera. Don’t reduce their story to this just because it’s easy and expected. Learn some history before you speak on it.

Lol, I will cage fight everyone in this thread.

[fanny-brawne]

The assumption that every famous/talented woman is so one-dimensional as to excel at her work for the sole purpose of being petty towards men is kind of anti-feminist really; in any case it's just performative when used with the intentions of bolstering feminism

[artchangetout-deactivated202208]

Les Soeurs Brontë 1979

dir. André Téchiné