Reappraising Emily Brontë

Claire O’Callaghan is on a mission to rehabilitate Emily Brontë. 

The author of Wuthering Heights has been an elusive and enigmatic figure ever since the publication of her one novel in 1847. Due in no small part to her sister Charlotte’s efforts to explain the conception of such a sui generis work, Emily has been seen as introverted and unsociable, almost misanthropic. Certainly somewhat mystical.

Wonderful, Weird, Wuthering

Wuthering Heights has perplexed readers ever since it was first published in 1847. Justine Pizzo, lecturer at Southampton University, explored what it is about Emily Brontë’s novel that continues to puzzle readers today, in a talk to the Brussels Brontë Group on Saturday 14 October 2023. 

Michael Stewart on walking to Liverpool

Award-winning writer Michael Stewart gave the Brussels Brontë Group a delightful talk on Friday 13 October 2023 about his journey into “Brontë nerd-dom.”

Dr Stewart is the author of “Walking the Invisible: Following in the Brontës’ Footsteps” – about hikes across the Yorkshire moors and other Brontë places in the north of England – and the novel “Ill Will” – about what Heathcliff was up to in those three missing years in Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.” He is also the creator of the Brontë Stones project, which celebrates the Brontës on the moors that they loved. 

Report on Brontë members meeting in Haworth June 2023

As the Brontë Society in Haworth has stopped organising the June AGM weekend, an “unofficial” June weekend was organised (for the second time) for Brontë Society members interested in meeting up in Haworth. Val Wiseman and Margaret McCarthy from the London and South East BS branch took the initiative in cooperation with others including Helen MacEwan from the Brussels Brontë Group. 

‘Emily’ — taking liberties

I always find it jarring when the film concentrates on the director's interpretation rather than making the the film believable. People, manners and social behaviour were different back then. 

In the film Emily, Emily Brontë was romping around the moors and barns in a very unvictorian way! If nothing else, the weather in Haworth would make you think twice – and it took so long for them to unbutton all their clothes in the barn, I was left worrying about how on earth they would get Emily back in a neat enough manner to walk back to the Parsonage!