By Caitlin Kelly
She was tiny: 4 foot, nine inches, with (when corseted) an 18.5 inch waist.
The dress, white with small blue flowers and a brown velvet collar, stood in a display case with her shoes.
Few items I’ve ever seen in a museum struck me so powerfully as seeing a dress worn by a woman, a fellow author, and a woman who broke every convention of her era — the author of the novel Jane Eyre — and who died at 39 after only nine months of marriage.
The exhibition — which includes her marriage certificate, will and many letters, is on at the Morgan Library, on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, until January 2. If you have a chance, go!
The show fills one room, the walls painted a deep turquoise, with some of her quotations painted on it. It’s small, intimate, deeply personal. Like the best shows of their kind, you come away deeply moved by the artifacts and the life story they tell.
Her determination, in the face of overwhelming odds, resonates with any woman anywhere who feels compelled to write — and to be published — to find a receptive audience for her ideas, no matter how chilly the prospects.
Charlotte and her sisters and brother published their poems and stories under pseudonyms, as no woman of the time could be believed as a legitimate author.
There are tiny, tiny books, the writing illegibly small, she produced as a teenager; the museum, thoughtfully, has magnifying glasses available so you can read them.
(I went to the show with a friend, a fellow woman writer and author. We marveled, gratefully, at the enduring physicality of these precious items, the spidery handwriting, the delicate folds of paper. What, if anything, of the 21st century will survive — a pile of pixels? A stack of printed-out tweets and emails?)
Her writing desk is modest; she was a clergyman’s daughter living in Yorkshire, not a wealthy woman, not someone with access and power and acres of self-esteem.
Many editions of her work carry a copy of her pastel portrait; shown here for the first time in North America. Also a first, a portrait of Charlotte and her siblings, rough and crude, deeply crackled and bent from being folded and stored for many years before being re-discovered.
Perhaps my favorite item of all is the letter sent from her friend living in New Zealand, exclaiming with delight that Bronte has actually produced a book.
Every writer, everywhere, needs a loving, encouraging friend to cheer loudly and ferociously, when they finally achieve their dream.
WHAT a quote!!!!
Right? 🙂
Ah I have to see this! It sounds like a wonderful exhibition (and I love visiting the Morgan Library at any time!).
So worth it!
I couldn’t fit a visit on my last trip to New York. I have to share this for the Bronte fan on my Facebook friends list. She will flip seeing this!
Thanks…It was very moving.
I read her sister Emily mostly. I read Wuthering Heights five times over the course of my 20’s. Very thankful I didn’t use it as my dating template.
🙂
On Twitter this morning, have been chatting with a friend in California who’s getting into Kate Bush…”Wuthering Heights” is a great song of hers, if you don’t know her stuff. Crazy voice in this particular song….
Here’s the video.
My favourite artist. 🙂
I agree the vocals are crazy on that track and it works with the mood of the novel.
🙂
Hard to imagine how she wrote so eloquently wearing such a tight corset. Talk about constricting!
One of the most interesting experiences I had years ago was owning and wearing a Victorian “combing jacket” which had no corset but was quite tight-fitting. I also wore a vintage 1905 gown for my first wedding…you have to move very differently when your clothing is so constricting and it really helped me better understand how life, literally, might have felt for women of that period.
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oh, i would love to see this exhibit. and you are right, that letter from her new zelander friend is a precious commodity
Come back to NY! 🙂
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What a lovely exhibition! Perhaps it was the many restrictions placed on the Brontes that fuelled their extraordinary imaginations. The more confined they were in the outside world, the richer their interior lives became..
I wonder. I am in awe of her determination — and her siblings all died young, as did she.
We forget how brief life often was then for so many, adding (perhaps?) a much greater sense of urgency to all creative endeavors?