Well, hello! Hooray! Glad it's up! Johanna

Johanna -- great to see you here! Hope to see you posting frequently to this and to our long-awaited Medieval Board! Yippee!!!

You can count me in as well...HI!!!

Hi Luisa, and welcome! Please feel free to create as many new topics here as you like by hitting the button CREATE NEW TOPIC. Are you a P&P-er, or a Bronte lister? Amy 2

Greetings, everyone! I'm a Bronte lister, popping in at the invitation of Amy 2, and looking forward to this board. Anyone else from the Bronte list out there? Thanks to Terry and Amy for creating this forum. Suzanne

Suzanne: Please don't be shy about creating your own topics! Just hit the CREATE NEW TOPIC button. I'd love for this Board to become a forum for serious literary criticism, biographical info., as well as a discussion of the various Bronte film adaptations. I just ordered & received the giant Barker LIFE OF THE BRONTES (1000 pgs +) so I'm gearing myself up to read...

Amy: Congratulations! I know you labored hard to get this going. I look foward to wonderful things here!

Sandy, thanks for coming! I look forward to seeing your posts.

Hi all, I'm here as an overflow from the Republic of Pemberley; I love JA dearly and P&P especially, but I've said everything I can about it for the moment. My acquaintance with the Brontes is slight; would anyone here care to make a suggestion as to where I should go after Jane Eyre?

Anna, great to see you here! After you finish Jane Eyre, I would suggest VILETTE, which is Charlotte's last novel, and superb; I also really AGNES GREY by Anne -- I confess I like it better than TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL. I haven't read SHIRLEY yet, but can heartily recommend WUTHERING HEIGHTS, which is just amazing. Really, nothing that the three sisters wrote is bad. And their poetry is awesome as well!

thanks Amy; my local bookshop has Villete, so I'll try that next...

Anna- I loved VILLETE when I first read it, years ago, the more so because it was so close to what happened to Charlotte in Belgium with Monsieur Heger...hope you like it,too.

Here's my shocking confession -- I have not yet read VILLETTE. It's on my list right after SHIRLEY, though. SHIRLEY is generally thought to be less successful, but Shirley is modeled on Emily, so I'm anxious to read it. I just did an Anne restrospective by re-reading AGNES GREY & WILDFELL HALL. I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer the former. It isn't as exciting, but it strikes me as more true. And closer to Anne's own life, instead of Branwell's...

I loaned a friend my copy of Villete recently. I only vaguely remember it, am planning to reread it. Has anyone read "The Professor". I began but did not finish it. I think that was due to Bronte overload. (Kinda like Austen overload!!) Have not read AGNES GREY, or SHIRLEY but I swear AG was calling to me from the library shelves today. As I was looking for candy - Roberta Gellis - I now make a confession -I could not check out the book, it has a big red heart on the spine - Romance Novel - too embara sed!!

No one will ever know, Anne! THE PROFESSOR is considered the weakest of Charlotte's works, and wasn't published until after her death. I really like AGNES GREY -- it's quiet, but it's still amazing in terms of Anne's honesty about being a governess. WILDFELL HALL is great too -- really compelling.

Oh I know!! Im having fun reading Georgette Heyer right now, she just does not have a sticker on the spine!!

i love emily bronte's work tremendously. i've read wuthering heights at least 10 times in my life. i love heathcliff.

Great! Have you read any of her poetry? Many think she is the greatest woman poet in the English language. I'll take her over Elizabeth Barrett Browning any day, I'm sorry to say....

Hi! Great to have a Bronte forum - congratulations on the work that went into setting this up. I'm a very long time admirer of all the Brontes, in particular Emily - who I still believe is the Sphinx of English literature.

She sure is, isn't she? It's so hard to find out anything about her, other than that she was reticent, loved nature, was incredibly unsocial & had a will of iron. Her poetry is just so beautiful & powerful -- isn't it amazing to think that Charlotte was the only one who realized this during her lifetime?

Thank God for Charlotte! Just think, without her pushiness Emily would have been lost to the world! I find it rather tragic that someone as talented as she was, could be so utterly unable to communicate - do you know what I mean?

Yes, I do. I don't know if this frustrated her or not -- probably not, since she didn't seem to care what anyone else thought. The more I read about her, the more I get the sense of an anti-social genius. Anyone else have a similar impression?

Hi everyone, I've just discovered this site, and it looks fantastic! So many Bronte enthusiasts together in the one place - a brilliant idea! I am a Bronte fanatic, and am studying them at uni...I believe Wuthering Heights is the greatest of their works, while I find Charlotte incredibly brave and fascinating. I'm planning a trip to the Parsonage - has anyone been there? What's it like to visit?

I haven't been there but welcome juliet!

Hi A completely new person to this page I am a Bronte nut - what I would like to know is has anyone yet read "The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte" by James Tully and what are peoples thoughts on Arthur Nicholls being a serial killer responsible for the deaths of the Bronte family?

Hello, Lara! I'm new here myself--I was invited over by the Colin Firth people (I'm a big fan too.) I have read "The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte" as well, and I loved it! I was so engrossed that I couldn't even stop reading long enough to eat dinner--I brought the book to the table with me! I was always a little curious about why all of the Bronte siblings had died in such close proximity to one another, and under such not-easily-explainable circumstances. Judging by what is presented in that book, I ould believe that Arthur Nicholls killed all of them, but since it is a novel, I don't want to say for certain if I believe it. But, James Tully based it on some facts he had found...

What did Tully find? Welcome by the way!

Thank you for making me feel welcome! I'm not exactly certain what was fact and what was fiction in "The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte," but in the introduction it says that he started doing reseach on the Brontes for a book or something about their lives, and it turned out that he came up with some very shocking things which seemed to point to the possibility that Arthur Nicholls killed all of the Bronte siblings and possibly the father too. I guess he just found a bit of information here, a bit there, and added his own fictional stuff to make a whole story. And now I've gone and ruined the whole book for you! (Not really.)

I cannot imagine this book having anything to do with the truth. Sounds to me like this James Tully who calls himself an author is using the Bront�s to get a ride into the world of Bront� scholarship; sensationalism. But it must be said that the idea of Arthur Nichols being a serial killer (ha-ha!!!) is higly original!

This book appears to be an incredible fiction...playing off on the Bronte name for sales.

Hello all, I'm producing a play I wrote about Charlotte Bronte, it's opening in Los Angeles next week. I just heard about a juvenilia story by Branwell called "Charles Wenworth's Visit to Verdopolis" which is thought to be a fictionalized treatment of his (disastrous) visit to London. Can anyone help me find this story? Any research suggestions? A simple google search yielded nothing. I'd appreciate any leads. Nice to meet all of you. Thanks, Joy

Hi Joy, how would you like to take over as host of hte Bronte conference? We're looking for one!

actually, about james tully, naturally any bronte fans are repelled from his ideas but you should read the book anyway. It's quite interesting. It might be a bit disillusioning alright but it is possible what he's writing is bunkum or made to sound very impressive when it could be based on weak, disputable evidence. Ifthe manuscript he uses as evidence is genuine, the servant who wrote it might not have been telling the truth. She may have had a severe dislike of Charlotte for some reason...possibly becuase of Nicholls, who she was in love with too! Who knows?