Bronte Challenge

This year for reading I decided to do something that I have never done before. I decided to do a READING CHALLENGE.   Now I have always been a bit hesitant to try reading challenges considering I never knew if I was going to be able to finish them or not and the thing with me and reading is that I have problems when it comes to not being able to finish a book, even when it completely sucks. The only books I have never been able to complete were The Grapes of Wrath and The Devil Wears Prada. 

I decided to do something a bit different this year when it comes to my reading. I have been a HUGE Bronte fan ever since reading Jane Eyre during my junior year of high school, however it was a black and white movie called Wuthering Heights that I saw when I was 14  that first introduced me into the Bronte world. So this year I thought why not try and read everything that the Bronte's have written? It can't be that hard! Oh but it is. There have been so many things that Charlotte, Emily, and Anne have wrote besides their famous novels; poetry being one of those things. Not to mention their brother Branwell and father, Reverend Patrick Bronte.

Unfortunately Maria, the eldest sister, and Elizabeth, the second eldest child, both of who died of tuberculosis, did not write many documents that the public is aware of and if they did they have yet to be found.

Because I have almost completed this challenge I have learned many different things from doing this about the three English authors and about myself as well. If nobody has ever done a reading challenge before then I say that you should at least try and attempt one, what can it hurt?


Copy&Paste Time! (Originally posted by Laura of Laura's Reviews here on blogger.)

Challenge Details

1. The All About the Brontes challenge will run from January 1st to June 30, 2010. You can post a review before this date if you wish.

It is 2012 but I am still doing the challenge because it makes my soul happy. 

2. You can read a book, watch a movie, listen to an audiobook, anything Bronte related that you would like. Reading, watching, or listening to a favorite Bronte related item again for the second, third, or more time is also allowed.

3. The goal will be to read, watch, listen, to 3 to 6 (or beyond) anything Bronte items.

*= Read/Watched this year
*= Read/Watched before the challenge

The Original Works

CHARLOTTE BRONTE

Jane Eyre

Villette- This book was pretty good although many of the characters besides Lucy I found quite irksome.

Shirley 

The Professor- I just finished this book yesterday. Definitely not my favorite of Charlotte's but it was one of her first works so what can you expect?
Emma Brown

There was once a little girl, c. 1826-8

Juvenilia by Charlotte Bronte

The History of the Year, 1829

"A Romantic Tale" (The Twelve Adventurers) and "An Adventure in Ireland", 1829

The Search After Happiness, 1829

Leisure Hours, a Tale, and two Fragments, July 6th, 1829.

The Adventures of Mon. Edoward de Crack, 1830

The Adventures of Ernest Alembert, 1830

An Interesting Passage in the Lives of Some Eminent Men of the Present Time, 1830

Persons of the Age, a Tale, June 10th, 1830.

The Poetaster: A Drama in Two Volumes, 1830

Tales of the Islanders, 1829-1830

Young Men's Magazine (including Blackwood's Young Men's Magazine), 1829-1830

Albion and Marina: A Tale, 1830

The African Queen's Lament, 1830?

Something About Arthur, 1833

The Foundling: A Tale of our own Times, 1833

The Secret and Lily Hart: Two Tales, 1833

A Leaf from an Unopened Volume, Or The Manuscript of An Unfortunate Author, 1834

High Life in Verdopolis, Or The Difficulties of Annexing a Suitable Title to a Work Practically Illustrated in Six Chapters, 1834

Corner Dishes, 1834

The Spell, An Extravaganza, 1834

My Angria and the Angrians, 1834

The Scrap Book. A Mingling of Many Things, 1835

Passing Events, 1836

Roe Head Journal (Fragments),1836-1837

Julia, 1837

**Tales of Angria (written 1838–1839 – a collection of childhood and young adult writings including five short novels)
-Mina Laury
-Stancliffe's Hotel
-The Duke of Zamorna
-Henry Hastings
-Caroline Vernon

Willie Ellin

Origins of Angria

Caroline Vernon, 1839

Farewell to Angria, 1839

wo romantic tales in one volume; viz., The Twelve Adventurers and the Adventures in Ireland, April 2nd, 1829.

Marian vs. Zenobia

Mary

Elizabeth

The Young Men's Magazines, in Six Numbers, from August to December, the latter months' double number, completed December the 12th, 1829. General index to their contents:--

1. A True Story;

2. Causes of the War;

3. A Song;

4. Conversations;

5. A True Story continued;

6. The Spirit of Cawdor;

7. Interior of a Pot-house, a Poem;

8. The Glass Town, a Song;

9. The Silver Cup, a Tale;

10. The Table and Vase in the Desert, a Song;

11. Conversations; 12. Scene on the Great Bridge;

13. Song of the Ancient Britons;

14. Scene in my Tun, a Tale;

15. An American Tale;

16. Lines written on seeing the Garden of a Genius;

17. The Lay of the Glass Town;

18. The Swiss Artist, a Tale;

19. Lines on the transfer of this Magazine;

20. On the Same, by a different hand;

21. Chief Geni in Council;

22. Harvest in Spain;

23. The Swiss Artist continued;

24. Conversations.

A Book of Rhymes, finished December 17th, 1829; Contents:

1. The Beauty of Nature;

2. A Short Poem;

3. Meditations while Journeying in a Canadian Forest;

4. A Song of an Exile;

5. On Seeing the Ruins of the Tower of Babel;

6. A Thing of 14 lines;

7. Lines written on the Bank of a River one fine Summer Evening;

8. Spring, a Song;

9. Autumn, a Song.

Miscellaneous Poems, finished May 30th, 1830. Contents:--

1. The Churchyard;

2. Descriptions of the Duke of Wellington's Palace on the Pleasant Banks of the Lusiva; this article is a small prose tale or incident;

3. Pleasure; 4. Lines written on the Summit of a high Mountain of the North of England;

5. Winter;

6. Two Fragments, namely, 1st, The Vision; 2nd, A Short untitled Poem; The Evening Walk, a Poem, June 23rd, 1830.

Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights

Anne Bronte

Agnes Grey

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

All

Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

Biographical Works/Literary Criticism

The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell*- Reading at the moment

Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life by Lyndall Gordon*

The Art of the Brontes by Christine Alexander and Jane Sellars

Selected Letters of Charlotte Bronte edited by Margaret Smith
Charlotte Bronte: A Writer's Life by Rebecca Fraser

Charlotte Bronte: Unquiet Soul by Margot Peters

Bronte by Glyn Hughes

The Three Brontes by May Sinclair

The Brontes by Juliet Barker

The Brontes: A Beginner's Guide by Steve Eddy*

The Oxford Companion to the Brontes by Christine Alexander

The Bronte Myth by Lucasta Miller

In the Footsteps of the Brontes by Ellis Chadwick
Life and Letters by Clement Shorter- Maria Branwell's "The Advantages of Poverty. In Religious Concerns" can be found here.

Spin-offs/Modern Reworkings/Brontes as Fictional Characters/Etc.

The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fford*

Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman*

The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte by Laura Joh Rowland*

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte by Syrie James

Emily's Ghost: A Novel of the Bronte Sisters by Denise Giardina

Jane Eyre's Daughter by Elizabeth Newark

Jane Airhead by Kay Woodward

Jillian Dare by Melanie M. Jeschke

The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan

The Heights by Brian James

Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler

The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte by Daphne Du Maurier

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (an original work inspired by Jane Eyre)*

Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier (an original work inspired by Wuthering Heights)*

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Brontes went to Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson

Coldwater by Mardi Mcconnochie*

Being Emily by Anne Donovan

The Crimes of Charlotte Bronte by James Tully*

Heathcliff: The Return to Wuthering Heights by Lin Haire-Sargeant

Thornfield Hall: Jane Eyre's Hidden Story by Emma Tennant

Return to Wuthering Heights by Anna L'Estrange*

Movies/Mini-series
Wuthering Heights (1939 - starring Laurence Oliver)*

Wuthering Heights (1970 - starring Timothy Dalton)

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (1992 - starring Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes)*

Wuthering Heights (Masterpiece Theatre 1998)

Wuthering Heights (2003 for MTV)

Wuthering Heights (Masterpiece Theatre 2009)*

Jane Eyre (1934)- This is the most hilarious thing that I have ever seen in my life! I swear nobody- the director, cast, or script writer, even read the book. 

Jane Eyre (1944)*

Jane Eyre (BBC - 1970)

Jane Eyre (1983 miniseries starring Timothy Dalton)*********- In my opinion this version will always be the best.

Jane Eyre (1996)*- Loved Charlotte Gainsborg, Hurt was not good. 

Jane Eyre (1997 A&E movie)*

Jane Eyre (2007 Masterpiece Theatre)*

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996 - Masterpiece Theatre starring Tara Fitzgerald and Toby Stephens)*

Villette (1970 BBC mini-series also adapted in 1999 as a BBC Radio production)- Whoever has seen this I would love to hear what it was like!

Devotion (1946 - highly fictionalized account of the Bronte sisters lives)
The Brontes of Haworth

Total: 20. 19 if you do not want to include the one by Elizabeth Gaskell that I am reading right now.


And now I would like to share this video that I found a few months ago while doing this challenge. ENJOY!!!!