Thank you for joining!

I just thought if I invited some more people to join I might be able to have conversations with someone more than myself. However there was a problem with showing me more than the few listed at the beginning as having the brontës as favorites. If anyone else can see the complete list of either Anne or Emily and would send other invites that would be great. Maybe let me know you have done it, so I won't send one if I can get the computer to cooperate.

Welcome!

I got the idea for inviting people in this way from the Trollope group. There are many more people who favor the Brontës but the Trollope group is highly active and has seventy-one members. Surely we can get that many!

Hi Elizabeth,

I checked them, and I can only get the first sixteen, which is probably what's happening to you too. I click on the show all link, but I don't get any results, and it's actually a piece of JavaScript so it won't do any good just to copy it into my browser.

I tried to see if there was a trouble shooting group for Library thing where I could post a message. However, it sounds like you know more about computers than I do. (I would never use the word 'javascript' though I have heard it before.) Is this a problem with Librarything or with our computers? My nickname in English class was 'Luddite'.

It's an issue of LibraryThing, not our computers. And yes, there is a "How To" group somewhere on these Boards. Let me take a look.

Hi Elizabeth,

I posted a question about this to the "Bug Collectors" group, but without identifying you or The Brontës group.

Thanks for the invitation! I am not terribly good at participating in this sort of thing, but on the other hand someone has dared to suggest that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is less than a perfect novel (!!!!!) and so I have rushed to its defense. We shall see.

:D

I love Tenant! Even though Arthur is scummy. Not as scummy as Heathcliff, though. Sorry Emily fans I just can't get over his personality.

Actually, you might be interested in a thought I had about Anne just the other day. So I am reading Charlotte Bronte:a Passionate Life. In it the author cites the reason for Acton's publisher claiming that the three were really one was because he thought that he had a hit on his hands and he wanted the Currer mileage. You of course acknowledge that Anne is not as popular as Emily or Charlotte. What if Anne had lived longer to write more. Each novel was getting better and better for her. If she had only lived a few more years she might have written a novel to make her just as popular as her older sisters. That thought makes me want to pull my hair out. Drat their weak lungs!

I know! I think it is a huge tragedy that Anne didn't live longer. She could have been a proto-George Eliot.

Aye. And you have to wonder, with a family like that, what might have happened if Maria and Elizabeth were to have lived.

Thank you for the invitation, but if you don't mind, I'll watch the group for a bit. I'm finishing a degree at the moment and can only handle so much LT and book distraction. I adore the Brontes in any form (am watching the 1983 adaptation of Jane Eyre - with the yummy Timothy Dalton - currently while I'm exercising), but I adore so many authors (i.e. Eliot, Alcott, Atwood, Oates. . . ).

I have read the Bronte's, mostly Charlotte when I was younger. The very first 'chapter' book that my mother read my sister and I was 'Jane Eyre'. Maybe we were too young to understand the book, but it always bring back memories of a much simpler time.
I have neglected Anne's book until about a year ago, when I chose 'Anges Grey' for my book group. I fell in love with Anne. I'm almost afraid to read 'Tenant of Wildfell Hall' just in case it falls short of my expectations.

It won't fall short. I like _Tenant of Wildfell Hall_ much better than Agnes Grey.

I've place it on my tbr pile and will let you know how I'm getting on with it. Has anyone read anything by Fanny Burney? She is my favorite novelist. Though only 4 novels, her diary is fantastic.

My first Bronte' was "Wuthering Heights", which I read when I was in junior high/middle school (1957-60), I borrowed from a branch of the Denver Public Library; an older, cozy building with wooden floors & dark brown bookshelves.
Sometime after that,, I first read "Jane Eyre", after watching a movie version while babysitting on a New Years Eve.

I have re-read both several times since then (and have watched later movie/PBS Masterpiece versions of bothe "Wuthering Heights" & "Jane Eyre"). I finally read "The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall" when I purchased a set of books that included "Tenant" and "Wuthering Heights" & "Jane Eyre" plus "The Brontes" by Rebecca Frasier.

bjbookman-

I have read one book by Burney: Evelina. I enjoyed it very much; it was very sweet. If you like her, I would totally recommend Frances Brooke. The excursion was very enjoyable. I liked Brooke better than Jane Austen.

I will look for Frances Brooke. Maybe manybooks.net will have her. I love discovering new authors from the past. I just finished 'Marmaduke Herbert' by Countess of Blessington. A sensational novel from 1847. Filled with alot of melodrama, but that's what make these novels so good and enjoyable to me. I have to start trollope's ' the duke Children' for the Trollope group, then I plan to start Emily.

I read Evelina as well - a bit TOO sweet for me. I prefer something a bit more acerbic. I do have Camilla, though, and intend to read it one of these days.

Thanks for the invitation, Elizabeth. Haven't been on the site for a while, so I'm glad that I decided to check it. I read a YA biography of Charlotte called Girl With a Pen when I was a teenager and ended up totally hooked, though I have to say, I do like Emily better. (Sorry, Charlotte fans.) I don't know if I can totally warm up to any woman who calls a man "master," no matter how she means it.

I think that you will find Camilla a more satisfying read. Burney's 'The Wanderer' is completely different from her other novels. They are all worth reading.

I read Girl with a Pen as well, soon after reading JE for the first time. In school we had to read a biography of someone and then give a presentation pretending to be that person. How could I resist?

Hi everyone,

I am so glad I found this group! I'm even more glad to see Tenant appreciation! I just posted about Tenant. :)

Thanks for inviting me!
just fyi, Charlotte is my absolute favorite of the three (with Jane Eyre being my favorite work). I just finished reading Villette and would rank it on the same level as Wuthering Heights, with Shirley and Agnes Grey below that. I haven't read any others, but I'm planning on reading either The Tenant of Wildfell Hall or The Professor next. Any suggestions?

Just wanted to let people know that I sent invites to the rest of the people who had Anne as a favorite. I went through the Author connections to do it. I am now working and have been working on Charlotte.

If one of the Emily fans wants to go through the author connections and invite the people who have Emily as a favorite, that would be great. Just before you invite, figure that if they have Anne as a favorite that the person got an invite from me. As I said I have sent out to some of the Charlotte fans but it is hard to tell you which ones because I am just going down the list so the people who have more authors in common with me have gotten an invite.

Probably more than any of you wanted to know. Now if you didn't suspect it before, you think I'm obsessive. (You'd be right, but is there anything better to be obsessed about than the Brontës?) :)

>23 alpiesrule: alpiesrule: You can't go wrong with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I think it is the most beautiful book ever written! The language is so delicious.

~ TT

I am happy to be a member of this group. Jane Eyre was the first book I fell in love with.......It is still one of my favorites and I reread it every few years. I found Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea to be a very interesting portrayal of a possible background for Rochester's wife. I didn't really care for the way Rhys presented Rochester as a cold, cruel man. I prefer to think of him as presented in Bronte, as tortured over his situation. I'm a bit of a romantic and find the tortured, angst ridden man, such as Heathcliff, attractive. :)
Thanks again for inviting me in.

Thanks so much for inviting me Elizabeth, I'm delighted to find fellow Bronte fans. Jane Eyre was my first book, I devoured it when I was about 14 I think, fell totally in love with Rochester and then proceeded to read all the other books as well. I even have an old Jackdaw on the Bronte family with reproductions of their childhood books, scribblings and drawings - fascinating.

My grandmother gave me her copy of The Professor which I enjoy but struggle with as the French passages are not translated and my French is not the best. But it's a lovely, little calfskin edition and from my beloved grandmother, so a treasure.

I agree with you Lulubel, I'm a bit of a romantic too and the "tortured, angst-ridden man" is right up my alley ;-) I was actually quite shocked when I found out that people were turned off and repelled by Heathcliffe - sacriledge! LOL.

I just bought Evelina - Elizabeth, you made me curious about that book! And I was surprised that I could find it very easily and quite cheap on the internet...

That's all bjbookman! Let's give credit where credit is due. I recommend Frances Brooke as I did earlier in this thread.

I'm a little tardy in posting as I joined a few days ago, but thank you, Elizabeth, for the invitation!

Wuthering Heights is my favorite Bronte book. I read Jane Eyre for the first time last year and enjoyed it, but it did not hold the same fascination for me.

Looking forward to the discussions in the group!

Just wanted to let you know that I'm reading Evelina and I'm absolutely loving it!! It's nice to 'see' some more of London and interesting to read about these sharp class contrasts. I'm curious how it will end!