Jane's Blog

Phoebe Summersquash has agreed to play Jane and Jason Alan Griffin has agreed to play Rochester in the upcoming December 21 reading of JANE EYRE which will be at the Penny Templeton Studio, 261 W. 35th Street

You can watch Jason's reel here (watch out, there's a sexy scene in the mix).

And the Philly band Scary Monster asks the musical question Do You Like Phoebe Summersquash? And yes, they really mean our gal - but then, how many Phoebe Summersquashes do YOU know?

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Mergatroyd Productions is gearing up for JANE EYRE 2009. We will be doing a staged reading of the JANE EYRE script from last year's February 2008 production on Sunday, December 21 2008 at the Penny Templeton Studio, 261 W. 35th Street (between 7th & 8th Aves.) at 5PM.

The public is invited. We will have more information soon on this web site about cast, how to reserve seats, etc.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Azita Houshiar at Interesting New York from David Nottoli on Vimeo.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Prudence Edwards does the voiceover for the popular children's doll in Mattel's 'Barbie in a Christmas Carol' – then a Lancaster audience will see Prudence in a totally different role when she plays legendary author Charlotte Bronte in her one-woman show at the Gregson Centre.

'Watch Her Now, An Evening with Charlotte Bronte', gives the audience a glimpse into the genius mind of Charlotte, through her personal letters, haunting poems and descriptive passages of Jane Eyre.

The show is in Lancaster, UK

More at The Visitor

Thursday, November 13, 2008

"Just tell me this," said I, "and since you know so much, you surely can tell it me - what of Mr. Rochester? How and where is he? What is he doing? Is he well?"

"I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester: the letter never mentions him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have adverted to. You should rather ask the name of the governess - the nature of the event which requires her appearance."

"Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then? Did no one see Mr. Rochester?"

"I suppose not."

"But they wrote to him?"

"Of course."

"And what did he say? Who has his letters?"

"Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from Mr. Rochester, but from a lady: it is signed 'Alice Fairfax.'"

I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true: he had in all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation to some former haunt on the Continent. And what opiate for his severe sufferings - what object for his strong passions - had he sought there? I dared not answer the question. Oh, my poor master - once almost my husband - whom I had often called "my dear Edward!"

"He must have been a bad man," observed Mr. Rivers.

"You don't know him - don't pronounce an opinion upon him," I said, with warmth.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

The novel "Jane Eyre - an Autobiography" by Currer Bell (aka Charlotte Bronte) was first published today in 1847.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her arm-chair, I examined her figure; I perused her features. In my hand I held the tract containing the sudden death of the Liar, to which narrative my attention had been pointed as to an appropriate warning. What had just passed; what Mrs. Reed had said concerning me to Mr. Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of their conversation, was recent, raw, and stinging in my mind; I had felt every word as acutely as I had heard it plainly, and a passion of resentment fomented now within me.

Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers at the same time suspended their nimble movements.

"Go out of the room; return to the nursery," was her mandate. My look or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with extreme though suppressed irritation. I got up, I went to the door; I came back again; I walked to the window, across the room, then close up to her.

Speak I must: I had been trodden on severely, and must turn: but how? What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence -

"I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I."

Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine.

"What more have you to say?" she asked, rather in the tone in which a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily used to a child.

That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued -

"I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty."

"How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?"

"How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth. You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back - roughly and violently thrust me back - into the red - room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, 'Have mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!' And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me - knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. You are deceitful!"

How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth

Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped - for liberty. Not without cause was this sentiment: Mrs. Reed looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting her face as if she would cry.

"Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you? Why do you tremble so violently? Would you like to drink some water?"

"No, Mrs. Reed."

"Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you, I desire to be your friend."

"Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a deceitful disposition; and I'll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and what you have done."

"Jane, you don't understand these things: children must be corrected for their faults."

"Deceit is not my fault!" I cried out in a savage, high voice.

"But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now return to the nursery - there’s a dear - and lie down a little."

"I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here."

"I will indeed send her to school soon," murmured Mrs. Reed sotto voce; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment.

I was left there alone - winner of the field. It was the hardest battle I had fought, and the first victory I had gained: I stood awhile on the rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror's solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction. A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed: the same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have represented as meetly my subsequent condition, when half-an-hour's silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position.

Monday, October 6, 2008

I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as "Jane Eyre:" in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry - that parent of crime - an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths.

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns.

These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is - I repeat it - a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.

Friday, October 3, 2008

One of the most resonant phrases in Jane Eyre is "Reader, I married him." Need proof? See how often it's used in a non-Jane context:

New York Observer article about a gay marriage

Musings on marriage at Salon.com

Recently published book title

Title of a NY Times book review from 1993

Article about Russian marriage

A rabbi's blog

Thursday, September 25, 2008

I lent my copy of Jane Eyre to my next door neighbour, and he came over last night sat down on the sofa and explained that he couldn't give me my book back yet. Because as soon as he had finished it he started all over again.

I confessed I had done the same thing when I read the book and he asked me. "Are you obsessed with Jane Eyre too???"

I said yes, and that my new moral system involved approaching each complex life situation by asking "What Would Jane Eyre Do?" and then conducting myself accordingly.

Why is Jane Eyre so cool? and dudes she is, totally awesome. So awesome in fact that the spirit of Jane Eyre just prompted me to edit out an exclamatory cussword, I know she wouldn't like her good name associated with my filthy language.

Jane Eyre is stubborn, strong, fair, gentle and intelligent, she is not vain, but she's a little proud, she's shy but has a temper. She is in fact, the perfect personification of what I would like to learn to be. Through the book Jane grows and changes and gets frustrated and struggles with the parts of herself that are not the best, and over all triumphs as herself.

more here

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life, because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal comprehension. And signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies of Nature with man.

Friday, September 12, 2008

I must say that book makes you believe in love and goodness of heart. Thus, for the lovelorns-don't give it a try for it may once again reinstate the very 'hope'.

More at Simply Bookish

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Jane Eyre NOT Boring!

I just finished Jane Eyre, and boy was I missing out! This book wasn't boring at all like I was expecting. It was even laugh out loud funny in parts. I never imagined that I would be so riveted.

More at
the Tim and Tess Archives

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Charlotte Bronte's school friend Mary Taylor emigrated to New Zealand, but Mary and Charlotte continued to correspond. Often Charlotte felt free to speak her mind to Mary, who was a brave and unconventional, if somewhat blunt woman, when she could not be as open to her more conventional, but more local friend Ellen. In this letter, Mary scolds Ellen for her disapproval of Charlotte considering the possibility of marriage to Arthur Bell Nichols:

You talk wonderful nonsense about C Bronte in your letter. What do you mean about 'bearing her position so long & enduring to the end'? and still better - 'bearing our lot whatever it is.' If it's C's lot to be married shouldn't she bear that too? or does your strange morality mean that she should refuse to ameliorate her lot when it lies in her power? How would she be inconsistent with herself in marrying? Because she considers her own pleasure? If this is so new for her to do, it is high time she began to make it more common. It is an outrageous exaction to expect her to give up her choice in a matter so important, & I think her to blame in having been hitherto so yielding that her friends can think of making such an impudent demand.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Signet Classics is proud to host its thirteenth annual Signet Classics Student Scholarship Essay Contest, in which five high school juniors or seniors can each win a $1,000 scholarship award to be used toward their higher education plus a Signet Classics library for their school! Students enter by writing an essay on one of four topics posed for this year's competition book, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.


Select one of the following four topics:

1. Erica Jong, in her "Introduction," in the Signet Classic edition, states:

The universe of JANE EYRE operates according to female laws. Jane's success as a heroine depends on her breaking all the rules decreed for nineteenth-century women." (p. viii). To what extent is Jane Eyre an appropriate heroine for the feminist movement? In what ways, if any, does she fall short? Give examples from the novel to support your conclusions.


2. In outline, the novel is a Victorian update of the Cinderella story; a non-descript young woman, poor and abused, catches the eye of a Prince Charming, powerful and wealthy. After a series of obstacles, she marries him, and they live happily ever after. Do you regard the Jane/Rochester story as a fairy tale? If so, discuss the reasons for your opinion. What elements make their love affair seem like a fantasy? Or, do you believe the love between them is realistic? If so, what accounts for their strong attachment to each other despite the differences between them?


3. Discuss the elements of "paranormal" or supernatural experiences in the novel. Use specific examples to illustrate the way characters' dreams and visions help advance the narrative, reveal psychological complexity, build suspense and evoke sympathy for the characters? You may also discuss the ways such elements enhance (or detract from) the overall realism in the novel.


4. Discuss the issue of social class in the novel. What overt or implied class differences exist between Jane, the governess, and her employers and her young charges? How is Jane's status different from that of other servants in the household? Use specific scenes that illustrate the social system that existed.


More information here

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I tell you frankly... I have tried to forget you, for the remembrance of a person whom one believes one may never see again but whom, nevertheless, one esteems highly, harrasses the spirit too much and when one has suffered this kind of anxiety for one or two years, one is ready to do anything to recover calmness. I have done everything, I have sought occupations, I have forbidden myself completely the pleasure of speaking about you - even to Emily, but I cannot conquer either my regrets or my impatience - and that is humiliating - not to be master of one's own thoughts, to be slave to a regret, a memory, slave to a dominant and fixed idea which tryannises the spirit. Why cannot I have exactly as much friendship for you as you have for me? Neither more nor less? I would then be so calm, so liberated - I could keep silence for ten years

An excerpt from one of Charlotte Bronte's letters to her former headmaster Constantin Heger.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Elizabeth Newark has written a sequel to "Jane Eyre" called "Jane Eyre's Daughter." The only problem is that Jane doesn't mention having a daughter at the end of her story - she and Rochester have a son.

It's just not a good idea to write a sequel to a classic - even if you get the plot points right, it's bound to disappoint... not to mention annoy those who love the original work.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

This special issue of LISA e-journal (it's in French), to be published in the first quarter of 2009, intends to reexamine Jane Eyre, its context, its text and its scope as an urtext, in order to exploit the full richness of the novel and to allow the readers to become immersed once more in this major text of nineteenth-century British literature।

Returning to sources, with such a novel as Jane Eyre, means first of all exploring what surrounded its creation. Victorian England, Yorkshire, Haworth or the parsonage may all be apprehended as fundamental to the novel, and examining their importance may lead to a better understanding of the thematic background of the text. Other elements in the genesis of the novel equally deserve our attention: the collective reading at the parsonage, allowing each sister to use the other two as touchstones to test the quality of her writing, Charlotte Brontë’s involvement in the publication of the three sisters’ works, or the energy she spent writing Jane Eyre in only a few months, while her first novel wound its way from publisher to publisher and kept being rejected. The context sheds a precious light on the novel and also functions as a background against which the originality and timelessness of Jane Eyre may be traced.

More at the Bronte Parsonage Blog

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Auditions for a Jane and a Rochester for the 2009 production of JANE EYRE are happening soon. If you are a good actor who would be right for one of these roles - or know a good actor who would be right, send headshots/bios/contact info to info@jane-eyre.org.

It will be an Equity Showcase production, and actors will be paid.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Last book you read?

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. It's a little off the beaten path from
what I usually read, but it's an excellent novel.

"And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am close to you? Little nervous subject! Forget visionary woe, and think only of real happiness! You say you love me, Janet: yes - I will not forget that; and you cannot deny it. Those words did not die inarticulate on your lips. I heard them clear and soft: a thought too solemn perhaps, but sweet as music - 'I think it is a glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, Edward, because I love you.' Do you love me, Jane? - repeat it."

"I do, sir - I do, with my whole heart."

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

A well written appreciation of Charlotte Bronte at Today the Dragon Wins

Excerpt:

The reasons I consider Charlotte a literary genius include the works she left us, but also include her inspired moment when she discovered her sister Emily's poetry one evening and recognized the power and potential there. Charlotte didn't just wrap up those poems and represent Emily as a poet in London. No, she put together a book (which I'd commit a capital offense to get my hands on now) of poems from all three sisters and marketed the thing. It became a first offering from the Brontes (writing under the oh-so-wise male pseudonym of Bell). Next, they had three novels to market.

Are you ready for this? Just like writers of today, Charlotte had to apply to publishers to get the manuscript reviewed and printed. She took it upon herself to send the parcel out, and send it she did. Once. Twice. Three times. Four... In Barker's Life in Letters, page 72, Charlotte's letter to her friend Ellen Nussey, dated Jan. 24, 1840, talks of working on a relationship with a difficult person. Charlotte writes, "and my motto is 'Try again.'"

She stuck to that motto with her writing career. Fraser states in her book listed above, page 246, "To her polite enquiries, publishers...returned no answer. But Charlotte was made of sterner stuff; she would be responded to." She wrote to the firm that published the encyclopaedia to get advice from someone there. Although her first novel, The Professor, was rejected time and again, ultimately not published until after her death, her second novel, Jane Eyre, became a timeless classic. It's a gothic fiction novel that woke an industry. The reviewers went wild with their opinions, either loving or hating it based on its dark, brooding hero and its tormented, masculine themes that people of the day claimed were inappropriate for Christians and women to consider. (Imagine.) Charlotte had to set about defending her Mr. Rochester. Yet she weathered that storm, too.

Monday, August 11, 2008

"Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she was too inferior to excite the feeling. Pardon the seeming paradox; I mean what I say. She was very showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she used to repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were not in her."

Sunday, August 10, 2008

I'm always saying this, but I'm glad to see artist Margarita Gluzberg say it too, in New York Arts Magazine.

It struck me then that every seemingly romantic novel I read seemed to be about money. In Jane Eyre, the heroine doesn't actually find love and happiness until she comes into an unexpected inheritance. Wuthering Heights is a novel about class and wealth - very similar to The Great Gatsby.

Now if somebody would tell Polly Teale...

Friday, August 8, 2008

Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it - and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended - a tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

The web site redesign is underway in preparation for JANE EYRE 2009...

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

I hold myself supremely blest - blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward's society: he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character—perfect concord is the result.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Jane Eyre and the Linen Closet

Sunday, August 3, 2008

A very unusual blog...

Edward Fairfax Rochester's Love for Jane Eyre

Thursday, July 31, 2008

"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it."

"I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other."

Tuesday, July 29, 2008