Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Brontë family
By way of internal evidence then, we have first the sensational
discovery of a work, _Gleanings in Craven, or The Tourists' Guide_, by
"one Frederic Montagu", published at Skipton-in-Craven in 1838, which
work the author of _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ must have read
and drawn upon for many things, names (including her own pseudonym of
Currer Bell), descriptions of scenery, local legends, as of that fairy
Jannet, Queen of the Malhamdale Elves, who haunted the sources of the
Aire and suggested Rochester's Queen of Elves, his fairy, Janet Eyre.
Parallel passages are given showing a certain correspondence between
Montagu's traveller's tale and the opening scene of _Wuthering Heights_.
Montagu goes on horseback to a solitary house, like Lockwood, and, like
Lockwood, is shown to bed, dreams, and is awakened by a white-faced
apparition (his hostess, not his host), who holds a lighted candle, like
Heathcliff, and whose features, like Heathcliff's, are convulsed with
diabolical rage, and so on. Mr. Malham-Dembleby, in a third parallel
column, uses the same phrases to describe Jane Eyre's arrival at
Rochester's house, her dreams, and the appearance of Rochester's mad
wife at her bedside; his contention being that the two scenes are
written by the same hand.
All this is very curious and interesting; so far, however, Mr.
Malham-Dembleby's sensational evidence does no more for us than suggest
that Charlotte and Emily may very likely have read Montagu's book.
But the plot thickens. Mr. Malham-Dembleby first prints parallel
passages from Montagu's book and _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_,
then, extensively, scene after scene from _Jane Eyre_ and _Wuthering
Heights_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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