SEPTEMBER 2011 - CHARLES DICKENS IN MANHATTAN AND EMILY BRONTE IN VENICE

After hosting a successful exhibition dedicated to Jane Austen ,   A Woman's Wit - Jane Austen's Life and Legacy, in 2010, The Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan, NYC opens a new great one to celebrate Charles Dickens's 200th birth anniversary. This is how they present the event: 

Alfred Bryan (1852–1899). Caricature of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was Britain's first true literary superstar. In his time, he attracted international adulation, and many of his books became instant classics. Today, his popularity continues unabated, and his work remains not only widely read but widely adapted for stage and screen.

The Morgan Library & Museum' si collection of Dickens manuscripts and letters is the largest in the United States and is one of the two greatest collections in the world, along with the holdings of Britain's Victoria and Albert Museum. Charles Dickens at 200 celebrates the bicentennial of the great writer's birth in 1812 with manuscripts of his novels and stories, letters, books, photographs, original illustrations, and caricatures. Sweeping in scope, the exhibition captures the art and life of a man whose literary and cultural legacy is unrivaled. 

(September 23, 2011 through February 12, 2012 )

Wuthering Heights 2011 is  coming out in November in theatres . On 6-7 September this English movie directed by Andrea Arnold will be shown at “La Biennale di Venezia”- 68th Venice International Film Festival,  as one of the works in the competition. Based on Emily Brontë’s only novel, Wuthering Heights is a dark tale of passionate and thwarted love, sibling rivalry and revenge wreaked. A Yorkshire hill farmer on a visit to Liverpool finds a homeless boy, named Heathcliff, on the streets. He takes him home to live as part of his family on the isolated Yorkshire moors where the boy forges an obsessive relationship with the farmer’s daughter, Catherine. As the children grow, family members and neighbours are caught up in the family’s bitter games fuelled by overblown egos. Though ostensibly a costume drama, the story lends itself to contemporary themes such as racism and dependency, whilst touching on perennial ones such as jealousy, hatred of the other, love and the family. Set in the wild Yorkshire countryside, the landscape is at once the ideal backdrop and one of the major protagonists of this cruel and passionate story.

Andrea Arnold - director of Wuthering Heights 2011

Andrea Arnold director of this new adaptation stated : "the novel by Emily Brontë is full of violence, death and cruelty. Living with that for the last eighteen months has been hard. I have been very grateful for the moors, the birds, the moths, the dogs and the sky. It’s been painful though and I might never make peace with this story. I am not sure I am supposed to. Not sure any of us are supposed to".

Watch the first clips from the movie