Celebrating Emily: Anniversaries, Ageing and Ghosts

‘A Paper to be opened [on] my next birthday’

While ‘wild rainy weather’ wuthered outside Haworth Parsonage on 30 July 1841, Emily Brontë sat writing a ‘Diary Paper’ by candlelight. It was, Emily wrote, a ‘Friday evening – near 9 o’clock’. But this wasn’t any normal Friday, it was Emily’s birthday; she had turned twenty-three years old. 

In this celebratory talk to mark the anniversary of Emily’s birth, Dr Claire O’Callaghan will explore the ways that Emily writes about birthdays,anniversaries, and ageing across her work, and consider how, in one way or another, it often seems a little ghostly… 

Dr Claire O’Callaghan is a Senior Lecturer in Victorian and Neo-Victorian Literature in English at Loughborough University. She’s the author of Emily Brontë Reappraised and the current Editor-in-Chief of Brontë Studies, the official journal of the Brontë Society.

Please note, this ticket is only refundable if the event is cancelled, in which case we’ll contact you. We reserve the right to make changes to our programme. All information is correct at the time of booking.