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Eleanor Haughton
the New Books Network
Duncan McCargo
welcome to the New Books Network. I'm Duncan McCargo, President's Chair in Global affairs and by courtesy also a Professor of English at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and I'm a host here on the Literary Studies Channel.
Alexis Wolf
And I am Alexis Wolf, a researcher of women's literary history and a lecturer at Canterbury Christchurch University. Today we are delighted to be discussing Charlotte Bronte's Life Through Clothes, a hugely enjoyable 2026 book just out from Bloomsbury by the Bronte scholar, writer and illustrator Eleanor Haughton. Eleanor, welcome to the New Books Network.
Eleanor Haughton
Hello, it's lovely to be here with you today.
Duncan McCargo
This is quite an unusual book since as well as being this thoroughly researched academic monograph, it's also copiously illustrated mainly with drawings of clothes done by Eleanor herself.
Alexis Wolf
In terms of biographical writing, Eleanor takes a novel approach for reassessing a well known canonical author by looking at Charlotte Bronte's life through the lens of her only surviving witnesses, as Eleanor describes it, her clothes.
Duncan McCargo
Eleanor so much has been written on the Brontes in general and on Charlotte in particular, yet you seem to have found this completely new lens through which to view her remarkable life. How did you hit upon the highly original idea behind this book?
Eleanor Haughton
Well, I had studied English and my MA was in history and I wanted to find something that brought those two sides of me together. And so I really started by searching for an author who had a collection of clothes and that's Actually surprisingly hard to find. And I could not believe it when I hit upon this amazing archive of more than 150 garments. So once I found that that existed, I realized that there was no question I found my subject. It's just proved to be such an enlightening experience. So that's how I came about it. The clothes were all on the archive online. Now they're not actually available to look at like that. So I was in a very fortunate period. But the clothes are all held mostly at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, the large percentage of them. So that was wonderful that they're all in one place, which made my job quite a lot easier. There are other things scattered around in private collections, but the vast majority of pieces are there.
Alexis Wolf
As Duncan mentioned, your book is beautifully illustrated with your own drawings. How does this multidisciplinary approach change the experience of reading and writing biography as a form? And why did you feel it was important to approach the subject in this way?
Eleanor Haughton
I think drawing is essential to my methodology. It forces you to look at codes in a completely different way. So it started off as just being a way of capturing data because you'd often. And I'd go up there, I'd have maybe two weeks to spend in one place looking at the clothing. And it was a way of making sure that I gathered the information in the right way. But as I went through the process and carried on with the project, I started to realise that actually capturing the data in that way was also forcing me to look at the clothes in a different way, to look at every tiny detail. The seams, the bones, the wear. And actually that's where some of the secrets lie. And then as time passed, I realized it allowed people to see the clothes as I was allowed to see see them. So I was very fortunate really that I was able to spend so much time with them, opening them up, looking inside, looking at the seams. And I think I felt it was important for the readers to be able to experience that as well. So I was very aware of the end product while I was writing as well. So I think that had huge bearing on how I produced the book at the end. And the editors are very keen to keep that in. Totally changed my reading of them and seeing them as witnesses and treating them as evidence was essential to this new way of looking at someone's life.
Alexis Wolf
Any writers or researchers would first turn to photography. Was it a natural extension for you of your multi talented self that you just were doing the drawings and then they made their way into the book, or was it always the intention?
Eleanor Haughton
I think it became the intention about halfway through. We realized, especially as I was talking to the editor, we realized it was important, partly because photographs immediately make clothing look a little bit like. Like jumble sale clothes that have been worn, they do end up looking very battered. The minute you see them that way, you're losing that vivacity and that immediacy, and also how they would have been worn and seen at the time. So that was important. And even if you dress them on models, you just lose something. And so we felt that was really important to show them in that way as very much lived in things, rather than maybe what we would associate with something you might find in a charity shop or vintage sale. I wanted them to seem very much as important pieces of evidence in their own right. So, yes, it was essential to the process, I think.
Duncan McCargo
Great. Perhaps it would be a good idea at this point to zoom in on something, because for the readers who haven't seen the book, this might all be a little abstract. I'm really into the empirics of what you've done here. Perhaps you could tell us about this garment that you talk about at great length in chapter eight, Charlotte's so called Thackeray dress. Can you explain to our listeners what kind of dress this is and what you discovered about it as a way of maybe helping people to understand the method that you're using in them?
Eleanor Haughton
Absolutely. So the dress came. One of the big problems with Charlotte's wardrobe. There's a huge amount of myth that surrounds all the garments that she wears. We tend to associate her with Jane Eyre very strongly. And Charlotte's Thackeray dress is basically the antithesis of that. It's bright, it's blue. So when I first looked at it, I was amazed, really, to see that this belonged to Charlotte. It was one of the clothes that most startled me. And yet when you look at the dress, it's actually been altered, it's been changed, but it came with all this myth. And so what we'd first thought was that he'd been warned to meet William Makepeace Thackeray at a dinner in 1850. But my research led me to a very, very different place where I was able to work out exactly where it was made, how it was made, where it was printed. I worked with a huge team of people, which was really incredible opportunity. I worked with the electrochemistry team in Southampton, so we were actually able to look very close at the actual fibers of the dress to work out how it would have been dyed from what it was composed of or woven out of. So those aspects were really important at building this amazing story. So I started with the garment, which is what I always do, and worked outward from that place, really. So when you actually study it carefully, you can see that it's been altered inside. It was actually taken on by relative of Charlotte's servant, Martha Brown. It was passed to her and she actually wore it, it's her niece. So in 1890s, it was altered quite dramatically, but I was able to, by looking at it very closely, take back to what it would have originally looked like, which then changes your perception of the dress. And it helped me to see when it would have been worn. And by that process of elimination and through really thorough research, I was able to find out that actually she didn't wear it incorrectly, which had always been this myth that she wore this dress to a dinner with William Makepeace Thackeray and then would have been dressed very wrongly for that occasion. But actually she wore it for what was for Charlotte, an incredibly important meeting with William Makepeace Thackeray on her own in the morning of June in 1850, where she really meets her literary hero. And she was this sort of tiny 4 foot 9 authoress meeting this literary hero for her. And so that meeting was incredibly important for her future career and also for her as a writer. So we start to see this dress take on new meaning from being something that was wrongly worn to being something that was worn actually at a kind of high moment in her life, her literary career.
Duncan McCargo
And were there many other pieces where you did this scientific analysis where you took clothes actually to be tested in a lab?
Eleanor Haughton
Absolutely. So we did this with two pieces. We worked on Charlotte's Thackeray dress and then also on her going away dress, which, again, is a very interesting dress. It's one that was presumed to be brown. It looks brown now. But one of the things I was able to work out by looking at the dyes is that actually it was once almost a kind of burgundy purple colour, which, again, totally changes our perception of Charlotte. We always connect her with this view of. Well, we link her with her literary heroine, really her most famous literary heroine, Jane Eyre. And so to be able to see that actually it was a much more fashionable colour. It was a garment that she was wearing at a key moment in her life for her going away outfit, when she's starting this new life as a married woman and she's not this sort of very brown, dark, dull wearing gown. It's a much more vibrant outfit. And I think, again, it just really challenges those perceptions that we have of her and have had for so long. Because myth is a really big problem when it comes to Charlotte Bronte. The hardest things that I've had to smash through, really, and I think the clothes are a way into that in a wonderful way, because it's real evidence, it's tangible evidence, but it totally changes our perception of her as a person, as well as a humanizing aspect, of course.
Alexis Wolf
So kind of continuing on through that and thinking about her representation as a woman, especially a life through clothes, reveals new information about her life through discoveries in the material archive, as you've been discussing. But can you say a bit more about these new revelations, in particular with the relationship between material culture and how we understand women's lives in the Victorian period? Mentioned the bones earlier. And going down to the kind of basic fibers of things, what did the material archive reveal that couldn't be found in another way in terms of women's lives?
Eleanor Haughton
I think one of the major things is just how much time clothing took up. So when we actually look at her clothes and we realize how much time it took her to make things, a lot of the clothes are made by our own hands, really, along with her servant. And so we start to see just how much time, even as a writer, just the general day to day of care of clothing took up. And also, I think when you look closely at how these garments are made, you do see part of her personality come through in that all women had to do these things, or all women of her class had to make clothes, had to produce things. But she has a certain way of sewing, which I think is very telling about her personality. But also, of course, there's the whole aspect of how it would have felt to wear those things. Her corset's a perfect example. It was a very harsh garment. Now, she chose that it was actually very uncommon for women to tight lace. But the very fact that her garment shows that she was wearing something that was so unyielding and harsh tells us something about Charlotte as a person and also how she differed from other women of her time. I think that's important, too, in that we would certainly have missed that if we didn't have her corset to show us just how her choice to tight lace changed how she chose to be presented to the world, really. And so I think there are so many garments that really challenge our perception of Charlotte as a woman compared to other women of her time. But also what Life was like for women to wear these clothes, to move through the world in these clothes, and to have such a huge body of clothing is just so unusual for someone of the middle classes. It just didn't survive, apart from anything else, just seeing how many clothes she would have needed through life, those kinds of things, you just don't normally have the ability to find those facts out because we have a lot of clothes from other classes of people. But for the middle classes, it's very, very difficult. That in itself is fascinating. It's almost endless, the things that you can find out from the clothing. But I think from her as a woman, I was as aware of what it showed me, how she differed as it was from how she fitted into the typical norms.
Alexis Wolf
That's fascinating. Thank you. In the book, you often discuss Charlotte Bronte's ability as a seamstress.
Eleanor Haughton
Yeah.
Alexis Wolf
What can fashion tell us about her that other forms of interpretation cannot?
Eleanor Haughton
One thing that I've really been struck by is how meticulous she was in her sewing. So when you look at her garments and also the other things she made, like sewing cases, the kinds of things that she made that were actually more for pleasure than they were for function, we start to see something of her personality come through, and I think that's very important. We maybe see it to some extent in her artworks, but in her sewing, you see a very meticulous nature. But I think you also see the impact of her childhood. We see in Jane Eyre how she is taught to sew at a very young age. That's something that she did actually learn herself in school. So we do see that impact very strongly of sewing and just the centrality of that to a woman's life at that time, especially a woman who has to earn her own living. I found it changed my understanding of her letters. It changed my understanding of her writing. Looking at the actual sewing that, you know, survives, outlives her, whether that's in the form of clothes or samplers or, as I said, the things that she made, like needle cases. You really see the centrality of sewing to a woman's life and how much time it took up and how you had to be good at it, really. That's not something that everyone was good at. And it just so happens that Charlotte was actually very gifted, careful in the way that she sewed and took pleasure in that. There's also that element. We often think of sewing as being something always difficult grind. But for Charlotte, she also chose to do things in her spare time to produce beautiful things which I think shows that that level of artistry is something that's part of her everyday existence.
Alexis Wolf
That's really lovely and I think has a nice parallel with the kind of determination and steadiness of being a novelist and maybe also for you, a parallel of being an artist and a writer as well. So that's really interesting.
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Eleanor Haughton
Sadly, in terms of just the breadth of things left, Charlotte is the only one that we can really write about. Like that there are a few garments, or not even garments really, pieces that belong to Anne and Emily, a few things that belong to Branwell. So no, in terms of scope, we really just don't have that. And that was what made Charlotte so wonderful, is that I literally have found clue from the very beginning part of her life right through to the end, which is what made the kind of book I have created possible. So it certainly wouldn't be possible for any of the other siblings, which is a great shame, because I think it would be fascinating to study them and compare those lives. But very few things survive. I will say that some of the things that have been incorporated into Charlotte's wardrobe probably did once belong to Emily and Anne. But because she passed away and their garments were incorporated into hers, it's very difficult with things like shawls to know whether they were once Charlotte's. But just the sheer number that we attribute to Charlotte suggests that probably some of those did belong to other female family members. But it's now very difficult to tell to whom they first belonged. But it's a great shame, because it would be wonderfully interesting to find out and to make that comparison. But as far as I'm aware of, there really aren't that many collections that have this quantity of clothing and for any author. So it really is an incredible opportunity. Once in a lifetime. I think maybe not. I'll keep looking, but I think it's once in a lifetime.
Alexis Wolf
I'm going to go a bit more now into talking about the literary works. In your view, how do Charlotte Bronte's clothes expand upon previous understandings of her novels and literary works specifically? So I know we've talked a little bit about Jane Eyre, but what else is there in the book that people can look forward to?
Eleanor Haughton
I think Villette is a book that we often don't study anymore, which is great Nisage because it's a fantastic book in lots of ways. I think there are so many biographical elements that we see throughout her texts, and when I've studied her clothes, that's something that's come out very strongly. So, for example, there are key scenes that totally change how we perceive things. So there's a key moment in Villette where Lucy meets with the mother of, where Lucy Snow is being dressed to go to the opera. And it's not a gown that she necessarily feels comfortable in at all. It's a very important scene in one way. In one way, it's a very small scene, but it's totally changed by understanding a garment in Charlotte's own wardrobe. So there's amazing dress that I was able to identify as Charlotte. It had long been considered not really to have anything to do with Charlotte in the collection, but after studying it, I realized it was Charlotte's and it had been actually holed up in the wall in the Bronte parson. And so I was able to prove that it did belong to her, but it had been made by a dressmaker. It's certainly not the kind of gown we would associate with Charlotte at all. It's got flowers down the front, very, very outlandish in one sense. And yet when you read this scene in Violette, we start to see this moment where she's dressed by another, and it totally changes our perception of the dress, but also of this scene in Villette where we start to understand that in order for her to be shown to the world in a way that doesn't show the family up, other people have to step in because she doesn't have the natural skills or understanding necessarily. She's stepping outside of a world that she normally is existing within. And we really see that. And so this parallel between the dress that I found within the collection and the dress that exists within the book really opens this new world up. And we see this biographical impact. But also some of Charlotte's feelings, I think, pour into the book, which is amazing to read, and totally changes that key moment. And then I think, helps us to understand that she almost walks into the next scene in borrowed clothes, and that feeling of she feels very uncomfortable, there's a great sense of discomfort, which then allows you to read the letters and things that follow in her actual life in a totally different way. So there's this wonderful parallel that helps you to read both her life and her works completely differently. So that's just one example, but there are so many that I was able to find. The Moccasins are another wonderfully evocative piece. So Charlotte's Iroquois moccasins, which seemed such an odd thing in her collection, again, they sort of resurface in all the references within Shirley to Indians and this whole world that you would not expect to find in Yorkshire work from the 1850s. It's just a wonderful way of seeing these parallels keep coming up that allows you to look forward and back, which I think without that material evidence, we would just completely miss them.
Alexis Wolf
Can you please tell us about the behind the scenes archival and collections research that went into the writing of this book? What were the most complex items to access or to recreate? Why was giving a complete sense of her life through dress important to you?
Eleanor Haughton
I mean, obviously I started a large percentage of my time was spent at the Bronte Parsnip, because that's where the greatest body of clothing is kept. I think the hardest and most challenging thing was working out what was Charlotte's and what was not Charlotte's. Again, with myths surrounding things and often some very confusing histories that come with garments that you have to disentangle between what is fact and what is not fiction, but untruths that have come along the way and been collected around something. So reaching that point of fact is often quite difficult. So I think that was my biggest challenge in terms of where most of materials are kept. Most of them by far are at the Bronte parsonage. And the biggest problem, I think, was just the sheer number of things that I had to work through in the time, which is why it's been a very, very long piece of research that's taken nearly nine, well, more than nine years. Spending time with each of those garments was the most important thing for me because it was unraveling histories. And really, with each garment, you have to start again from the beginning. You can't presume anything. I had to strip everything back all the time, because myth is the biggest and hardest challenge. That was the thing that was always my starting point. After I'd studied a garment, I would then be working outwards, which would take me to archives all over the place, all over the world. But so it always started with the clothes and then working out from that point, because that was the focal point of the evidence. But I think in terms of the challenges, there were so many challenges in this, But I think the hardest one by far is, as I keep saying, is the myth, because it's such a huge quantity of myth that's built up over many, many years. And I think challenging those preconceptions, often even within other people who work within that setting, within the museum, I had to be certain that I was so correct in my findings, so that everything I produced, I really knew I could back up with really strong evidence. I think also one of the challenges of working with dress, and I wish this wasn't still true, but I think it is still considered quite frivolous often. And that is something I've come up against again and again. It's still not considered to have the same weight as other kinds of evidence. And I think that was something I personally had to battle through a lot. And I wanted to make sure that, therefore, I was extremely thorough in the way that I approached it and extremely methodical so that I knew I was standing on various foundations when I made claims. I think, for me, that was the hardest part of the journey, is dealing with that aspect of Things.
Alexis Wolf
Wonderful, thank you.
Duncan McCargo
Yes. You have this chapter which is entitled Afterlives. And I guess that relates to this mythologizing, because we know that even before Charlotte died, there's already a Grante industry, much of it not entirely founded on factual accuracy that's been building up. And then the immediate aftermath of her death, we get all kinds of stuff starting to appear. So what kind of afterlives did these clothes have?
Eleanor Haughton
Their afterlives are absolutely fascinating and it was really important to include that chapter because I think one of the incredible things about clothing is that they exist. They carry on having lives after they were associated with Charlotte. And those lives have bearing on how we read Charlotte, because apart from anything else, if a dress has been owned by somebody else, their lives then literally affect it in the way that there are things cut or changed or moved about within the garment itself, but also just how far these things went. So I found that garments, for example, her corset went from Martha Brown, who was the servant of Charlotte's family, the Bronte family. And she was an incredibly important figure because really most of the clothes after Charlotte's death went to either Arthur, her husband, or to Martha Brown, her servant. And they remained with them for a long time, really. Really until their death, in most cases, before they were then dispersed beyond that. And that's where we start to see things really disappear in all sorts of different places. So the corset, for example, ends up in America, is brought back to Haworth. So things really get dispersed very, very far. Some things remain very close to Haworth. So, for example, her wedding bonnet never really left very far. It's just a few streets away. It really was fascinating to see and chart how far things went before they came back. But that dispersion has led to some problems as well as helping to boost. I mean, it's done good things as well as bad. But I think it shows the impact of the Brontes on just people's perception and also their love for them, which is what's kept this collection alive. If that hadn't happened, this collection wouldn't exist anymore. So it's the fame and love of the Bronte's literature that helps these things to survive. But, yeah, the afterlives are vital, I think, in understanding both the importance of the evidence, but also understanding what it is. These garments are different to manuscripts in the sense that they do have lives of their own beyond that of the person that they're first associated with. And you see their changing nature. So something that's immediately linked with Charlotte Isn't necessarily associated with fame as much as you would expect at the beginning. But then later its meaning changed as it goes through different hands. And now it's back at the parsonage. And that's a very evocative thing. It takes on a totally different meaning and way of being read by the people that now see them. It's a fascinating journey. And a very important part of the story, I think, is understanding their significance.
Duncan McCargo
Because ironically, to some extent, it's the mythologizing and the strange mystique and romanticization of and fascination with the Brontes, which goes far beyond any interest in the literary works. They just become essentially 19th century celebrities.
Eleanor Haughton
Exactly.
Duncan McCargo
That's the reason why you've got the clothes to look at it is.
Eleanor Haughton
And of course, that meaning and the changing of meaning. It's something that can bring good things and bad things. So it's good in that, as we said, we've now got this body of evidence which we wouldn't have if it wasn't for the fame. The downside is that it can then be associated with something almost ghoulish and as though they're a part of Charlotte still lives within them. Which again, takes away from this idea of them being something that is as a form of evidence of her life and them being witnesses. So it's good, but it also has downsides as well. That's all the kinds of things that you have to think about and strip back when you're then looking at it as evidence. And try not to be weighed by that feeling of the person who's lived within it. Because that can in itself change the way you work with that object.
Duncan McCargo
So perhaps as a final question, what's in store for us next? Do you have anything up your sleeve in terms of future projects, more on the Brontes or something a little bit different?
Eleanor Haughton
It's going to be a little bit different. I have loved working in the Brontes, but it's been nine years of life, more longer than that, actually. So I think probably it's good to have a little break from the Brontes. Although I don't think that's ever going to happen. I have a feeling I'll never be fully away from the Brontes. And of course things keep coming in, which is also wonderful. So the garments are still coming back. So I don't think this is a project that will ever end. And I'm constantly called into the parsonage to come and look at new things, which is wonderful. But my actual current project is very, very different. I'M actually writing an historical novel based on true story. So that's very different venture for me and very different kind of writing, but I'm really enjoying it. So we'll see where that takes me. But yes, very different sort of project, but still drawing on clothes, still drawing on the issue of appearance and identity, but very different from what I've been working on.
Duncan McCargo
That's something to look forward to. The Brontes do get under people's skin, don't they?
Eleanor Haughton
They do. They certainly do get under people's skin. Yes, they do.
Alexis Wolf
Well, thank you so much, Eleanor, for talking to us about your research on Charlotte Bronte's wardrobe here on the New Books Network.
Eleanor Haughton
You're welcome. It's Dean. A pleasure.
Duncan McCargo
I'm Duncan McCargo of Nanyang Technological University and along with Alexis Wolf, I've been in conversation with Ella Houghton about her highly revelatory and visually splendid new book, Charlotte Bronte's Life Through Clothes, which is just out from Bloomsbury. You've been listening to the Literary Studies channel on the New Books Network.
Eleanor Haughton
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Episode: "Eleanor Houghton, Charlotte Brontë's Life in Clothes (Bloomsbury 2026)"
Podcast: New Books Network, Literary Studies Channel
Date: April 5, 2026
Host(s): Duncan McCargo & Alexis Wolf
Guest: Eleanor Haughton
This episode features a rich discussion with Eleanor Haughton about her new book, Charlotte Brontë's Life in Clothes, which offers a groundbreaking view of Charlotte Brontë’s biography through her extant garments. The conversation explores the intersections of literary history, material culture, illustration, and the persistent myths about one of England’s most iconic novelists.
"...I could not believe it when I hit upon this amazing archive of more than 150 garments..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 02:36)
"...drawing is essential to my methodology. It forces you to look at codes in a completely different way... That’s where some of the secrets lie."
(Eleanor Haughton, 03:47)
"Photographs immediately make clothing look a little bit like jumble sale clothes... you’re losing that vivacity and that immediacy..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 05:18)
Empirical Focus
"...we were actually able to look very close at the actual fibers of the dress... to work out how it would have been dyed..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 06:31)
Re-evaluating Myths
"...it was once almost a kind of burgundy purple colour, which again totally changes our perception of Charlotte..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 09:08)
"...her corset’s a perfect example. It was a very harsh garment... tells us something about Charlotte as a person and also how she differed from other women of her time..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 10:52)
"...you see a very meticulous nature. But I think you also see the impact of her childhood. We see in Jane Eyre how she is taught to sew..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 13:06)
"Sadly, in terms of just the breadth of things left, Charlotte is the only one that we can really write about like that..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 16:42)
Material findings offer fresh perspectives on Brontë's novels—notably Villette—by revealing biographical roots of certain scenes (e.g., Lucy Snow’s uneasy opera gown experience). Parallels drawn between real garments and literary references open new interpretive vistas.
Quote:
"...this parallel between the dress that I found within the collection and the dress that exists within the book really opens this new world up."
(Eleanor Haughton, 18:27)
Objects like Iroquois moccasins also illuminate unexpected cross-cultural references in the novels.
"The biggest problem...was the sheer number of things that I had to work through... And I wish this wasn’t still true, but I think [dress history] is still considered quite frivolous often."
(Eleanor Haughton, 21:35)
Brontë’s garments developed their own histories, often passing through hands of family and servants before dispersing; some traveled as far as America before returning to Haworth.
The objects’ changing meanings are shaped by myth, attachment, and their own unique “biographies.”
Quote:
"...if a dress has been owned by somebody else, their lives then literally affect it in the way that there are things cut or changed or moved about within the garment itself..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 24:31)
The Brontë “industry” ensured preservation, but also added layers of romantic, sometimes almost “ghoulish” fascination with the relics.
Quote:
"...they just become essentially 19th century celebrities."
(Duncan McCargo, 26:59)
"It can then be associated with something almost ghoulish and as though a part of Charlotte still lives within them..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 27:20)
"...I’m actually writing a historical novel based on a true story. So that’s very different venture for me and very different kind of writing, but I’m really enjoying it..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 28:13)
On Illustration vs. Photography:
"Photographs...make clothing look a little bit like jumble sale clothes...the minute you see them that way, you’re losing that vivacity and that immediacy, and also how they would have been worn and seen at the time..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 05:18)
On the Humanizing Power of Clothes:
"...the clothes are a way into that in a wonderful way, because it's real evidence, it’s tangible evidence, but it totally changes our perception of her as a person, as well as a humanizing aspect..."
(Eleanor Haughton, 09:08)
On Myth and Celebrity Culture:
"...to some extent, it's the mythologizing and the strange mystique and romanticization of and fascination with the Brontes, which goes far beyond any interest in the literary works..."
(Duncan McCargo, 26:59)
On Scholarship and Dress History:
"I wish this wasn’t still true, but I think it is still considered quite frivolous often. And that is something I've come up against again and again…"
(Eleanor Haughton, 21:35)
This episode brilliantly showcases Eleanor Houghton’s innovative approach to biographical scholarship, demonstrating how material culture and “reading” clothes can rewrite the life stories of canonical figures like Charlotte Brontë. Houghton’s interdisciplinary methods, scientific rigor, and sensitivity to myth and memory provide new directions for both Brontë studies and the field of literary biography at large.
Listeners come away with a strong sense of the painstaking research, personal and historical revelations, and wider cultural implications of understanding women’s lives through their clothing—punctuated throughout by memorable exchanges and a lively, scholarly-yet-accessible tone.