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PEOPLE& ARTS A31
It’s NOT ‘Downtown Abbey’! It’s ‘Downton’! But why?
NEW YORK (AP) — After
six seasons, people get it:
The name of that series is
“Downton Abbey.” Not
“Downtown Abbey.”
In early discussions, there
was a bit of confusion
among the public. And for
TV critics, inadvertently typ- aunt was married to Lord
ing that second “w’’ was
a constant risk from which
spell check offered no re-
lief.
So why not a less risky title
for the series — and for the
fictional British estate that
lent the series its name?
As “Downtown,” er, “Down-
ton Abbey” concludes its
magnificent run, we asked
Julian Fellowes (who cre-
ated the series, executive-
produced it and wrote ev-
ery word) to explain:
“I have always been rather
an admirer of my great-
grandfather, Professor John
Wrightson, 1840-1916, who
was an experimental ag-
riculturalist,” Fellowes set
forth in an email.
“His eldest brother, Sir
Review: New bio refreshes Bronte energy for modern readers
JENNIFER KAY
Associated Press
“Charlotte Bronte: A Fiery
Heart” (Alfred A. Knopf) by
Claire Harman
Two hundred years after
her birth, Charlotte Bron-
te’s rage over social ex-
pectations for women and
thwarted ambitions are
as relevant as ever, and a
new biography by Claire
Harman makes the “Jane
Eyre” author fresh and re-
latable to readers who
might only think of the Bron-
tes as figures long buried in
tragic myth.
Bronte and her sisters Em-
ily and Anne published
their poems and novels
— including “Wuthering
Heights” and “The Tenant
of Wildfell Hall” — under
This image released by PBS shows Robert James-Collier as Thomas from the final season of “Down-
ton Abbey.”
Associated Press
Thomas Wrightson, Bart., of
Neasham Hall in Yorkshire,
had done great things in
the world of steel and their
Armstrong, the British Krupp
of armaments, but John
pseudonyms in mid-19th
century England. The works
written from the perspec-
tives of orphaned children
and overlooked govern-
esses detailing unrequited
love, financial hardships
and the tedium of life for
“proper” women caused a
sensation that only the con-
firmation of their true identi- phers and critics — not dis-
ties could overshadow.
The daughters of an ob-
scure parson, living over a
graveyard, they seemed
stalked by death. Their
mother and two older sis-
ters died while they were
young children, and they
suffered from ill health all
their lives, until only Char-
lotte Bronte remained to
bear the burdens of their
fame. In “Charlotte Bron-
was more interested in
farming. He had an estate
in Wiltshire called Charford
Manor and I thought of
calling the series ‘Charford
Abbey,’ but we decided it
was too near Cranford, and
te: A Fiery Heart,” Harman
argues that Bronte was
shaped as a writer by the
tension she navigated be-
tween her father’s parental
neglect and her imaginary
games with her siblings.
Harman spends less time in
this imaginary world than
Bronte’s previous biogra-
missing its importance to
the creative development
of Bronte and her sisters,
but giving equal weight
to the real world around
them.
Where the Bronte mystique
traps the sisters in cold isola- Bronte sisters were living
tion on the moors, Harman
rescues their energy and
shows how busy they were
as they sought to secure liv-
ings for themselves, while
so we settled on ‘Down-
ton’ after Downton Col-
lege of Agriculture which
Wrightson founded in 1880
and which, for a quarter
of a century, was at the
forefront of agricultural in- er references to the family.”
they also made time to
write. Their remote parson-
age was a house full of life
and people — eccentric,
troubled, socially awkward
people, to be sure, but not
the ghosts and silence cen-
tral to the Bronte myth.
In Harman’s analysis, the
the stories they eventually
published, through obser-
vations they made while
working away from home
and fearless emotional ex-
plorations. In Charlotte’s
case, these explorations
were made both in the let-
ters she sent and in the fic-
tions she wrote in response
to the replies she did not
receive. Re-examining
the symptoms of Bronte’s
death, Harman also casts
Thursday 3 March 2016
novation. “He had several
children and his daughter,
Georgiana, married Henry
Shirley Morant Fellowes.
They were my grandpar-
ents. “I also used Eryholme,
an early seat of the Wright-
son family, as the house the
Crawleys nearly left Down-
ton for, and there were oth-
Got it. Then we posed one
more question for Fellowes,
who, before “Downton Ab-
bey,” won the 2002 Oscar
for best original screenplay
for the film “Gosford Park”:
Why “Abbey”?
“I called it ‘Abbey’ after
Ramsey Abbey, a Fellowes
house in Huntingdonshire
(now Cambridgeshire),”
he replied. “I didn’t want
to call it ‘Downton Park’
as, coupled with ‘Gosford
Park,’ I think I would have
been known as the Park
Keeper.”
The series finale of “Down-
ton Abbey” airs on PBS’
“Masterpiece” on Sunday
at 9 p.m. EST.
This book cover image re-
leased by Alfred A. Knopf
shows, “Charlotte Bronte: A Fi-
ery Heart” by Claire Harman.
Associated Press
new light on the end of her
short life. Harman’s Bronte is
a fighter, with so much still
to say.