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DM Denton © 2017

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​(First two and a half chapters)

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE
Scarborough, July, 1842
     The sea made the world vast. Anne must have known this before she traveled to the North Yorkshire coast, any coast, for the first time two summers ago, her pencil sketch Sunrise over the Sea born three years earlier while she was at Blake Hall.
     Emily assumed the drawing was conceived of Gondal imaginings.
     Anne kept it in a leather envelope folder along with other artwork and a sketching block. She liked to look at it as a reminder of her early courage and optimism, which posed a young woman on a rocky precipice, her arm lifted and shielding her eyes to a brightening outlook.
     The seagulls were real now, as were the ships as light on the waves as wisps of clouds hung from the heavens. Anne was once again in Scarborough with the Robinsons, well-situated on St. Nicholas Cliff in lodgings she appreciated, not because of their elegance and prestige, proximity to the Spa, Gothic saloon, an excellent library and pleasant walkways, but for the magnificent view of the shimmering South Bay. Looking away from the harbor, arcades, and finery, over a stretch of shore little disturbed except by the tides, beyond swelling, spraying waves to where the sea calmed to meet the sky, she could think of only one way she might be happier.
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Anne Brontë's own words about writing, life, love, faith, and more ...

​I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man. 

The ties that bind us to life are tougher than you imagine, or than any one can who has not felt how roughly they may be pulled without breaking.

He had not breathed a word of love, or dropped one hint of tenderness or affection, and yet I had been supremely happy. To be near him, to hear him talk as he did talk, and to feel that he thought me worthy to be so spoken to - capable of understanding and duly appreciating such discourse - was enough.

 My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring and carried aloft on the wings of the breeze. ​
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To regret the exchange of earthly pleasures for the joys of Heaven, is as if the grovelling caterpillar should lament that it must one day quit the nibbled leaf to soar aloft and flutter through the air, roving at will from flower to flower, sipping sweet honey from their cups, or basking in their sunny petals. If these little creatures knew how great a change awaited them, no doubt they would regret it; but would not all such sorrow be misplaced? ​

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Did you know?

​
​Anne is the only Brontë not buried in Haworth and the family vault beneath St. Michael and All Angels church. She was laid to rest in Scarborough where she died, in St Mary's churchyard, beneath the castle walls, overlooking the bay.​

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​ Without the Veil Between
Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit
​
​ A novel about the “other” Brontë sister
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A fine and subtle spirit dwells
In every little flower,
Each one its own sweet feeling breathes
With more or less of power.
​~ from The Bluebell by Anne Brontë

​Without the Veil Between
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​
I can’t think of anyone better suited to bring us into the world and the life of the sensitive, creative, and quietly courageous Anne Brontë.

Early in Diane Denton’s book the young curate, William Weightman, says to Anne Brontë: “You must find such satisfaction in being able to capture those moments the rest of us let slip away and sometimes aren’t aware of to begin with.” This is an essential part of Denton’s own gift. With this ability she is able to enter the world of a shy artist who lived in the shadows of her father, brother, and sisters, and in the light of a determined and insightful intellect.
​~Mary Clark, author of Tally: An Intuitive Life and Miami Morning
​literaryeyes.com
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Without the Veil Between contains original
​ black and white illustrations by the author!

​You can purchase prints of any of the illustrations included in "Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit - either from http://dmdenton.artspan.com or as signed limited edition prints directly from DM Denton, author and illustrator of this novel portrait of the youngest Brontë sister.

Anne has always, and unfairly, been the least celebrated Brontë sister, her work considered less important than that of her siblings …
​
This book gives us Anne. Not Anne, the ‘less gifted’ sister of Charlotte and Emily (although we meet them too as convincingly drawn individuals); nor the Anne who ‘also wrote two novels’, but Anne herself, courageous, committed, daring and fiercely individual: a writer of remarkable insight, prescience and moral courage whose work can still astonish us today.
~ Deborah Bennison, Bennison Books
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Without the Veil Between was released by All Things That Matter Press, publisher of my first two novels.

When I set out, well over two years ago, to write a fiction about Anne Brontë, youngest sister of Charlotte and Emily, I doubted I would find enough material to produce something longer than a novella. I remember how Deborah Bennison, whose lovely words are quoted in this post, pushed me to take it further. Before the first part was finished, I was also convinced there was more than enough for a novel.

The pages are still blank, but there is the miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.
~ Vladimir Nabokov

My objective didn’t change as blank pages filled and multiplied. I wanted to present Anne as a vital person and writer in her own right, as crucial to the Brontë story and literary legacy as her more famous and—in her brother Branwell’s case—infamous siblings were. As anyone who ventures off the Brontë beaten path might, I soon realized Anne had a very independent, intelligent, inspiring story to explore, take to my heart and soul, and tell.
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Without the Veil Between follows Anne through the last seven years of her life. It begins in 1842 while she is still governess for the Robinson family of Thorpe Green, away from Haworth and her family most of the time, with opportunities to travel to York and Scarborough, places she develops deep affection for. Although, as with her siblings, circumstances eventually bring her back home, she is not deterred in her quest for individual purpose and integrity. She stands as firm in her ambitions as Charlotte does and is a powerful conciliator in light of Emily’s resistance to the publication of their poetry and novels.

​What Denton has achieved is a  portrait placed in a time very different from the jangling present, but that resonates in a way that suspends years and centuries and lets us feel the joys and sadness of a writer whose unflinching look at life, especially in her novels, rings with the authenticity of who, inside, she really was.
~ Thomas Davis, Four Windows Press, author of  The Weirding Storm
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​Denton's emphasis on the thoughts and desires of the youngest Brontë sister brings color and life to the pages of her novel. She expresses Anne's concerns in lavish prose that matches the 19th century Brontë style. Without the Veil Between  isn't simply a biographical novel; it is a journey back into the day to day lives of one of history's most famous literary families.
~ Steve Lindahl, author of Motherless Soul, White Horse Regressions, and Hopatcong Vision Quest, stevelindahl.com
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Without the Veil Between catches both the triumph and the tragedy of Anne’s short but quietly courageous and determined life. Her disappointments and heartbreak patiently borne; her originality of thought in opposition to contemporary mores; her searing and unflinching insights into the experiences of women and the need for resistance and positive action that we now call feminism.
~ Deborah Bennison, Bennison Books

Of course, Anne’s life and work intermingled with her sisters’, but should never have been for so long blended with theirs until nearly non-existent, her character, thoughts, emotions, spirituality and much of her experience independent from theirs—as she and, eventually, others grew to realize, imperatively and purposefully so.​

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Illustration by DM Denton Copyright 2017

Halfway through her twenties, having lived most of the last four years away from her family, she was finally fully-fledged, the nature she was born with at last standing up for itself, wanting its voice to be heard, with the courage to admit she was meant to wear truths not masks.
~© 2017 by DM Denton

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Drawing by Charlotte Brontë

​I longed to view that bliss divine,
Which eye hath never seen;
Like Moses, I would see His face
Without the veil between.

~ from Anne Brontë’s poem,
   A Happy Day in February

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Blog posts relating to Anne Brontë and my writing about her:

In Memory of a Happy Day in February
The Pen Laid Aside - Forever
The Very Closest Sympathy​​
Branwell Brontë Birth Bicentennial
Reflections on the 199th Anniversary of Emily Brontë’s Birth​​
​The Brontës: A Destination for the World
​Branwell Brontë: As Broken as all Their Hearts Were​
Impending Birth and Remembering a Death​
​Farewell to thee! But not farewell
Music on a Christmas Morning
​If she were more perfect, she would be less interesting
​Anne, Dear, Sweet, Anne: A Valentine
​A Mother's Gift of Reading the Brontës
​For Charlotte Brontë's Birthday: A Journey with Anne
Would not all such sorrow be misplaced?
​Two Writers’ “Wandering Glances” on Bluebells
​Fortune How Fickle Thou Art – Marking Birth Day of Branwell Brontë​

​© Copyright 2018 DM Denton. All rights reserved.