Reading Group

Would you like a change from reading groups that read mostly modern fiction?

We invite you to join our group specialising in 19th century English literature. Read for the first time, or rediscover in the company of other enthusiasts, the classics that have stood the test of time: the Brontës of course, and also Jane Austen, Hardy, Dickens, George Eliot and many other well-known and lesser-known writers of the period. We meet every six weeks or so for a lively discussion of one of the books on our reading list.

Books on our list for 2024-2025:

Charles Dickens: David Copperfield
Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
Elizabeth Gaskell: Cranford
Charlotte Brontë: Villette
Margaret Oliphant: Miss Marjoribanks
Henry James: Daisy Miller
Thomas Hardy: Tess of the d’Urbervilles

For more information, contact Jones Hayden

Brontë Birthplace and the Brussels Brontë Group
I was in Haworth over the weekend of 29-30 March, doing a recce for a trip to the Brontë village that I am organising for a small group of Brussels Brontë enthusiasts in June. In my travels, I visited the recently opened “Brontë Birthplace” in the village of Thornton. This is the house where Charlotte, Branwell, Emily […]
JH
Marie Gevers and the Brontës
Author Éléonore Desclée mentioned in her Feb. 15 presentation to the Brussels Brontë Group that one of her assigned books in literature class in high school was a novel by the Belgian author Marie Gevers (1883-1975). This writer has a curious Brontë link. In 1955, she visited the Congo to give a lecture tour. On a flight […]
JH
Éléonore Desclée and her novel 'Charlotte in Love'
Brussels-based author Éléonore Desclée uses Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre as the driving force in her novel Charlotte in Love, which sees two teenage students thrown together for a collaborate project that brings discoveries about the book and themselves. Éléonore discussed her novel and how she came to write it in a discussion with the Brussels […]
JH