A NEST full of high-profile partners could be enlisted to commemorate the bicentenary of “enigmatic” Brontë sister Emily.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum hopes to continue flying high in 2018 as it highlights the third Brontë sibling to have their 200th birthday.

Emily’s Hawk will be an icon of the year-long celebrations based mostly in and around the Haworth museum.

The Brontë Society this week revealed early details about some of the dozens of events currently being planned for ‘Emily’s Year’.

The news came on the eve of the 199th anniversary of the birth of the writer of the novel Wuthering Heights.

The society adopted novelist Tracey Chevalier as its creative partner for 2016 during Charlotte’s bicentenary, and this year’s creative partner for Branwell’s Year is poet Simon Armitage.

Both partners have curated exhibitions at the Brontë Parsonage Museum and hosted a series of events throughout their years in the role.

Society spokesman Rebecca Yorke said: “Emily Brontë is a more enigmatic character which may mean we work with more than one creative partner.

“We hope to present different facets of her character through the people we work with.”

“The Arts Council has been impressed by the work we have delivered in collaboration with Tracy Chevalier and Simon Armitage and we look forward to unveiling our 2018 creative partners in due course.

“We will build on the success of the first two years as we celebrate Emily.”

Rebecca said plans were already taking shape for 2018 as part of the five-year Brontë200 programme, which will also celebrate the 200th anniversary of Anne Brontë’s birth and the arrival in Haworth of their father the Rev Patrick Brontë.

Rebecca said: “We will be working with land artist Kate Whiteford on a project that will explore Emily’s connection to the surrounding moorland.”

This project is likely to be based around Emily’s Hawk, including a watercolour drawing she made of her pet merlin-hawk.

Emily, a great animal lover, once told children she was teaching at Law Hill School that she preferred the school dog to any of them. The evening before her death she insisted on feeding the family dogs.

To celebrate another facet of Emily’s life – her love of writing poetry – 2018 could see a partial merger of two popular annual events, Poetry at the Parsonage and the Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing.

Visit bronte.org for further information about the ongoing Brontë 200 events and activities.

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