A brand-new copy of Wuthering Heights and much more

Lately we seem to be specialising in detecting blunders or inaccuracies in the Brontë mentions in the press. It seems that journalists are getting more and more lazy when it comes to checking their sources and rely on memory or on the (not-always-reliable) internet (with the obvious exception of ...erm... this blog :P). From a review in The Guardian of John Mullan's Anonymity:

The flipside of anonymous publication was, though, a fascination with authorship. Contemporary readers excitedly asked who was "a Lady", or "Lewis Carroll", or "Currer Bell". (...) In the 19th century reviewers would play Sherlock Holmes, inferring that the author of Jane Eyre was a northerner from the frequency of dialect words. (...)
Authorial identities smell of the marketplace, and even in the age of anonymous publication printers and authors were keen to build on the success of a previous novel by the way they presented their latest. Austen's second published novel, Pride and Prejudice, was presented to the world as "by the Author of Sense and Sensibility". The publisher who printed Jane Eyre under the pseudonym of Currer Bell was keen to advertise the works of Anne and Emily Brontë as by "Mr Bell", rather than as the products of Acton and Ellis Bell. (Colin Burrow)

Mr Burrow seems to be confusing two different stories, because we doubt this is the way John Mullan explains it. It was Mr Newby - Emily and Anne's publisher - who wanted to cash in on the Currer Bell phenomenon by advertising Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey as Mr Bell's previous novels. Mr Newby had accepted both novels to be published (partly at the authors' expense) even before Smith, Elder & Co got Jane Eyre. It was only when Jane Eyre was a success that he decided to send them to the press and profit from it. This lead to some confusion with an American publisher. It was for this reason that Charlotte and Anne made their trip to London in July 1848: to have a word with Mr Newby - nothing is known of this meeting - and to show Mr Smith that the Bells were not a sole author. Clearer now?

The Scotsman also publishes its own review of John Mullan's book:

Then Mullan tackles women being men, and men being women. For Charlotte Brontë, maintaining her ambiguous identity as "Currer Bell" was a creative principle that allowed her to make her life into fiction, says Mullan. Brontë herself disdained reviewers who guessed at her gender: "To such critics I would say: 'To you I am neither man nor woman, I come before you as an author only – it is the sole standard by which you have a right to judge me, the sole ground on which I accept your judgment.'" (David Sexton)

The Times in its Critic's Chart publishes Christina Koning's selection of top romance novels

2. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë
The sexy beast Heathcliff still makes pulses race in this tale of doomed love.

3. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
Plain Jane falls for Older Man with a past and wins him - eventually.

Also in The Times, Amanda Craig writes about naughty children in books and the Just William series and a Jane Eyre reference comes out:

Long before kids could be told off by bogus television nannies or given ASBOs, the Victorians grappled with dis-obedient children in a variety of unpleasant ways, as the opening of Jane Eyre testifies.

Among the many obituaries and tributes published since the tragic death of Heath Ledger we have selected these two which go a bit further than quoting the origin of his name.

In Los Angeles Times:

Like his namesake, Heathcliff, the brooding hero of Emily Brontë's archetypal Gothic novel "Wuthering Heights," Ledger gave vent to obsessive, over-the-top emotional states that Western popular culture, since at least the Romantic period, has more commonly assigned to women. (Reed Johnson)

From MTV:

Outside the building, flowers, candles, and handmade tributes blanketed the sidewalk as mourners paid their respects and passersby stopped to observe the makeshift memorial. A brand-new copy of Emily Brontë's novel "Wuthering Heights" — which inspired Ledger's first name — was among the items here. (Conor Bezane and James Montgomery)

An alert from Jacksonville, Florida. If you'd like to listen to an orchestral arrangement of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights, the current season of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra gives you the chance:

Music of Fleetwood Mac --Women Who Rock
Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.

Grant Cooper, conductor
Lis Soderberg and Rique Franks, special guest vocalists

Two power-packed female vocalists rock out with the songs of Stevie Nicks, Annie Lennox (Eurythmics) and Kate Bush. “Rumor” has it you’ll have “Sweet Dreams” as the emotion and energy run high with hits like “Rhiannon,” “Who’s That Girl” and “Wuthering Heights.”

On the blogosphere, Risky Business discusses the "death wish" of Heathcliff and Rochester among others. A Southern Missive interviews author Rosemary Poole-Carter who chooses the Brontë sisters as one of her favourite authors. Salome's Corner talks about Jane Eyre 2006. Petits Fragments posts about Emily Brontë and Cims Borrascosos, that is Wuthering Heights in Catalan.

Finally, Paul Thompson, owner and webmaster of The Reader's Guide to Wuthering Heights posts on The Brontë Parsonage Blog about what the perfect Cathy in a Wuthering Heights TV/film adaptation would be like for him:

In the book, Catherine is 15 when Heathcliff runs away and just 18 when she dies. (...)
If you think of Catherine as a slightly immature teenager rather than an adult, it brings a whole new aspect to the story. Her spitefulness towards Isabella, the "dashing her head against the arm of the sofa", her attempts to make herself ill: these become more believable if we imagine a younger teenager performing them. There is also a deeper pathos to the scene in chapter 12 where Catherine in her delirium wishes she were back in Wuthering Heights. If we think of her as a child then rather than a spoilt adult, we can have more sympathy for her. We could feel the loneliness and sadness of a child forced into an adult's world.
It would be fascinating to see a version of Wuthering Heights with Catherine played by a teenage actress (or one who could pass as teenage).

We wholeheartedly agree.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Wuthering Heights