Jane Eyre faces them all

Rachel Cooke cekebrates in The Guardian the Virago Modern Classics 30th anniversary. An interesting article that includes a reference to Showalter's study on women's writing (from Brontë to Lessing, you know):

It was not hard to find other suitable books. 'The world came to my door. Bookshops would ring, and the public, and friends. They were wonderful: Hermione Lee [Goldsmith's professor of English Literature at Oxford University and biographer of Edith Wharton and Willa Cather; Virago publishes Cather and Wharton], Anita Brookner, Angie [Angela Carter], Margaret Drabble... Michael Holroyd [Drabble's husband] suggested Sylvia Townsend Warner.' And when - as if! - these resources were exhausted, there was always Elaine Showalter's ground-breaking study of women's writing from Charlotte Bronte to Doris Lessing, A Literature of Their Own, which Virago published in 1982, after it had come out in the US. 'A tremendous influence. I read every novel in that book: all the Victorians came from it. Red Pottage! I love Red Pottage!'

The Oregonian reviews the new book by Karen Joy Fowler, Wit's End and finds Jane Eyre echoes:

"Wit's End" opens with Rima, an orphaned, 29-year-old former high-school teacher, arriving at her mystery-writer godmother's windblown estate (called Wit's End) on the coast of California, near Santa Cruz. A modern-day Jane Eyre arriving at Thornfield Manor (there's even a Grace Poole-like housekeeper in Wit's End), Rima is our heroine in time-honored Bildungsroman style. (Tricia Snell)

The Telegraph publishes one of those recurrent lists - the 110 best books: The Perfect Library. Jane Eyre makes it into the classics section:

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Cruelty, hypocrisy, dashed hopes: Jane Eyre faces them all, yet her individuality triumphs. Her relationship with Rochester has such emotional power that it's hard to believe these characters never lived.

And Gaskell's Life qualifies for the chosen biographies:

A Life of Charlotte Brontë
Elizabeth Gaskell
A biography of the intriguing Jane Eyre author, by her friend and fellow-novelist, Gaskell. One of the definitive 'tortured genius' biographies.

New Zealenders in Belgium echoes the upcoming Belgium meeting of the Brussels Brontë Group (A Brontë Evening - April 18th). Via Aweigh (With Words) we have found this funny video with a Prayer the Brontës' Father Taught Us, courtesy of VirtueInvertYou. The Twenty Fifth Hour reviews Wuthering Heights:

Wuthering Heights, despite my initial reservations, is passionate and romantic, desperate and dire, filled with characters that are both likeable and hated, yet justified completely in their actions and rounded, if melodramatic, human beings. As I have mentioned before, this book is the equivalent to the passion in a Latin American epic, something I had previously thought writers of the English canon to be incapable of.

Dovegreyreader cannot hide her enthusiasm for Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:

More about it very soon but I am deeply impressed and moved by Anne Bronte's book and will be waxing uber-lyrical about it once I have sifted some fascinating latter-day parallels. I'm only cross with myself for leaving it unread on the shelf for so long and delighted that someone has finally made me read it. If like me it should lie unread on your shelf I can't recommend it highly enough.

Finally, Ted Hughes's poem to Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë's words remembering the deaths of her sisters Emily and Anne and Heather Rankin's song Cold Winds get together in this post by Old Fogey.

Categories: Biography, Books, Brussels, Humour, Jane Eyre, References, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wuthering Heights