Zamorna's death

The London Free Press covers the death of the Canadian poet and playwright James Crear Reaney:

A writer with a wicked sense of humour, who shaped the Canadian arts landscape and whose works will live on and continue to influence generations, was how colleagues remembered James Crerar Reaney yesterday.
Reaney died Wednesday at the age of 81. His passing has saddened the local and national arts communities, where he produced iconic plays and poetry and was an astute literary critic with a powerful way with words.

He was the author of a very Brontë-related play: Zamorna!:

[David] Ferry is editing a collection of Reaney's plays, titled Reaney Days in the West Room, referring to his boyhood room in a Stratford-area farmhouse where he first started writing.
"As a child he used to play make-believe and then create plays."
The collection, to be published this fall, includes an unpublished play called Zamorna about the Bronte children.
Ferry said Reaney hoped the play would be produced in London or Stratford. (Kathy Sumleski)

The Akron Ohio News reviews the ongoing Bill Brandt exhibition that we presented some days ago:

Another work, “Top Withens (‘Wuthering Heights’) Yorkshire Moors” (1945), depicts the snow-clad Northern England moors found in the Emily Bronte novel. The landscape is harsh, much like some of the characters found in the fictional work. (Roger Durbin)

Rob Woodard in The Guardian's Books Blog recommends 'fat classics' for the summer:

Over the last few years, though, I must admit that I've fallen out of my fat classics routine, mainly because I've been trying to earn some extra money teaching college summer classes. I've been feeling the itch to get back to it, though; there are several of these books sitting on my "to read" shelf that lately seem to be calling my name quite incessantly. Besides, as an obsessive literati, I can't stand the fact that if I kick the bucket today I will have died having read nothing by Sir Walter Scott or either Brontë sister, and only the first book of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy.

The Huddersfield Daily Examiner talks about the upcoming Simon Armitage appearance at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

SIMON Armitage is perhaps the best-known poet of his generation and doubtless there will be a packed house in Haworth next Friday when he talks about his work.
Simon will also be reading from his work at the event in West Lane Baptist Centre.
The event coincides with the Elmet exhibition of photographs by Fay Godwin (from her collaboration with Ted Hughes) which is currently on show at the Brontë Parsonage Museum as part of its contemporary arts programme.
Simon is patron of The Elmet Trust and has edited an anthology of Hughes’ poems. He also wrote the introduction to Godwin’s last published collection of photographs, Landmarks.
His poems, accomplished performances and dry sense of humour will make for a highly entertaining evening.
Simon, who lives with his family in the Huddersfield area, has published 10 volumes of poetry, for which he has won numerous awards.
These include a Forward Prize, Eric Gregory Award and a Lannan Award, in addition to being short-listed for the T S Eliot Prize and Whitbread Poetry Award.
His Selected Poems was published in 2001 and his latest collection is Tyrannosaurus versus the Corduroy Kid (2006).
Simon is also the author of All Points North (1998), and two novels, Little Green Man and The White Stuff.
He has recently published Gig: The Life and Times of a Rock-star Fantasist (2008).
Tickets for the event at Haworth cost £9.50 (£5 16 years and under) and must be booked.
As part of this event the museum will be open until 7pm for those wishing to view the Elmet exhibition. (Val Jabin)

The Herald (Ireland) discusses prequels and the journalist doesn't seem very fond of Wide Sargasso Sea:

Even the high-brow likes of Jane Eyre weren't immune, with Jean Rhys rewriting the life of Bertha in Wide Sargasso Sea. Your humble correspondent had to study this in college, and really, really wishes Ms Rhys had left poor old Bertha in the attic. (Darragh McManus)

The Washington Post reviews the costume design of the current production of Charles Ludlum's Irma Vep at the Arena Stage:

Ranging from a plus-fours suit -- for Lady Enid's secretive, scholarly husband, Lord Edgar -- to safari attire and a Egyptian djellaba, to a spectrum of garish gowns, the costumes reflect the allusive, gleefully ludicrous aesthetic of the play, which lampoons Gothic thrillers, early 20th-century monster movies, "Wuthering Heights," "Macbeth" and Hitchcock's "Rebecca," just to name a few targets. (Celia Wren)

On the blogosphere abstractions is reading Jane Eyre. Tales from the Book Bandit has visited Haworth and posts some pictures, The Wounds of a Thorn Rose talks about Jane Eyre in Romanian. Incurable Logophilia posts about Jean Rhys including Wide Sargasso Sea, of course.

Categories: Haworth, Jane Eyre, Talks, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea