Gaskell's medium habilities

The Black Book Magazine talks about the singer Laura Marling mentioning her Brontëiness:

Today, Marling draws on classic literary canons—the Brontë sisters are among her favorite writers—and a long tradition of folk music. (Brian Orloff)

PopMatters interviews Laura Miller, another Brontëite:

Cofounder of Salon.com, where she is a staff writer, Laura Miller also is the editor of "The Salon.com Readers Guide to Contemporary Authors." She's a journalist, a critic, a ravenous reader and a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review. (...)
2. The fictional character most like you?
I like to think that at my best, I'm Jane Eyre, whose fierce integrity and independent spirit I admire, but I worry that I'm more like Dorothea Brooke from "Middlemarch," a woman all too easily swayed and misled by others.

The Patriot Ledger reviews the current performances of Charles Ludlum's The Mystery of Irma Vep at the Boston Lyric Stage.

A passion for the novel was shared by the late playwright, Charles Ludlum, who created a farcical but strangely loving adaptation for the stage, "The Mystery of Irma Vep.'' His version mixes recollections of Manderley with direct steals from the works of the Brontes, Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe, to create a tongue-in-cheek, dramatized ghost story. (Iris Fanger)

The Webster-Kirkwood Times interviews Amy Barker, Kirkwood High School literature teacher and 2008 Governor's Humanity Award (Missouri):

"That's what the students remember most – the feeling," Barker said. "They'll forget what color gown Catherine was wearing (in Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights"), but they'll remember the depth of her feeling for Heathcliff. (Murray Farish)

On a somewhat unrelated note which could however be of interest for the readers of BrontëBlog, BBC News reports the recent discovery of a new collection of letters by Elizabeth Gaskell where she foretold her own death:

The correspondence between Elizabeth Gaskell, her friend Mary Green and Mary’s daughter Isabella - as well as hundreds of letters between other members of the Green family - is an important addition to the world’s most important Gaskell collection – already housed at the library.
In one of the letters written a month after Gaskell’s death in November 1865, Isabella Green recounts how the writer had eerily predicted early in the year that she did not expect to live beyond December.
The Gaskell letters in the archive are full of news about her writing, reflections on other authors, her hectic domestic life and the constant stream of visitors to her household.
Some of the letters between the Green family provide a fascinating insight into life in the Cheshire town where Gaskell had grown up in the first half of the nineteenth century - immortalised in her novel Cranford.
Others touch on subjects including travel, politics, art and literature, social events, and the minutiae of daily life, from current fashions to medical treatments.
Gaskell also discusses difficulties with her most controversial novel ‘Ruth’ published in 1853. The novel dealt with unmarried motherhood and Gaskell was worried about reactions to the book.
She expressed relief at the Greens’ positive response to it, but wrote: “I feared and still think it probable that many may refuse to read any book of that kind”.
The author of ‘Cranford’ - which famously depicts life in Knutsford, Cheshire where she grew up - had died suddenly of a heart attack on 12 November, leaving her last novel ‘Wives and Daughters’ a chapter short of completion.
The manuscript of the novel – also kept at the Rylands – poignantly breaks off at the top of a page. She authored five others, along with two novellas, numerous articles and short stories, and the famous biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë.
John Rylands Library archivist Fran Baker said: “This archive sheds interesting new light on Gaskell and her daughters.
“The reference to Gaskell foreseeing her own death is intriguing. By early November 1865, she claimed to be feeling more energetic and in better health than she had done for years.
“She was busy preparing a house at Alton, Hampshire, which she had secretly bought in the hope of persuading her husband William to retire there.
“She believed his life in Manchester was ‘bad for his health’, not least because of the strain he put on himself with overwork.
“On 12 November she was at the new house chatting over tea with three of her daughters, when she collapsed into the arms of her daughter Meta and died instantly. Her husband had no idea she was there.
“Referring to the prediction, Isabella wrote in a letter to her brother that Gaskell had said she ‘did not expect to live thro’ the year’.
“People often have presentiments like this, which are forgotten when they don’t come true”.
The former owner of the archive, Miss Jean Jamison, is a descendant of Isabella Green, the youngest of the Green daughters, who married Dr Arthur Jamison in 1875. Miss Jamison sold the archive to the Rylands on behalf of the Jamison family.
Ms Baker added: “The library would like to thank Joan Leach of the Gaskell Society who brought the archive to its attention, and Jean Jamison for choosing the Rylands as a home for her family papers.”

The Daily Californian contributes today the daily dose of Twilight reviews:

"Twilight," "New Moon," "Eclipse," Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart-they let us believe in true, all-consuming love. The writing is more saccharine than that of "Wuthering Heights," but like Catherine and Heathcliff, Edward and Bella are lost in each other. Even mortality cannot keep them apart. (Zoe Cardou)

Cincinnati CityBeat reviews the Studio One Anthology DVD set (including Wuthering Heights 1950), Stuck-in-a-Book proposes a fratricide quiz:

Step forward, Jane Eyre vs. Wuthering Heights. Ladies and Gentlemen, place your bets. Or, rather, your favoured title...

If your mind's not made up yet, Club De Lectura Castrillón recommends Wuthering Heights (in Spanish) and Flores y Palabras chooses Jane Eyre (in Spanish).

Categories: Brontëites, Elizabeth Gaskell, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Wuthering Heights