Happy 2009!

2009 has just arrived and, with or without global crisis, we are hopeful that it will bring plenty of Brontë-related things in all sorts of formats and places. So, may you have a very happy, very Brontë new year!

And so that you have something to look forward to already, let's take a look at what we now know we can expect book-wise in 2009. Hopefully, too, a few new surprises will come along.

The success of Jon Spence's Becoming Jane Austen or Syrie James's The lost Memoirs of Jane Austen have triggered the appearance of several fictional accounts of the Brontës lives which will be appearing this year:

Fiction

May 2009
The Taste of Sorrow
Jude Morgan
Headline Review
From an obscure country parsonage came the most extraordinary family of the nineteenth century. The Bronte sisters created a world in which we still live - the intense, passionate world of Jane Eyre" and Wuthering Heights"; and the phenomenon of this strange explosion of genius remains as baffling now as it was to their Victorian contemporaries. In this panoramic novel we see with new insight the members of a uniquely close-knit family whose tight bonds are the instruments of both triumph and tragedy. Emily, the solitary who turns from the world to the greater temptations of the imagination: Anne, gentle and loyal, under whose quietude lies the harshest perception of the stifling life forced upon her: Branwell, the mercurial and self-destructive brother, meant to be king, unable to be a prince: and the brilliant, uncompromising, tormented Charlotte, longing for both love and independence, who establishes the family's name and learns its price.

June 2009
The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë
Syrie James
Avon Books
Charlotte Bronte's life held hidden passions. Millions of readers love her novel Jane Eyre, but few know the inspiration behind it— or the dramatic, true story of Charlotte's real-life romance.

July 2009
Emily's Ghost: A Novel of the Brontë Sisters
Denise Giardina
W.W. Norton & Company
A lustrous, beautifully written reimagining of the Brontë family—and of Emily Brontë’s passionate engagement with life.
Enigmatic, intelligent, and fiercely independent, Emily Brontë refuses to bow to the conventions of her day: she is distrustful of marriage, prefers freedom above all else, and walks alone at night on the moors above the isolated rural village of Haworth. But Emily’s life, along with the rest of the Brontë family, is turned upside down with the arrival of an idealistic clergyman named William Weightman. Weightman champions poor mill workers’ rights, mingles with radical labor agitators, and captivates Haworth—and the Brontës especially—with his energy and charm. An improbable friendship between Weightman and Emily develops into a fiery but unconsummated love affair—and when tragedy strikes, the relationship continues, like the love story at the heart of Wuthering Heights, beyond the grave.

December 2009
Brontës (?) Becoming Jane Eyre (?)
Sheila Kohler
I think "Jane Eyre" the start of which an aunt read to me when I was very young--the scene in the redroom, was what made me want to write. Of course, this undertaking is both easier and much more difficult than the one I have just completed, as so much has already been written about the Brontes, but I have found that the book has mysteriously found a shape of its own: in three volumes with each of the sisters presiding over a volume of her own. It starts in Manchester with the father's eye operation. (Sheila Kohler)

Comics
We will have to wait until 2010 to see yet another Classical Comics adaptation of a Brontë novel: Wuthering Heights, but a couple of more modest comic adaptations of both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights will be published this year by Book House in their Graffex Graphic Novels collection: Wuthering Heights (Graffex) by Jim Pipe (Adapter)and Nick Spender (Illustrator) (April 2009) and Jane Eyre (Graffex) by Fiona MacDonald (Adapter)and Penko Gelev (Illustrator) (May 2009).

Re-tellings
April 2009
The Heights
Brian James
Feiwel & Friends
Orphaned at the age of five, Henry liked to imagine his life began the day Mr. Earnshaw found him. That was the day he was given a new home. And the day he met Catherine. For Henry, Catherine is like the brightest star in the sky. She makes him feel safe and helps him control his anger. And though Mr. Earnshaw, a widow, raises the two as brother and sister, their love for each other goes much deeper. Contemporizing the classic novel Wuthering Heights , notable YA author Brian James delves into the dark nature of obsessive love, the social injustices of class, and the self-destructive power of revenge in this gritty, romantic, heartbreaking book.

Categories: Books, Comics, Fiction