Early 20th century Janes

Let's begin today's newsround with an auction of a collection of Brontë novels published in 1905. We read on Live Auctioneers:

Brontë (Charlotte, Emily & Anne) Novels of the Sisters Brontë,

edited by Temple Scott, 12 vol., 'Thornton edition', plates, spotted, original publisher's red morocco-backed cloth, t.e.g., others uncut, gilt art nouveau floral device to spines, spines a little faded, 8vo, Edinburgh, 1905.

• Estimate £800 - £1,200
• Starting Bid £400

The Phoenix, the student newspaper of the Loyola University (Chicago), complains about some reforms in the university library and begins the article with a declaration of love:

Allow me to introduce you to one of my dearest friends - a friend that has been with me through thick and thin, who always knows exactly what to say, and is only about a foot tall.
Yes, you read that right.
No, it's not a person, but a beloved rare copy of my favorite book, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, from the 1940s. Losing myself in its creamy white pages is more than just reading to me - it's a celebration of the deliciously un-technological, an affirmation that in spite of having to live most of my life in front of computer screens, holding printed words in my hands still matters. A lot. (LeAnn Maton)

Another student newspaper, North Texas Daily (University of North Texas) publishes an anecdote concerning reading:

In high school, we read the classics. The Bronte sisters and Jane Austen taught me about love and romance. Throughout college and later, I grew to revere contemporary writers such as Barbara Kingsolver, Richard Russo, Ann Tyler, Toni Morrison and Joyce Carol Oates. (Tracy Everbach)

Another anecdote mentioning Wuthering Heights can be read in Asbury Park Press, in an article about the selling of a box full of romance novels:

To get back to the point, she brought the box of books to one of the meetings, and sold them to the members with the proceeds to benefit Deborah. When she returned home, she said the sight of silver-haired matrons rushing to grab those paperbacks was a shock.
"I wouldn't be caught dead reading that c—p!" were her exact words.
I could have reminded her that "Rebecca," and "Wuthering Heights" also were romance novels, but the pulp fiction in those boxes would have made Daphne DuMaurier and Emily Bronte turn over in their graves.

Do we have to say again that Romantic doesn't imply romance?

Lauren Salz writes in The Columbia Spectator about the nomination of Kirsten Gillibrand as Hillary Clinton's replacement at the US Senate. She quotes Virginia Woolf talking about Charlotte Brontë:

I recently read A Room of One’s Own, a classic essay by Virginia Woolf based upon a series of lectures Woolf gave to women’s colleges at University of Cambridge. Woolf creates a fictitious sister of William Shakespeare, equal in talent and genius. Unable to go to school or use her gift for poetry, the character kills herself one night, alone and in despair.
Woolf ponders the writing of female novelists, such as Charlotte Brontë. “Would the fact of her sex in any way interfere with the integrity of a woman novelist, that integrity which I take to be the backbone of the writer? In [...] Jane Eyre, it is clear that anger was tampering with the integrity of Charlotte Brontë the novelist.” Woolf says that the old and forgotten women novelists take the tone of “meeting criticism”—a female novelist would say things “by way of aggression, or that by way of conciliation. She was admitting that she was ‘only a woman,’ or protesting that she was ‘as good as a man.’” Woolf also bemoans the fact that there were few female writers that could be used as role models to young aspiring women.
Our society has certainly come a long way since the days of Charlotte Brontë. (...) [But] the comments from women’s groups remind me quite poignantly of Woolf’s criticisms of the earlier female writers.

The Telegraph & Argus talks with Amanda Tyas-Varley, assistant of the Red House Museum in Gomersal (Briarmains in Shirley and once home of the Taylor family), who happens to be also a children's books author.

Girl Detective shows her Brontë shelves, Words and Pictures reviews Jane Eyre briefly, a book that Marra Alane recommends skipping, Pistas de Lectura (in Spanish) gives a brief account of Wuthering Heights by a high school student.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights