Le Yorkshire and other news

A couple of newspapers pick up the curious story of French Twilight fans arriving Lockwood-like in the threshold of Wuthering Heights. From the Guardian:

Wuthering Heights is enjoying an unexpected renaissance in France after Stephenie Meyer fans picked up on repeated references to the novel in Eclipse, the third volume in the bestselling Twilight saga.
At one point during Eclipse, Meyer's heroine Bella quotes Cathy speaking about Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, saying of her vampire lover Edward that "if all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger". Bella is torn between her feelings for Edward and her friend Jacob, a werewolf, much as Cathy is torn between Edgar and Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's classic.
"Sales went up 50% last year and since the start of 2009 they have continued to rise," said a spokeswoman for the book's French publisher Le Livre de Poche. She added that French bookshops have been selling Wuthering Heights alongside Meyer's Eclipse, which has helped to drive sales.
At chain store Fnac, the novel is described as the "favourite book of Bella and Edward, the two heroes of Twilight!" Teenage fansites are buzzing with chat about the book. "Fan de bella" thought it was "GENIAL" and "couldn't stop crying it was so beautiful", while "Flora" from Strasbourg said she'd "adored" it for its "unparalleled violence", its "mad poetry" and "profound passion". "Bella is the dignified descendent of the romantic Victorian heroine, which is seen in her sometimes disproportionate, slightly mad reactions, which are reminiscent of a certain Catherine," said a third commentator.
Not all readers were impressed by Brontë's masterpiece, however. One Amazon.fr reviewer said she decided to buy the book because of Meyer's references, but found it was "very heavy to read and digest", and that it was "written in the language of my great grandmother". She continued: "The more the pages go on, the less you feel that the story is advancing," deigning nonetheless to give it three stars. (Alison Flood)

The Yorkshire Post literally brings the story into its territory:

French teenagers are longing to visit "Le Yorkshire" after a modern day American vampire novel has inspired new interest in Emily Brontë's classic Wuthering Heights. [...]
French internet chat forums have also seen discussions of Brontë's work with one poster saying: "I dream of going to the place where the novel is set, in Le Yorkshire beaten by the wind."

The Times also makes a passing reference to this in an article about the curse or not of second novels called by some Second Novel Syndrome(SNS). Emily Brontë falls into the category of 'Great first-timers who never made their second'.

Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights is suddenly popular among French teenagers who have discovered Le Yorkshire thanks to the 21st-century vampire novels of Stephenie Meyer, which reference Bronte. Emily died of TB, the year after the publication of her only novel in 1847. (Luke Leitch)

Charlotte, however, makes it into a different category: 'Cursed second novels':

Shirley- Charlotte Bronte
Published two years after Jane Eyre, Shirley's most enduring impact is that, until publication, Shirley was a rare name - and a boy's name at that. But Bronte's Shirley was female - and now most Shirleys are too. (Luke Leitch)

We don't necessarily agree seeing as, once again, they seem to be judging the merits of the novel today, and Shirley is quite dated. But have they stopped to look at its reception when it was first published? And at any rate, Charlotte had other bigger demons to fight than SNS while writing it.

The Perpetual Post discusses whether unfinished novels should be published after their author's death:

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: Did you know that Charlotte Bronte’s original name for Mr. Rochester was Mr. Sinkbottom? And that the working title of Jane Eyre was “Mr. Sinkbottom and the Trouble with Orphans”?
All right, so that’s not true. But if it were, would you want to know? Would it add to your enjoyment of the novel, or give you insight into Charlotte Bronte’s creative process? The character’s final name was Mr. Rochester, and the book went to press as Jane Eyre. As one of my favorite books, that is what matters to me.

We don't agree, as we love to read every scrap of information pertaining to a novel's writing process. We find it interesting to know that Lucy Snowe in Villette was first called Lucy Frost and the reason why Charlotte changed it. Charlotte Brontë herself has a short volume of her Unfinished Novels in print and her juvenilia are also becoming more and more available. And - back to SNS - if Emily had left an unfinished manuscript we are pretty sure it would sell and would be of interest. It does open up a can of worms, though, to think whether the author's right to sanction the publication or not of his/her works weighs more or less than the public's right to read them after his/her death.

As for the blogosphere, Jillian Evelyn has uploaded her trend-setter Jane Eyre both to her blog and Flickr. Once More with Feeling writes about the novel itself. Factual Imagining posts about Wuthering Heights 1992. El Espejo Gótico has translated Emily's poem My Lady's Grave into Spanish and Guerrera en la Red reviews Jennifer Vandever's The Brontë Project briefly in Spanish as well.

Categories: Books, Emily Brontë, Illustrations, Jane Eyre, Shirley, Wuthering Heights