Victorians at large

The Yorkshire Evening Post carries the story of something that took place a few days ago at Castle Howard, Yorkshire.

BEATRIX Potter and the Bronte sisters got a taste for the 21st Century as they strutted their stuff at a Yorkshire landmark.
The famous writers were brought back to life thanks to budding thespians who performed at Castle Howard.
Foundation Degree Theatre Studies students from the Park Lane Campus of Leeds City College dressed up in Victorian garb to resurrect the writers yesterday as part of a programme of re-enactments.
The performance was inspired by Victorian children's authors and saw students dress as Beatrix Potter, the Bronte sisters, Phylis Wheatley and Juliana Ewing.
It was timed to co-incide with an exhibition at the castle entitled Sing a Song of Sixpence: Children's Picture Books at Castle Howard. (Stuart Robinson)

We really like the initiative but we can honestly hear a lot of Victorian reviewers tossing and turning in their graves at the sound of the Brontës being 'Victorian children's authors'. And, of course, we also hear ourselves saying, 'not really, no'.

Speaking of Victorian times. Here's the weirdest description of Queen Victoria ever. We don't know for sure but we don't think she would have agreed with it at all. From the History News Network:

And then came Victoria; the epitome of virginal motherhood, who gave birth to 9 children and outlived her husband by 40 years. In fact she was spoiled, stubborn and demanding and as governed by superstition as she was by religion. As Queen she fashioned herself after Heathcliff from Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”, but I find her more like Lady Honoria from Dickens’ “Bleak House”, arrogant, conceited and obsessed with her own reputation. When Prince Albert died in 1861 Victoria’s widowhood established Victorian morality as the cultural norm; absolute and contradictory, just like its namesake. The only problem was most women are not widows.

LA Weekly also slips a 'Victorian' in its description of I Walked with a Zombie. And thankfully this one does fit:

French émigré director Jacques Tourneur and influential horror producer Val Lewton concocted their own mix of Victorian literature and Caribbean superstition in I Walked With a Zombie (1943), a retrofitted Jane Eyre in which the first Mrs. Rochester isn’t a madwoman but rather a zombie woman. (Scott Foundas)

In an article about Grey's Anatomy season finale, Newsday (BEWARE OF POSSIBLE SPOILERS THEREIN!!) writes:

Even her Heathcliff/Catherine/"Wuthering Heights" hallucination dance with Denny suggests we'll see them walking arm in arm in the final shot down a darkening hallway of Seattle Grace. (Verne Gay)

A couple of alerts now. The first one for today, as reported by the Guardian.

In the 70s, Mary Stephenson answered an advert for a typist. She was sent to No 6 Landboat Bungalows, in the Devonshire village of Cheriton Fitzpaine.
Her employer turned out to be Jean Rhys, author of Wide Sargasso Sea. Aged 87, the novelist was a frail figure who hated her life in Devon. She had decided to write her autobiography and, for the next year, Stephenson would turn up at 2pm, twice a week, and take dictation. Rhys could be charming as well as infuriating, and the two got on well.
Stephenson left her job when the first volume of the autobiography, Smile Please, was nearly finished. She was seven months pregnant; her boss was only four months away from death. Stephenson remembers those days in Jean (11.30am, Radio 4). (Phil Daoust)

Click here for more information.

The second alert comes from Jacket Copy, a Los Angeles Times blog. It's for June 6.

In downtown L.A., Metropolis Books is hosting a classics book club: The next meeting is June 6, when it'll be discussing "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë. Interested readers are encouraged to e-mail the store (more info); we hear it'll have pastries from the nearby Nickel Diner. Mmmm, maple glaze bacon donuts. (Carolyn Kellogg)

The Times adds to our 'implausible Heathcliff 'lookalikes'' database in an article about cricket:

The real star is not moody Matthew (you can imagine him brooding as he lopes across the Yorkshire moors like some blond latterday Heathcliff), or even his dogs. (Richard Hobson)

Brief news: The Australian has an article on Brontë scholar Christine Alexander's latest project. And Greenwood Today talks to Dr. Lillian Craton, assistant professor of English at Lander University, who loves Jane Eyre.

Several blogs discuss Wuthering Heights: Victorian Challenge, Rebel Princess (in Swedish) and Viata in culori (in Romanian). Sass and steeple posts about Jane Eyre. Finally, Sylvia Plath Info reviews at length the recent episode of A Poet's Guide to Britain on Sylvia Plath and her Wuthering Heights poems.

Categories: Alert, Audio-Radio, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Victorian Era, Weirdo, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights