Keeper, the boring antecedent of Heathcliff

The Telegraph & Argus reports how the rare photograph of Patrick Brontë recently auctioned and donated to the Brontë Parsonage Museum has finally returned home. Ann Dinsdale, Brontë Parsonage Collections' Manager, talks about this extraordinary item (in the picture, Source):

A rare photograph of the Reverend Patrick Bronte – father of the three famous Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne – has come back home after 110 years.
The miniature, thought to have been taken at the Bronte Parsonage around 1860, about a year before his death aged 84, has gone on public display at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth.
It is on permanent loan to the Bronte shrine from a woman who lives in the south of England and who paid £1,476 for the memento – three times the expected price – at auction last month.
She wishes to remain anonymous, but bought it to ensure it stayed in England and also went back to Haworth.
Ann Dinsdale, Bronte Parsonage museum collector, said: “It was a very generous offer and we’re so pleased to have the photograph to display because it could well have disappeared and not been seen in public again.We will be inviting her up to see it later.
“It’s special because Patrick is full face. The well known image of him is a profile. He has an extraordinary face – he was indeed an extraordinary man..
“One of his foibles was to keep a loaded pistol with him, a habit he had since moving from Hartshead where he worked as a young curate and where there had been a lot of disquiet because of Luddite activity.
“He was very frail when the photograph was taken and was possibly got out of his bed and dressed for the occasion.”
But he had been proud of his family’s achievement and was happy to have his photograph taken at a time when his late daughters’ fame was spreading far and wide, she added.
At the last sale of the miniature, at an auction by Sotheby’s in London in 1898, it fetched just one shilling – 5p in today’s money.
At one time it had been owned by the Bronte servant Martha Brown and had passed down through her family, and was eventually on display at the first Bronte museum housed in the Temperance tea rooms in the village. (Clive White)

The Yorkshire Evening Post suggests a walk around Great Ouseburn and Marton with strong Brontë connections:

Our starting point is the Domesday Book village of Great Ouseburn, lying four miles south-east of Boroughbridge. Here is a community oozing charm with weathered, red-brick cottages bestrewn with flowers. Not a blade of grass is out of place. It is a delight to wander down Main Street soaking up the ambience of the surroundings.
Great Ouseburn and its near neighbours, Little Ouseburn and Thorpe Underwood, have strong associations with two of the Brontes. Between 1840 and 1845, Anne Bronte was governess to the Robinson children at Thorpe Green Hall – now Queen Ethelburga's College – at Thorpe Underwood. Thorpe Green Hall became Horton Lodge in Anne's Agnes Grey.
Her brother Branwell was also employed at Thorpe Green Hall as a tutor to the Robinsons' eldest son. Branwell fell in love with his employer's wife, Lydia Robinson, and hoped to marry her. But it was not to be. He was dismissed by Mr Robinson in 1845 and fell into a life of drinking and drug abuse which led to his death in 1848.
Branwell made friends with the local doctor, John Crosby, whose death is marked by an obelisk in the graveyard at Great Ouseburn's 12th-century church of St Mary's.

The author Edmund White has peculiar views about the Brontës and their sources of inspiration:

When asked if all lives deserve a memoir, White holds up the Bronte sisters as the standard-bearers for boring people who were able to turn out books full of torment and excitement. He is convinced that Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights is based on Emily Bronte’s dog. (Tony Correia in Xtra! West)

The San Jose Mercury News reviews the performances of the Second City sketch comedy company in San Jose and mentions one of the routines as be of particular interest to us:

Some of the sketches, such as Dana Quercioli's thoroughly bizarre and highly erudite Emily Brontë standup routine and Mark Raterman and Tim Robinson's cogent analysis of Middle Eastern politics from the vantage point of mullet-wielding NASCAR fans, are both hysterically funny and utterly unexpected. Both bits hit the laugh riot mark. (Karen D'Souza)

EDIT:
Another review is published on Stark Silver Creek:

There is a mannered, stand-up comedy routine by Emily Bronte. (Clinton Stark)

The National Public Radio reviews the English translation of Eduardo Galeano's Espejos. Una historia universal casi única (Mirrors. Stories of almost everything). It is highlighted a discussion on the book about the Bell brothers:

Whether discussing, in Mirrors, the pen names of the Bronte sisters — "intruders into the male world of literature" — or the 1951 takeover of the Cairo parliament by 1,500 women protesting their inability to vote, Galeano is first and foremost a political writer. (Jessa Crispin)

The Daily Beast interviews Daniel Radcliffe and includes his Harry Potter among the long list of orphan characters:

There is a whole genre of literature that centers on the orphaned. Your first role at nine was David Copperfield. There’s Oliver Twist. Jane Eyre. Faulkner’s Light in August. Almost every superhero. What’s your theory as to why the genre is so enduring since Harry is perhaps the most famous orphan in all of literature? (Kevin Sessums)

Check also the Sacramento Book Club Examiner for a further discussion on this topic.

The comparisons among Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Jane Eyre are once more quoted in this article in The Cleveland Literary Examiner:

Despite its at times overly descriptive nature, Rebecca is a gripping read. Lovers of literature will certainly enjoy reading what was regarded even at its first publication as an instant classic, and one sometimes compared to Jane Eyre. (Bailey Shoemaker Richards)

The Sweet Serenity of Books is going to read Wuthering Heights, Dark Princess from the Middle Ages compares Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë (in Russian), Parmenides posts briefly about Emily Brontë's poetry and tj.blackwell uploads a picture of Top Withens to flickr.

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum, Brontëana, Humour, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights