A house in which life was experienced with extraordinary intensity

Let's begin with some Brontë anniversaries:

The Brontë Parsonage Blog informs of another of the events that is scheduled for the 200th anniversary of Patrick Brontë's arrival in Dewsbury: A concert with Val Wiseman singing her jazz versions of Brontë poetry in Keeping the Flame Alive. And the Bridlington Free Press celebrates the 170th anniversary of author Charlotte Bronte's first trip to the Yorkshire Coast:

Charlotte visited the Yorkshire Coast on several occasions before her death in 1855, with her first 'holiday' in Bridlington, or Burlington as it was then called.
Sadly, just a decade later, in May 1849, her younger sister Anne died in Scarborough, and was buried in St Mary's churchyard. However, Charlotte's initial experience of the coast presented her with happier memories.
In September 1839, as the harvests were being gathered in the fields around her, Charlotte was in need of a holiday.
Her great friend, Ellen Nussey, whom she met in January 1831 at Roe Head School, Mirfield, recognised the need for a change of scene in her companion. During the first eight months of the year, Charlotte had experienced several life-changing events. In February she had her first proposal of marriage, from Ellen's brother, Henry. She turned him down, and put the experience into words in the shape of St John Rivers in Jane Eyre.
In April, Anne left home to become governess to the children of Joshua Ingham, of Blake Hall, Mirfield. A trying time for Anne, and for her sisters as well, she lasted with her employer until December 1839.
Also from April, Charlotte was employed as a governess with the Sidgwick family at Stonegappe, near Lothersdale, between Skipton and Colne. Charlotte did not have any 'natural' sympathies with the role of governess and she returned to Haworth in July. The following month, William Hodgson, her father Patrick's first curate, and then vicar of Colne, visited the parsonage for the day, accompanied by his own curate, David Pryce. Attracted to Charlotte, David soon wrote to her proposing marriage: Charlotte turned him down. Mr Pryce died the following year.
Not surprisingly, after all the emotional turmoil in Charlotte's life, a break from the routine was welcome. In September, after an earlier suggestion by their mutual friend Mary Taylor, Ellen arranged a trip to Bridlington. Charlotte's father Patrick and Aunt Branwell (who cared for the Bronte siblings after the death of their mother, Maria, in September 1821) were not keen on the two ladies travelling unaccompanied.
Therefore, accommodation arrangements were made by Ellen's brother Henry, who had been curate at Burton Agnes, near Bridlington. He still had connections in the area, and made plans for Charlotte and Ellen to stay at a farmhouse outside Bridlington, away from the quayside. This 'unacceptable' area was where they would have preferred to stay, but it was an area deemed unsuitable for respectable ladies to take lodgings.
Charlotte and Ellen set off for Leeds, by horse-drawn carriage, and from Leeds they took their first train ride to Selby.
As railway tracks had not been laid further than Selby, the companions travelled by coach to York and then on to the Wolds town of Driffield. (Tim Beagles)

Margaret Drabble chooses her favourite literary landscapes for The Guardian:

Haworth
I tend to prefer outdoor landscapes to writers' houses, but make an exception for the Brontë Parsonage at Haworth, a house in which life was experienced with extraordinary intensity. This place and its churchyard and its surrounding moorland are numinous.

Incidentally, Michelle Styles posts about her visit to Haworth on her blog.

Also in The Guardian we find a back-to-school literary quiz with a Jane Eyre question:

4. “The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction of the day at Lowood: the bit of bread, the draught of ______ swallowed at five o’clock had revived vitality, if it had not satisfied hunger: the long restraint of the day was slackened; the schoolroom felt warmer than in the morning—its fires being allowed to burn a little more brightly, to supply, in some measure, the place of candles, not yet introduced: the ruddy gloaming, the licensed uproar, the confusion of many voices gave one a welcome sense of liberty.” The young Jane Eyre finds a moment of peace in her early days at her new school. But what is the reviving liquor concerned?

Possible answers: 1. Brandy 2. Milk 3. Tea 4. Coffee

If you can't think of an answer, we can tell you.

The Province describes the film Black Field which will be present at the Vancouver International Film Festival:

New to the festival audience this year are director Danishka Esterhazy with the Brontë-esque prairie romance Black Field, director Dilip Mehta with Cooking With Stella, a culture-clash comedy starring Lisa Ray and Don McKellar, and Quebec’s Xavier Dolan, whose I Killed My Mother was a Cannes hit this year. (Glen Schaefer)

Designer Christopher Keane's relationship with his sister is explained in a Brontë way in The Times:

Although his sister never wanted her name on the label, “it is,” he says, “like a joint product. I’ll come up with the drawings and we work on the toiles. We sort of design together until we get a little shudder”. It’s all a bit Cathy and Heathcliff, but this is not news to him. “It can be excluding and in the past some of our partners couldn’t cope. I’d have to explain, of course that ‘I love her more than I love you, she’s my sister’. It is a bit addictive, but we just really enjoy each other’s company.” (Lisa Armstrong)

Also in The Times, Erica Wagner has an explanation for the popularity of historical novels:

As to why historical novels are so popular with authors, the answer is surely the same, though I could venture another, only somewhat facetious, possibility. It is much, much easier to construct a plot if your characters are unable to call each other on their mobile phones. If Cathy had been able to ring Heathcliff and tell him that she never meant to sound that mean would we have had Wuthering Heights? I rest my case.

Maureen Corrigan (well-known Brontëite) reviews Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs for NPR:

If you're one of those paranoid readers who believes that every detail means something — and in a Lorrie Moore story you can never be too paranoid — you might catch on to the fact before I did that the A Gate at the Stairs surrealistically layers the essential Jane Eyre elements of a hyper-observant nanny (a "governess," if you will), a key character of mixed race, a dread secret and a remote cad of an employer named "Edward."
It's alone worth reading this novel just to see how Moore, on her last page, raucously upends the famous closing lines of Jane Eyre, "Reader, I married him." But the overarching reason to read Moore is to surrender yourself to how perceptively she reads the world. Sometimes her language makes you laugh, because you're taken by surprise by how "on target" it is, like when Tassie describes her middle-aged mother's thickening face as being framed in "a cameo of meat."

The Independent Florida Alligator doesn't at all like Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga:

Granted, entertainment doesn't always have to have a moral. But let's stop treating "Twilight" like it's the next "Harry Potter" or, even worse, "Wuthering Heights." (Hilary Lehman)

Some local Haworth news. The Telegraph & Argus announces the Haworth Arts Festival programme (September 10-13) and there's also an article on anti-social behaviour in Haworth and Oakworth. Literair Nederland reminds us of the upcoming performances (next October) of Woeste hoogten (Wuthering Heights) in the Netherlands. Cartas de la Historia (in Spanish) mentions the famous exchange of letters between Charlotte Brontë and Robert Southey and Amy Reviews... talks about Wide Sargasso Sea.

EDIT: An alert for tomorrow, September 10 in Portici, Italy. A new chance to see Davide Livermore's setting of Bernard de Zogheb's Le Sorelle Brontë. At the Porticiartbox 2009:

Le Sorelle Brontë
Libretto Bernard de Zogheb - maestro concertatore Andrea Chenna
Drammaturgia Stefano Valanzuolo – regia Davide Livermore
ore 20,30 Palazzo Reale di Portici - Esedra
Ingresso 5 euro

Categories: Brontëana, Haworth, Jane Eyre, References, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights