The Brontës' biodynamic teas and other addictions

The Times carries an article entitled 'Welcome to junkie paradise: Victorian Britain' which mentions Branwell Brontë's opium addiction and the 'hallucination' scene in Villette:

Charlotte Brontë, devastated by her brother’s opium addiction and death, put a disturbing scene into her last novel, Villette, in which the heroine Lucy, high on on opium, has strange visions in a Belgian park at night. (Richard Morrison)

SheKnows has a brief piece on Jane Eyre (in preparation for the film release) and writer Karen Russell acknowledges the influence of her early reading experiences on NPR:

Russell feels that her unique consumption of books as a child influenced her drive to write such strange tales. She made an early bargain with her mother, wherein she would read a children's version of Jane Eyre or Charles Dickens, and would then be allowed to check a Stephen King book out of the library.
"I really think that diet has influenced everything I've written since. ... I loved both; I mean I really loved these sort of lyrical, realist stories, and I definitely listed towards the weirder books," she says.

NOW describes the Red Tea Box café in Toronto as follows:

The secret six-seat café hidden away in a shabby-chic coach house behind this exquisite patisserie and chocolatier has to be one of the most exclusive restos in town. And romantic. Where else can you laze on a chaise while nibbling Pacific Rim exotica washed down with small-farm biodynamic teas in a setting worthy of a Brontë sisters novel? (Steven Davey)

And this is how Liverpool’s Isla Gladstone Conservatory is described by Click Liverpool:

Set in one of the North-West’s greatest Victorian parks, the Conservatory will direct people to romantic hideaways and scenic spots that would make even Catherine and Heathcliff jealous. (Natalie Evans)

The Commercial Appeal features a mum whose favourite novel is Wuthering Heights and Dinnington Today has an article on a local teenager singer:

At school, she soon became the resident singer/songwriter, sitting on a stool with a guitar, performing her own songs. Then the class requested she cover Kate Bush.
“They picked ‘Wuthering Heights’ and I said no way,” said Spark.
“I thought it was too high for me to try. But I got talked into it and the reaction was amazing.”

Savvy Verse & Wit begins discussing Villette as part of the Unputdownables read-along. Book Hoarder posts about Jane Eyre and Bibliophilic Monologues reviews April Lindner's Jane.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Music, Villette, Wuthering Heights