Hoping for the Currer Bell effect

The Birmingham Post reports a recent event which took place at a Wolverhampton shopping centre:

Shoppers at the Mander Centre, Wolverhampton, were treated to a sneak preview of a Brontë classic at the weekend, courtesy of St Peter's Collegiate sixth form.
Twenty drama students took part in a one-off performance in the centre acting out a series of scenes from the school’s production of Wuthering Heights ahead of its opening night on at the Hayward Theatre, in the grounds of the school. [...]
* The St Peter’s Collegiate School production of Wuthering Heights will run from March 29 - April 1 at the Hayward Theatre in the school grounds, at Compton Park, Wolverhampton.

Click here to see a few pictures of the event.

The Twin Cities Daily Planet columnist muses on writers' houses turned museums and praises the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

The gold standard for me is the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth. When you visit, you don't see just a period-appropriate sofa, you see the sofa the Brontës owned--and the sofa on which Emily died. (Amy Rea)

And speaking of places worth visiting, The Empire State Tribune has an article on the exhibition The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives at the Morgan Library in New York where

You can also see the journal of Charlotte Brontë, author of Jane Eyre, found a creative outlet in documenting her uncomfortable teenage years. (Raychel Eliopolous)

The Classic Literature section of About.com has designated March as Women's History Month.

So, who should we think of? [...] Charlotte Brontë (or one of her sisters: Emily or Anne)? (Esther Lombardi)

The Independent has an article on O: A Presidental Novel and comments on the fact that it's been published anonymously:

Just as in 19th century Britain – when there was a frenzied nationwide search for the author of Jane Eyre after Currer Bell was discovered as being pseudonymous – so the author of O: A Presidential Novel hoped the same thing would happen, believes Professor Mullan.
"It's a marketing trick which the marketers think is new, but they are rediscovering something that was used much more elaborately and subtly in the 19th century," he says. The author of O was "desperately hoping" to be discovered, says Professor Mullan and not – as his publisher at Simon and Schuster claimed – be left in the shadows. (Arifa Akbar)

The LiveRead section of the Liverpool Daily Post is having a competition:

LIVEREAD has joined with Oxford University Press to offer you the chance to win a bundle of 10 Oxford World’s Classics.
The mini-library includes Flora Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford, recently dramatised on BBC1, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. [...]
For a chance to win, simply answer the following question: How many novels made up Flora Thompson's semi-biographical Lark Rise to Candleford series?
Answers to laura.davis@liverpool.com or LiveRead, Liverpool Daily Post & Echo, PO Box 48, Old Hall Street, Liverpool L69 3EB by 5pm on Monday March 7, 2011. Usual terms and conditions apply.

Associated Content has an article on 'Why the 1992 Version of Wuthering Heights is the Best Adaptation of Emily Brontë's Work'. Chrisbookarama is rereading Jane Eyre and share thoughts on the Gateshead part. Horribly Bookish reviews April Lindner's Jane. La belleza de la vida writes in Spanish about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Department of raisins considers herself officially converted to 'Brontëism' thanks to Wuthering Heights. Darling Disarray wishes she was in Haworth.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Books, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Juvenilia, Theatre, Wuthering Heights