Which Brontë sister wrote Tess of the D’Urbervilles?

The Irish Echo reviews the off Broadway performances of Brontë. A Portrait of Charlotte by William Luce:

A solo show befits the solitary existence of Charlotte Brontë, at least when we find her in “Brontë; a Portrait of Charlotte.” It is July1849, and the author of “Jane Eyre,” now 33, has within the past 10 months, buried her sister Emily, of “Wuthering Heights” fame, her sister Anne, a less known writer, and their brother Branwell. Her two other siblings died in childhood; her mother in 1821, when Charlotte was five.
Charlotte is depleted by death and loath to return home to the tiny village of Haworth, and the parsonage now occupied only by her father, she tells a friend in a letter. Patrick Brontë is a man “hard as flint,” whose church when empty is said to have “a full congregation.” It is full, however, of dead bodies, buried under the aisle, and Charlotte faces the desolate prospect of years worshipping, knowing that “your loved ones are moldering under your knees.”
She clings on like a tiny heather bush buffeted by the “merciless winds” of her beloved Yorkshire moors. She longs for “a time of kindness, a time of gentleness,” repeating this phrase like a mantra.
The personal success that has eluded her, despite her public success, is all she seems to care for now. The door isn’t even opened to callers in search of the famous author. (The real identities of the Brontë sisters, all published under male pseudonyms, has emerged.)
Another caller – will he, won’t he? – is the source of the dramatic “action” of the play.  Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father’s curate, and a fellow Irishman, has said he would call that night. Charlotte feels sure he has a special reason. In the arc of the play she goes from mocking the rumors that the two were to wed, through the tension produced by several false-alarm knocks at the door and on to a seeming conviction that this is what she wants.
Similarly we share in the dramatic revelation to herself of why she so resented her opium-addicted brother, a tortured homosexual. Branwell had an adulterous affair with the wife of his employer, whereas Charlotte’s passion for the married proprietor at the language school in Brussels, where she once worked, was unrequited. Charlotte’s resentment was cured only by Branwell’s death, she says, in the most moving scene of the play, adding, “It is not until the last that we know how much we can forgive.”
Charlotte forgives Mr. Nicholls his physical imperfections for his “kind eyes,” in a scene almost as funny as the earlier one was sad. The knock comes.
The play ends with a TV screen providing the audience with newsflashes. Charlotte declines Mr. Nicholls proposal. Charlotte relents. Charlotte dies nine months after they marry.  Why did the newsflash omit the major fact that Charlotte was pregnant? An odd choice, using a device that felt like an awkward imposition of modernity into this period piece. Providing context amplified the play’s impact, but a voiceover might have been better. (Orla O'Sullivan) (Read more)

Don't forget there's a special offer connected to this production for BrontëBlog readers!

The Awl has asked 'an assortment of folks' to suggest the best audiobooks for road trips.

Adelle Waldman When you read—I mean, read-read—you instinctively speed through sections that are less good. Listening to a book means that every word will be given equal weight. Padding will be seen for what it is. Also, authorial self-indulgence. (Take the last few pages of Jane Eyre—they are just embarrassing when read aloud. I love the book, but when I read it in text form, I must have always skimmed the end, where Brontë is going on and on like a juvenile romantic fantasy about how Jane and Rochester share a single soul.) (Nadia Chaudhury)

It must be that embarrassment keeping people from actually reading the book... and then later on being embarrassed again and lying about having actually read it. The Daily Mail reports a study by Lindeman's Wine and Book Club:

If you’ve never quite managed to finish Pride And Prejudice or Jane Eyre, you’re not alone.
Some 71 per cent of us claim we’ve read classics in an attempt to seem more cultured, according to a study by Lindeman’s Wine and Book Club.
Most ‘book bluffers’ said they lied about their reading because they did not want to appear stupid.
More men were fibbers, with 23 per cent saying they had lied to impress a female, while women said they feared friends’ and colleagues’ judgement.
Books that had been made into films or TV series were the most lied about as people at least knew the plot.
The top five books people claimed to have read were: Pride And Prejudice, The Lord Of The Rings, Jane Eyre, Tess Of The d’Urbervilles and The Hobbit.
Less than half of Brits (45 per cent) correctly named Emily Brontë as the author of Wuthering Heights.
Many believed it to be Charles Dickens (16 per cent), Charlotte Brontë (13 per cent), fictitious character Jane Eyre (12 per cent) and even the singer Kate Bush (4 per cent).
When it comes to Jane Eyre, 15 per cent wrongly think it was written by Jane Austen while the Brontë sisters are most commonly credited with writing Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

That's what's embarrassing, and not the final pages of Jane Eyre. (Also reported by Female First).

The Tampa Bay Times looks at the long-standing collaboration between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp and this is how 'the look' of Sleepy Hollow is described:

Relatively normal, with Depp ready to step onto the set of a Wuthering Heights remake. (Steve Persall)

Random Acts of Momness and Filmsbloggurin post about Jane Eyre 2011 while Elinor, Elizabeth, and Emma writes briefly about the 2006 miniseries. O Falcão de Jade writes in Portuguese about the Brontës. The McScribble Salon has added Keeper and Flossy to the Pillar portrait.