Stubborn and Fiercely Independent

The Huffington Post talks about the revised edition of 1000 Years of English Literature. The author of the compilation, Chris Fletcher from the British Library, says:

1000 Years of English Literature [University of Chicago Press, $19.00]  displays and describes the original works of over 100 best-loved writers from the collections of the British Library. It is a testimony to the breadth and depth of the British Library's collections that a well-plotted story of the English literary tradition can be told entirely from its own holdings. 

Including manuscripts by, among many others, the Brontë sisters:

Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848) and Anne Brontë (1820-1849) were raised in an isolated village on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. Charlotte is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, and shown here is the emotional passage when Mr. Rochester asks Jane to marry him. Emily, described as stubborn and fiercely independent, could not bear to be away from her home and its wild moorland surroundings. Her only novel, Wuthering Heights, was criticized when it was first published in 1847 for being excessively violent, morbid and histrionic but it is now regarded as one of the masterpieces of 19th-century fiction. Anne, the youngest of the Brontë sisters, wrote Agnes Grey, which was based on her unhappy experiences. Her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, drew upon her brother Branwell's unfortunate descent into alcoholism in the portrayal of its main character.

Onirik reviews the recent DVD/Blu-Ray release of Les Soeurs Brontë 1979 in France:

Pascal Bonitzer et André Téchiné se sont attachés à respecter dans le scénario les faits historiques purs, refusant en bloc toute scène brodée. Tourné dans les lieux mêmes de l’action, avec des décors et des costumes minimalistes, le film laisse la part belle au naturel, suggérant ainsi que les soeurs ont trouvé la matière de leurs livres dans leur quotidien. (...)
Pascal Bonitzer et André Téchiné se sont attachés à respecter dans le scénario les faits historiques purs, refusant en bloc toute scène brodée. Tourné dans les lieux mêmes de l’action, avec des décors et des costumes minimalistes, le film laisse la part belle au naturel, suggérant ainsi que les soeurs ont trouvé la matière de leurs livres dans leur quotidien. (...)
André Téchiné oscille entre le clair-obscur (la sauvagerie des landes se prête particulièrement à ces effets) et les couleurs fauves, à la préraphaélite, certaines scènes sont de véritables reconstitutions dans le style de Dante Gabriel Rossetti ou de William Hunt, notamment pour les coiffures. Autre référence picturale, celle des images d’introduction, dans un café dans lequel Branwell se perdra, et où l’on reconnait sans peine un esthétisme populaire à la Hogarth. (Claire Saim) (Translation)

The Stuff (New Zealand) on visiting England:

Visiting this country is to drink orangeade and eat lashings of pie with Enid Blyton's Famous Five, travel from the marshes to the banks of the Thames with Charles Dickens' Pip, and dash across the wild moors in imitation of Emily Brontë's tortured souls, Catherine and Heathcliff. (Amy Roil)

PopMatters compares today's literary 'heroines' (like Twilight's Bella or Fifty Shades of Grey's Anastasia Steele)to classic heroines like Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet:

The rhetoric of choice and girl power makes each heroine’s body-bruising surrender of control seem an assertive and liberating act—a deed that, according to Anastasia, proves her to be more daring than 19th century romantic heroines like Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. (...)
The romance in E. L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey begins with Anastasia Steele tripping and falling headfirst into the office of billionaire CEO Christian Grey, who first sees her on her hands and knees and helps her to her feet. Through their interview, she remains flustered and awkward while he is “coolly self-possessed.” By contrast, the romance in Brontë’s Jane Eyre (which Meyer cites as a primary inspiration for Twilight and which is invoked even more frequently by Fifty Shades) begins when Jane, walking a country road alone at dusk, witnesses a horse slip and bring its rider, Edward Rochester, to the ground. The gruff, injured Rochester has to lean heavily on the small but steady Jane in order to make it back to his horse. (Read more) (Kritina Deffenbacher)

The Music.com.au announces films that will be screened at the Melbourne Film Festival. Today is the turn of  Wuthering Heights 2011:

Wuthering Heights (6.30pm, GU 3): It’s funny reading the online, by-the-pundits ‘reviews’ ofWuthering Heights from England, where Andrea Arnold’s profane take on a classic institution has enraged the kind of people who write user comments. But, where history is filled with drawing-room adaptations of classic-lit handled with kid gloves and cotton-wool —and this is, apparently, what people want— Arnold drags Emily Brönte’s on-the-syllabus tale of star-cross’d lovers into a realm of stark, savage realism; throwing away all her winsome words and letting the tenor of the tale be set by the howling gales blowing across those wiley, windy moors. (Anthony Carew)

Der Standard (Austria) talks about Ivo Dimchevs's "Project P" show which includes:

An dem dreistündigen West-Tribute nahmen auch noch andere Künstler teil. Darunter Cecilia Bengolea mit einer Persiflage von Sang und Tanz in der Nummer Wuthering Heights der britischen Sängerin Kate Bush. (Helmut Ploebst) (Translation)

USA Today interviews the writer Karen Robards:

Joyce [Lamb]: Do you have authors or books that you turn to for inspiration?
Karen: I have books that I love: Wuthering Heights, A Wrinkle in Time, Gone with the Wind. They have been my favorites since I was a little girl, and they always inspire me.

My Addiction Books interviews another author, Carole Gill:

What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on The Blackstone Vampires Series. The first novel in the Series, The House on Blackstone Moor is already on sale. I joke and say it is Jane Eyre with vampires, which it is to a great extent. However, I’ve had really excellent reviews that actually have mentioned the Brontës among others with regard to my style.

An alert from the Southington Library (Southington, CT):

Movie and Trivia Monday - Jane Eyre  
Come relax and enjoy a classic British movie or a BBC production. Jane Eyre based on Charlotte Bronte's innovative and enduring romantic novel of the same title. Jane orphaned into the household of her Aunt, subject to the cruel regime at a charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess, falls in love, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a wider and richer life than Victorian society traditionally allowed. In addition to its intense romanticism, Jane Eyre features a satisfying assortment of wicked relatives, terrifying mayhem, extrasensory messages and astonishing coincidences, enough to have kept people thoroughly entertained for 160 years. No registration, light refreshments will be served. Features are approximately 100 minutes.
Location: Library Meeting Room

Rebecca Chesney on the Brontë Weather Project talks about an upcoming article that may appear in the national newspapers about weather and the Brontës;  Elliot's Reading finds Wuthering Heights amazing and Universi di carta e inchiostro (in Italian) posts about it; Soy cazadora de sombras y libros (in Spanish), Les Lectures d'Audrey (in French), Paginated Discoveries, MauPes (in Italian) and Penciltwister post about Jane Eyre; fastpageturner and YA Lit in 100 Words or Less review The Flight of Gemma Hardy; On Rembobine, The amazing story of the Flying Electra and Le Blog de Miss Popila (all in French) and Lucy's Web Designs review Jane Eyre 2011; Photographic Memory has visited the Haddon Hall exhibition of the film (and previous versions) costumes; Cassandra Lowery posts a piece of Jane Eyre fan fiction; Deník milovníka filmů (in Czech) reviews  Jane Eyre 1996; Wuthering Fringe posts pictures of the dress rehearsal of Act One's production of Wuthering Heights.

The Page 69 test applies it to Joanna Campbell Slan's Death of a Schoolgirl and Something Wicked, No More Grumpy Bookseller review the novel.

Finally, via the Brontë Parsonage Twitter we have found this very interesting article about Charlotte Brontë's drawings on The Cataloguer's Desk, the blog of the Peter Harrington Rare Bookshop in London.