Inappropriately improper

The Telegraph and Argus features the Charlotte Brontë poem to be auctioned in April.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum at Haworth said it was aware of the poem coming up for sale but had not yet decided whether to bid.
Charlotte, who was born in 1816, is best known for Jane Eyre but she also penned about 200 poems.
The one coming up for auction is among her earliest. It is dated December 14, 1829, when she was only 13.
The poem, like other works by the Brontë children, was penned in tiny handwriting.
Brontë expert and author Juliet Barker said this was probably partly due to the expense and shortage of paper.
“They developed a minuscule hand – designed to look like bookprint – which allowed them to write many more words to the page,” she said. “The writing cannot be read without a magnifying glass, but as all the young Brontës were shortsighted this would not have been so much of a problem to them.
“The tiny hand also had the advantage of being illegible to their father and aunt, so the children enjoyed the delicious thrill knowing that the contents of their little books were a secret shared only among themselves.”

Something else pertaining to Charlotte's childhood is the notorious Cowan Bridge school. We find it fascinating how the current school located there, Casterton, manages to gloss over the gruesome experience. From BBC News reporting that 'Sedbergh and Casterton boarding schools [are] to merge':

The three Brontë sisters attended Casterton, which was founded in 1823.

Actually, four Brontë sisters attended Cowan Bridge. Two of them, Maria and Elizabeth, died because of its unsanitary conditions. Anne never went there at all. And we are not saying that the current school bears any resemblance whatsoever to its predecessor, we just find it funny that they use the Brontës for renown.

The Lindsey Hilsum on International Affairs blog from Channel 4 quotes from Charlotte Brontë's Shirley:

“There are certain phrases potent to make my blood boil!” wrote Charlotte Brontë. The word that drove her crazy was “improper”. For me it’s the latter day equivalent – inappropriate. [...]
I went back to Charlotte Brontë to look for another quotation to end this blog and found: “If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women: they do not read them in a true light: they misapprehend them, both for good and evil: their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend.”
It’s a beautiful piece of writing, succinctly and wittily describing a worrying male attitude to women which I don’t think has moved on too much since Charlotte Brontë was writing.
I suspect, however, that it is not entirely relevant to the subject in hand. It’s the wrong quotation on which to end this meditation.  Or maybe it’s just inappropriate.

The first quotation comes from chapter XXXI; the second from chapter XX.

This writer from The Millions discussing John Irving is not a Brontëite:

I started reading John Irving when I was thirteen. My mother recommended The World According to Garp in a moment of exasperation. I was at a difficult age, reading-wise — too old for children’s books, but too unseasoned a reader to navigate the adult section of the library. My mother gave me novels from her own library, classics she thought appropriate for a young girl: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, and Ethan Frome. The only one I liked was Ethan Frome — a novel about a terrible accident, set in New England. Maybe that’s why my mother thought I would like The World According to Garp. (Hannah Gersen)

The Seattle Theater Examiner features Book-It's stage adaptation of Anna Karenina and interviews several cast members:

Can you tell me what the first Book-It show was that you saw? [...]
[Meg] McLynn: I saw Jane Eyre over a decade ago. I wasn't familiar with the novel, but I was an avid reader, so having the story come to life in a way which connected a literary structure with a theatrical structure was completely surprising and engaging. I was hooked immediately with the Book-It style and have wanted to perform with them ever since! (Rosemary Jones)

TravelBite makes some suggestions for Mother's Day (March 10th in the UK this year), such as

York Literature Festival, York
Celebrate the written word at the 6th York Literature Festival which takes place from March19th to 24th. Mixing local writers with nationally recognised names, this year the festival features poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Will Self, Tracy Chevalier, Tony Hawks, crime novelist Peter Robinson and folk hero Martin Carthy. Visitors can also take a guided walk around Literary York, discovering the cities links to W H Auden, Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, Tristram Shandy, Robinson Crusoe and many more. Visit www.yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk/

Big Hospitality reports that Brontë country, among others, has partnered with VisitEngland in 'a new multi-channel marketing campaign designed to boost domestic tourism in 2013'. Galactic Vagabond posts about Jane Eyre and Flickr user BraveAmberBeats has uploaded a picture of a copy of Jane Eyre at Grand Central.