L'Amour Filial goes to Haworth

Great news from the Brontë Society AGM. The unpublished and previously unknown devoir by Charlotte Brontë L'amour filial has been finally bought by the Brontë Society and will be on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. 

Keighley News and The Guardian report:

The document, a homework essay written by Charlotte, has been bought for £50,000 by the Brontë Society following a public fundraising appeal.
Society members were told of the acquisition during this afternoon’s annual general meeting.
The single-page manuscript, written in French on both sides, was assigned as homework by Charlotte's teacher, Monsieur Constantin Heger, at the Pensionnat Heger school he and his wife ran in Brussels.
Heger has added his corrections to the work, “L’Amour Filial”, which deals with the subject of love for parents.
“We know Charlotte had a deep love and respect for her father Patrick Brontë but lost her mother at the age of just five - when she died from what is now believed to have been ovarian cancer,” said Brontë Society executive director Professor Ann Sumner.
“This new and exciting window on her love for her father, written at a time of great turmoil, is of incalculable value to our understanding of Charlotte’s interior life and will form the focus of much new scholarship.”
The society was told in December of the previously unknown piece, which was in private ownership.
The subsequent appeal raised over £3,000 in contributions from the public and grants included £20,000 from the V&A Purchase Fund and £5,000 from the Friends of National Libraries.
Brontë Society chairman Sally McDonald said: “The response was magnificent. To all donors we offer our heartfelt thanks that we can now preserve this significant manuscript for the nation as part of our unparalleled collection of Brontë manuscripts and artefacts here at the museum.”

Dianne Bourne reports a visit to Haworth in the Manchester Evening News:

“Heathcliff, it’s meee, a-Cathy, I’ve come home,” I trilled in my best Kate Bush voice on the wiley, windy moors above Haworth.
Yes, I admit I got a bit carried away, but that’s what wandering atop the West Yorkshire moors, which inspired Emily Brontë’s literary masterpiece Wuthering Heights, can do to a girl.
Luckily it was a pretty solitary experience walking those wild moors so barely a soul got to hear my banshee wailings.
That’s not to say this beautiful area is not a well-trodden path of Brontë enthusiasts from across the world – indeed Haworth has become quite the tourist destination for all those literary lovers keen to walk in the footsteps of Emily and her sisters Anne and Charlotte.
The Brontë’s former home, the Haworth Parsonage, is now a museum in honour of their place in history, and makes a fascinating place to spend an afternoon, just a short stroll out of the village centre. (Read more)

Not the only Brontë-related article in the Manchester Evening News: A walk to Hathersage.

Just short of Cowclose Farm there is a signposted left fork, which passes to the right of Brookfield Manor to reach a country lane. Turn right here, then left along a drive to North Lees Hall. This 16th Century manor of North Lees Hall is believed to be the inspiration for Thornfield Hall, Mr Rochester's home in Jane Eyre. 

In the Dorset Echo we have another tourist destination: the Yorkshire Dales:

We stayed at Newfield Hall, an austere-looking manor house that could have been straight out of the pages of Jane Eyre.
Surrounded by open countryside and a few sheep, it is right in the heart of the Dales.
But inside what greeted us couldn’t have been further from a dour Mr Rochester-style introduction. (Joanna Davis)

Online love versus traditional love in The Telegraph:

For most of history, using a third party to help you find love was the norm. But in the 20th century this all changed, with young people deciding they wanted to be in charge of their own domestic destinies. Matchmakers were viewed as hook-nosed crones from Fiddler on the Roof or pushy Mrs Bennet at the Pemberley ball. From Romeo and Juliet, to dashing Mr Rochester choosing plain Jane Eyre, we celebrated stories of Cupid’s dart striking randomly. (Julia Llewellyn Smith)

Sudan Vision Daily talks about the reintroduction of English literature in Sudan:

If anyone of my generation is asked to think of the shaping of his or her English language influences, literature will immediately come to mind. During those old good days, literary masterpieces such as Wuthering Heights and Cry the Beloved Country by Emily Brontë and Alan Paton consecutively, were being taught by renowned teachers throughout the Sudanese secondary schools. Students acquired a good knowledge of English vocabulary, grammar, readings, writings and even communicative skills.
However, in early 1990s, English literature was suddenly washed out from the curriculum of secondary schools without reasonable justifications, following the educational revolution whose trend towards Arabization affected all facets of life in Sudanese schools and universities. In terms of English language learning, the negatives of that so-called educational revolution outweighed the positives. Consequently, the standards of students were drastically dropped in English language.
Fortunately, this year English literature has been a major focus of the courses to be taught in
Secondary schools. In fact, it is hard to imagine how the voracious appetite of some students for English-language would have been sated without English literature.
The real jewel in the crown of English language learning, from my point of view, is the English literature which is fortunately been reintroduced into the teaching curriculum of the Sudanese secondary schools.  (Ahmed Omran)

Totalità (Italy) talks about Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights:

L’ Inghilterra vittoriana ha dato alla letteratura mondiale alcuni grandi nomi e importanti storie che hanno sconfitto il tempo e che sono divenuti classici universali.
E’ il caso di Wuthering Heights (Cime Tempestose), un dramma scritto da Emily Brontë, che, nonostante la riluttanza iniziale da parte dei critici è riuscito a diventare un chiaro riferimento della letteratura universale.
Emily Brontë, nasce il 30 luglio 1818 nella cittadina inglese di Thornton, nello Yorkshire. Quinta, di sei figli, Emily non ebbe tempo per conoscere approfonditamente la madre, che morì il 21 settembre 1821, quando la piccola aveva solo tre anni.
Un anno prima la famiglia Brontë si era trasferita a Haworth, dove il padre, Patrick Brontë, avrebbe svolto la mansione di rettore universitario. (Massimo Melani) (Translation) (Read more)

Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden) interviews journalist and writer Caitlin Moran:

–Jag hade en väldigt stark inre röst, som inte hade blivit utspädd av andras åsikter, vilket antagligen berodde på att jag inte gick i vanlig skola. De böcker jag läste var fulla av hjältinnor som Jane Eyre och Anne på Grönkulla och jag var övertygad om att allt ordnade sig om man hade ett gott hjärta, säger hon.  (Translation)

Book Professor interviews the author Madeleine McLaughlin:

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? By reading Wuthering Heights. I was so taken by the beauty of the language that I thought I’d like to do that. Well, I’m a long way away from accomplishing that but there’s still time.

A scholar-athlete and Brontëite in the Kansas City Star;  Gently Mad and She's Got the Book review Jane Eyre; thehunni posts about Wuthering Heights.