Sleeping Sisters

Charlotte Brontë wrote all the Brontës novels. This is the thesis of an upcoming Polish book by Eryk Ostrowski, Charlotte Brontë i jej siostry śpiące (Google Translates it as Charlotte Brontë and her sisters sleeping). Wait a moment... this sounds familiar. Two years ago we posted:

It seems that the conspiracy theory (in the words of Lucasta Miller) of John Malham-Dembleby arguing that all the writings by the Brontës were in fact written by Charlotte and Charlotte alone (Malham-Dembleby published his The Key to the Brontë Works in 1911 and in 1954, his wife published The Confessions of Charlotte Brontë where more of his "extraordinary revelations" were made public) has resurfaced with a freemasonry twist in the ebook world.

We were talking about Charlotte Brontë's Thunder. The Truth Behind Brontë Genius, ebook by Michele Carter (who recently published a fictionalized account as The Brontë Code). But, this Polish contribution to the Big Brontë Conspiracy has extraordinary similarities with both Malham-Dembleby and Carter:

Jeśli w czasie wakacji zabłądzisz czytelniku na smętne wrzosowiska, koniecznie musisz dzierżyć pod pachą pierwszą polską monografię Charlott Brontë. Eryk Ostrowski postara się dowieść, że najstarsza z pisarskiego rodzeństwa jest autorką nie tylko „Dziwnych losów Jane Eyre”, lecz także książek przypisywanych tradycyjnie jej siostrom. (Beata Górska-Szkop on Xiegarnia) (Translation)

The literary magazine Odra published in December 2012 an article (Charlotte Brontë i jej siostry śpiące) by the author. Eryk Ostrowski was also behind a multidisciplinar event based in his own poems devoted to Charlotte Brontë. The event took place last year in Krakow.

If you are interested and fluent in Polish you can listen to Polskie Radio as they will interview him today, July 25 at 20.30 h (local time):

Czy Charlotte Brontë stworzyła legendę o trzech piszących siostrach? Kto w rzeczywistości jest autorem "Wichrowych Wzgórz"? Czy Heathcliff i Katarzyna mogli istnieć naprawdę?

Eryk Ostrowski, poeta i eseista młodego pokolenia, stawia w swojej pracy bardzo odważne tezy, odsłaniając kulisy życia pisarki. Obfitowało ono w liczne dramatyczne wydarzenia. Brontë zadbała, aby wiele z nich nigdy nie dotarło do wiadomości publicznej. Autor ukazuje, w jaki sposób jej osobowość kształtowały skomplikowane relacje z mężczyznami – najpierw z bratem, z którym w latach młodzieńczych dzieliła tożsamość literacką i sympatię do doktryny masońskiej, później z belgijskim nauczycielem, w którym była zakochana, wreszcie z jej wydawcą, którego miała nadzieję poślubić. Stara się też rozwikłać niejasne okoliczności śmierci pisarki i wyjaśnić, czy jest możliwe, jak przypuszczali niektórzy z jej przyjaciół, że Charlotte Brontë została zamordowana…
Na audycję zaprasza Elżbieta Łukomska.
25 lipca (czwartek), godz. 20.30  (Translation)

Bristol Post announces the Bristol Old Vic autumn/winter programme which includes a two-part adaptation of Jane Eyre by Sally Cookson (February 2014).

Felicity James reviews Terry Eagleton's How to Read Literature in Times Higher Education:

Admittedly, a certain nostalgia is evident. “Like clog-dancing,” we learn, literary analysis is “almost dead on its feet”, as if English departments were filled with hapless artisans whittling away at a neglected craft. But if the tone is nostalgic, the prose is energetic and the values consistent: this is, in some ways, a reaffirmation of some key critical ideas, a swift tour of long-beloved books and themes. Heathcliff, for instance, pops up on page one and lurks throughout.

We already published time ago that Jane Austen was the first and final candidate to appear in English banknotes. PopBlend thinks that Charlotte Brontë would not have been pleased:

The woman the bank has chosen is none other than novelist Jane Austen, which would likely be a bummer to the Brontë sisters and George Eliot if they were alive to see the currency. (Jessica Rawden)

The Women's Library relocation to the London School of Economics and Political Science is discussed on Kensington & Chelsea Today:

The Women's Library has a large and exceptionally fine collection of material relating to the lives of women. The collection sheds light on women's century long struggle for equality. It includes over 60,000 books, many pamphlets, periodicals, press cuttings and photographs. The collection also has banners and posters.
Mary Wollstonecraft's 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' is a prized possession as is a first edition of the Brontë's works. (Marian Maitland)

Country Life remembers that there are still a few days left to see Victoria Brookland's A thousand thousand gleaming fires exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

An exhibition of new drawings xploring the passionate heroine in literature and poery and how women writers have employed the Gothic genre to reveal hidden aspects of our own nature. 6 June - 29 July at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Church Street, Haworth, West Yorkshire, BD22. (Mary Miers)

Reuters reviews the new Wolverine movie:

"The Wolverine" works best in the scenes between Logan and Mariko - readers of the original Marvel Comics know the key role she plays in his life, although they may be surprised that the big-screen Logan speaks not one lick of Japanese - and when the Wolverine fights side by side with psychic Yukio (Rila Fukushima), an impoverished orphan adopted, "Wuthering Heights"-style, as a young girl to be a companion for Mariko. (Alonso Duralde) 

We found the story of  Ramnath Subramanian, contributor of El Paso Times quite fascinating:

This was Thomas Hardy's land, and the land of the Brontë sisters. I cannot adequately describe the transcendence I felt gadding about the streets of England or walking along the Thames and the Avon.
Then there was the special thrill when a friend drove me to Bradford, West Yorkshire, for a wedding. Howarth (sic), the village where the Brontë sisters lived and wrote, was only a short distance away, and I got my fill of moorlands, charming pathways, and ruins, all of which had informed the writing of "Wuthering Heights" and "Jane Eyre."

The Spectator recomends re-reading this summer:

This is the time to pick up your well-thumbed copy of Dickens, Austen, Hardy, Forster, Eliot (either of them), Brontë, and all those other authors whose black spines glower darkly from your bookcases. (Emily Rhodes)

We suppose there is a joke hidden somewhere here but we don't get it:

It was probably someone like Jane Austin (sic) or Charlotte Brontë or Emily Brontë or their brother Richard Bronte or the science fiction writer and all round great human being Kurt Vonnegut who once said “write what you know”. (Joshua Burt in Sabotage Times)

HP/De Tijd (Netherlands) talks about pseudonyms, you know why:

Ook de zussen Charlotte, Anne en Emily Brontë, bekend van klassiekers als Jane Eyre en Wuthering Heights, publiceerden onder mannelijke pseudoniemen. Als de broers Currer, Acton en Ellis Bell distantieerden ze zich net als Evans en Dupin van het negatieve imago dat vrouwelijke schrijvers rond 1850 hadden. (Lisa Bouyeure) (Translation)

La Huella Digital (Spain) reviews Historia Torcida de la Literatura by Javier Traité:

En contrapartida, se echa en falta un análisis más riguroso de los autores, y es que el concepto “desenfado” no debería estar reñido con la tendencia a la caricaturización de una disciplina (por ejemplo: hablar de Casanova como un pichabrava, tratar con tanta frivolidad Fausto, de Goethe, o pasar de puntillas por el maravilloso Cumbres Borrascosas son matices que nos dejan, como poco, sorprendidos). (Rocío Martínez) (Translation)

BookRiot posted some days ago the results of their '20 Books You Pretend to Have Read' survey. A couple of Brontës are in the list:

15. Jane Eyre (27 mentions)
17. Wuthering Heights (23 mentions)

An student and Jane Eyre reader in The Modesto Bee; Wom*News publishes the following article by Kita Marie Williams, Themes and Characters in Charlotte Brontë’s Novels; No Wasted Ink and Clutter Uncluttered review Jane Eyre and Rosie's Period Journal its 1997 adaptation.