Agnes in the Library

Rebecca Onion publishes on Slate's The Vault about the Brontës at Cowan Bridge School:

In 1900, noting that fans had lately picked over the history of the Brontë family so “diligently” that “there can be but little left for gleaners,” the British Journal of Education republished these reports on four Brontë sisters’ unhappy year at the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. The reports, which assess the sisters’ preparation and work during the year they were at the school, are drawn from the school’s register. (Read more)

The Huffington Post on the importance of a public library:

As I got older, drifting into my teens, the library wasn’t quite as essential as it had been to me in the past. My parents, both prolific readers, had accumulated bookshelves full of classic novels that lined our den, and I was able to sustain myself for days on the Brontës and Dickens and Austen. But the library was still there, right downtown, waiting for the day I’d feel the itch for a new fantasy novel, a giant stack of Agatha Christie mysteries, or a clutch of P.G. Wodehouse romps to while away a lazy summer weekend. Whenever I needed risk-free, cost-free, judgment-free reading -- a chance to guiltily try a Nicholas Sparks novel or to blow through 10 light mysteries in three days -- the library welcomed me back with its familiar quiet murmur and secluded shelves. When my parents’ shelves inexplicably failed to yield Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey, the library was reassuringly replete with copies. (Claire Fallon)

Pittsburgh Historical Fiction Examiner interviews the writer Amy Belding Brown:

What year in history would you have liked to live in?
That’s a hard question to answer because there are so many unpleasant aspects of living in an historical time period. But I’d probably choose the ante-bellum period in New England, say l847, when the anti-slavery movement was gaining momentum, and people were enthusiastically embracing new ideas and ways of relating to each other. It was also the year that one of my favorite books – Charlotte Brontë’s "Jane Eyre" – was published. (Kayla Posney)

Nicky Peacock-Author interviews another writer J K Coi:

If you could have dinner with any literary character, who would it be and what would you eat?
I think maybe Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights because he’s so brooding and intense and I would love to be able to delve into his character. But I’m pretty sure I’d be too excited to eat anything. Maybe I’d just drink. Lots. :)

The Value of Sparrows publishes the article Wuthering Heights, by Peter Milward, included in the 2005 book A Poetic Approach to Ecology. Ramblings of a Texas Housewife reviews Solsbury Hill. Behold the Stars posts about Jane Eyre.