Mr Rochester and Mr de Winter are still not talking

Melissa Coburn imagines a conversation between some literature leading men in the Brisbane Times:

I turn again in this cosy saloon of mine and heave an inward sigh. Mr Rochester and Mr de Winter are still not talking. Dark scowls mark their features. Brooding, they sit in silence, lost in thought. I see the problem, of course. The most innocent social inquiries are likely to lead by one route or another to Mr Rochester's wife up there on the third storey of Thornfield Hall, in that room without windows whose entrance is so carefully concealed behind the tapestry wall hangings. Casual inquiries of Mr de Winter may lead to his wife, the beautiful and cruel Rebecca, condemned to a watery grave in her scuttled boat. Definite conversation dampeners. Even a discussion about property, comparing the dimensions of Thornfield Hall and Manderley, the number of bedrooms, the quality of the gardens, is not entirely without risk. They are impressive properties, yes, but hardly cosy, not when one must resist the impulse to check under the bed and in the cupboard before going to sleep. I really can't blame Jane Eyre for running away and poor Mrs de Winter, Wife Number Two, whose name we never learn, if only she knew what fate awaits her in Susan Hill's sequel, Mrs de Winter, she would be well advised to do the same. But this is a social gathering and I am the hostess, so I keep my thoughts to myself as I move among my guests.

Cape Cod Times vindicates the author Mercy Otis Warren:

Local historian Marion Vuilleumier wrote that “she had to write under a pen name in the beginning because women weren’t supposed to be writers.” So long before George Eliot and the Brontë sisters, Mercy Otis was forced to mask her femininity in order to get her message across to a wider audience. (Robin Smith-Jones)

A Wuthering Heights vindication from the heart of Africa. In The Daily Nation (Kenya):

If there is a book that is timeless, then Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is it.
The dislike for one another, the waiting until that opportune moment that it becomes optimal to hit back, the calculations, the threats and the supposed sweet revenge (even in death) that turns out to be misplaced elation and imagined victory is all very much alive in society today.
We despise rude people, arrogant persons, leaders in the other camp, our institutions, the other tribe, our polity and just about anything that seems to stand in our way of growth.
Seen how we (young and old) enjoy video games? Especially the violent ones where we vaporise — with machine gun fire — that which comes at us?
No book captures the universality of man’s vengefulness than this particular Victorian novella.
The we-versus-them or the me and them way of living.
The book, which took the author just under 12 months to pen (October 1945 to June 1946), was published posthumously in 1947. (Anthony Wesonga)

NME asks Anna Calvi how she'd celebrate if she won the Barclaycard Mercury Prize for her album One Breath:

Asked how she’d celebrate if she won, Calvi said: “I’d try singing karaoke for the first time. I’ve never done it before, and it would be an apt time to try. I’d sing ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush, it seems appropriate.” (John Earls)

Elegance of Fashion reviews Jane Eyre 2006; auditions for a Jane Eyre. The Musical production at The Arts Centre Telford, Shropshire.