Painful To Read

The Professor is classic of the week in The Times. Fiona Wilson reviews it:

For anyone who has experienced heartbreak, the words written by Charlotte Brontë on November 18, 1845, to Professor Constantin Héger, the Belgian schoolmaster she had become infatuated with while studying in Brussels, are painful to read.

Tanya Gold in her Sunday Times column has something to say about the Brontës:

Female writers have always been aware of the gulf between male and female expectation. The Brontës all used male pseudonyms, as did Eliot; and Austen published anonymously in her lifetime.

Keighley News talks about a new article appearing on The Bradford Antiquary:

Two well-known Keighley figures have contributed to the latest issue of historical magazine the Bradford Antiquary.
Ian Dewhirst has written an essay entitled A Storehouse of Intellectual Pleasure and Profit detailing the early years of Keighley Public Library.
Ian, for many years the chief reference librarian in Keighley, covers the period 1904 to 1946 in his illustrated article.
Barbara Klempka, the founding secretary of Keighley and District Local History Society, has contributed and article about Keighley historian Clifford Whone.
Thwaites Brow man Mr Whone was renowned for revealing that the Brontë sisters borrowed books from Keighley Mechanics Library, but Mrs Klempka outlines his other achievements in writing, lecturing and teaching about local history.
The Bradford Antiquary, which has been documenting the history of the Bradford area since 1882, is the annual journal of the Bradford Historical and Antiquarian Society. (David Knights)

Limerick Leader talks about Ursula Leslie's latest book Hidden Kerry. The keys to the kingdom:

Anecdotes about US president Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill, Charlotte Bronte and Dean Jonathan Swift pepper Breda’s account before she moves on to Tarbert’s Bridewell and a very different tale. (Norma Prendiville)

BBC News recommends an exhibition at the University of Bristol (17 November 2014 - 27 March 2015):

Theatre Roundabout produced mainly "two-person shows" featuring William Fry and his late wife Sylvia Read between 1961 and 2008.
The couple wrote plays especially for Christian groups but also adapted novels such as Jane Eyre so they could be performed by just two actors.
The archive can be seen as part of a university exhibition until 27 March.
It includes business papers, programmes, photographs, scripts, costumes, props and "other accessories". (...)
Jo Elsworth, from the University of Bristol's Theatre Collection said: "This exhibition tells the story of Theatre Roundabout and the extraordinary energy and commitment of the two dedicated individuals at its heart."

The Sunday Herald makes already its 2014 best books list:

Which brings me to the treasure that is The Moor by William Atkins (Faber, £18.99). As one thrilled by exposure on Dartmoor as a child and by fictional lives shaped by such places in Wuthering Heights and The Return Of The Native, this book - a journey across Britain's moors exploring history, topography, mythology, literature alongside the writer's experience of treading these fugitive places - reanimates that thrill with wonderful storytelling. (Val McDermid)

The Lancashire Telegraph recommends a Rochdale walk:

Another local connection is a Rochdale lad called James Kay.
He founded the first teacher training college in England, St Mark’s in Chelsea.
He married the heiress of the Shuttleworth family and the couple made their home in Padiham in Victorian times and Charlotte Brontë frequently visited them in Gawthorpe Hall. (Ron Freethy)

The Independent (Ireland) interviews Constance Cassidy, owner of Lissadell House:

"I love my books. I read anything, everything. I love old fashioned novels. I love my Jane Eyre, I love my Charlotte Brontë. The new Jane Eyre, Michael Fassbender he is fantastic! I used to think Colin Farrell was easy on the eye but my god, Fassbender. Woo. I'll tell you now." (Maggie Armstrong)

Kelly Epperson in The Journal-Standard (Freeport, IL) is a grateful person:

That entire time in the England, my first time out of the country, I was wearing a grin and a pinch me attitude. From landing tickets to the first Live Aid concert, to waving at Princess Diana, to walking the moors like a character in a Brontë novel, I was awash in sheer gratitude for the whole experience.

Guardian (Trinidad & Tobago) talks about the writer Vahni Capildeo:

One of the most distinctive things about Vahni Capildeo is her voice. It’s imperious yet slightly breathy at the same time; she puts dramatic emphasis on the syllable at the end of sentences and phrases. It’s easy to imagine that voice reading dark, Victorian-era novels like those of the Brontë sisters. (Erline Andrews)

Perfil (Argentina) describes the works of Juan Goytisolo, recent Cervantes Literary Award, with his anecdote:

El otro día en una librería de Barcelona compré una Biblia y el dependiente me preguntó: ¿Se la envuelvo para regalo? No, gracias, le dije, es para leer. Me acordé que Borges advierte que aunque Swift creyó que escribía para desprestigiar a la humanidad, terminó siendo leído por los niños. Charlotte Brontë no hubiera podido concebir que alguien llegaría a sostener que ella había animalizado a la esposa loca de su novela porque era una criolla jamaiquina. (...) Algunos autores de obra polémica, fronteriza o de ruptura, como Juan Goytisolo, novelizan esa violencia interpretativa. (Julio Ortega) (Translation)

jennys bücherecke (in German) reviews Wuthering Heights; Domowa kostiumologia (in Polish, but also via Les Soeurs Brontë, in French) you can read  and watch the story and the pictures of the visit of Marta, Karolina et Olga to Haworth with period costumes. Los Angeles Review of Books reviews Mallory Ortberg's Texts from Jane Eyre.

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The Annotated Wuthering Heights

A new Wuthering Heights edition just published by Harvard University Press and edited by Janet Gezari:

The Annotated Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë
Edited by Janet Gezari
ISBN 9780674724693
Publication: October 2014

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights has been called the most beautiful, most profoundly violent love story of all time. At its center are Catherine and Heathcliff, and the self-contained world of Wuthering Heights, Thrushcross Grange, and the wild Yorkshire moors that the characters inhabit. “I am Heathcliff,” Catherine declares. In her introduction Janet Gezari examines Catherine’s assertion and in her notes maps it to questions that flicker like stars in the novel’s dark dreamscape. How do we determine who and what we are? What do the people closest to us contribute to our sense of identity?

The Annotated Wuthering Heights provides those encountering the novel for the first time—as well as those returning to it—with a wide array of contexts in which to read Brontë’s romantic masterpiece. Gezari explores the philosophical, historical, economic, political, and religious contexts of the novel and its connections with Brontë’s other writing, particularly her poems. The annotations unpack Brontë’s allusions to the Bible, Shakespeare, and her other reading; elucidate her references to topics including folklore, educational theory, and slavery; translate the thick Yorkshire dialect of Joseph, the surly, bigoted manservant at the Heights; and help with other difficult or unfamiliar words and phrases.

Handsomely illustrated with many color images that vividly recreate both Brontë’s world and the earlier Yorkshire setting of her novel, this newly edited and annotated text will delight and instruct the scholar and general reader alike.

This is the table of contents:

Map: The World of Wuthering Heights
Genealogical Chart
Introduction
Note on the Text
Wuthering Heights
Volume I • Chapters 1–14
Volume II • Chapters 1–20
Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell [1850]
Editor’s Preface to the New Edition of “Wuthering Heights” [1850]
Further Reading
Illustration Credits
Acknowledgments

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Bonnie against the wind turbines

Bad news from Brontë Country. The Brontë Parsonage's Twitter informs that the proposal for the installation of two x 11kW wind turbines on 18 metre high masts at Old Oxenhope Farm has been given the go ahead by the Area Planning Panel (Keighley & Shipley) ignoring the recommendation of refusal given by Planning Officer. The solid refusal recommendation can be read here:

Objections
1. Application is a result of pressure on the farmer and local residents.
2. Previous reasons for refusal of previous applications remain valid.
3. Turbines infringe the natural beauty of the area and will be an eyesore. They will do
nothing to improve Oxenhope but most likely will blight the countryside.
4. The development will be able to be seen from numerous angles and spoil the historic
views of the valley
5. The turbines would not benefit Oxenhope but would ruin an old timeless landscape held dear to all who come from all over the world to see the Bronte's countryside. The Worth Valley is a culturally and historically unique landscape and more turbines will have an adverse effect on tourism and local economy.
6. Turbines at this location would not provide benefits to outweigh the damage caused.
7. If this application was granted it would set a precedent for other (previously refused)
applications to be resubmitted along with any number of new applications
8. Wildlife such as birds and bats are affected by wind turbines 

Regrettably the minutes of the meeting are still not available in order to understand the reasons of this shocking and very dangerous precedent.

Fortunately, there's not only bad news in Brontë country today. It seems that Bonnie Greer, president of the Brontë Society, wants to take the lead in outlining a future Society new strategy. The Yorkshire Post explains it:

The playwright and novelist is setting up an advisory group to discuss new ideas with the aim of refreshing the work of the literary society. (...)
Ms Greer has drafted in Helen Boaden, director of BBC Radio and a former producer with Radio Leeds, to be on a new president’s advisory group.
The president expects to recruit other experts as well as bringing in “one or two” Haworth residents to draw the Society closer to the village, home of the Museum.
The Chicago-born writer plans to use connections in the United States to encourage more tourists and Brontë fans from across the Atlantic to visit Haworth.
She also wants a younger Society membership and to increase the 1,750 membership to 2,000 within two years.
Asked about her role as president, she said it was “ambassadorial, honorary” but that she now wanted to spend more time in Haworth and stimulate debate about new ideas.
She is keen to work with “constructive critics”.
“I think with the President’s Advisory Group, the first thing we will aim to do is work with those constructive critics - I’m very interested in them, the ones that say ‘let’s work together’. I’m not interested in the divisive ones.”
Ms Greer said the critics - who tried to force a change of leadership at a recent emergency meeting - had damaged the reputation of the Society and the Museum and leaks to the Press had upset her.
“My first concern is not me. What we have is a very fine museum, with very fine people. For critics to run amok and put them in professional jeopardy is untenable.”
Her idea for an advisory group has been given informal support by members of the ruling Brontë Society Council, which meets today in Haworth.
One of her main aims, she said, was to “bringing money into the village.”
“I want to do a writers’ festival and exchange visits. I want this village filled 365 days a year with things that emanate from us.”
On the subject of in-fighting, which led to 52 disgruntled members forcing an emergency meeting, she admitted she had not got to the bottom of it.
“Whatever has been going on, I don’t even know all of it. I’m not saying it’s a bed of roses. I don’t know who they (the critics) are.”
Recent troubles had made up her mind about the need for change.
“I feel I have permission to do it now. This crisis has given it to me...it’s a juncture for change. I’m interested in keeping the Society going and making it even greater. I’m interested in what people have to say. I’m not interested in those who undermine us.” (Andrew Robinson)

The Times reviews Sanctuary by Robert Edric:

In 1914 the second wife of the Reverend AB Nicholls — his first wife had been Charlotte Brontë — discovered an oil painting folded up on top of a cupboard in a farm in Ireland. It was one of English literature’s greatest discoveries: a group painting of beloved Victorian novelists, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë.  In the middle of  the sisters is a large pillar and, for this reason, it is known as the 'pillar portrait'. Badly mixed oil paints become translucent with age, and, the artist's 'pentimenti' or alterations are often revealed with time. In 1957, John Nixon noticed the silhouette of a man in a cravat sitting in the middle of the sisters, and infrared photography revealed him to be the artist himself, Branwell Brontë, who must have painted himself out of the picture. (Paula Byrne)

Andrea Koczela on Books Tell You Why discusses the crucial effect of Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë on Charlotte's reputation:

Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Brontë remains a remarkable publication. At the time, it was unique for focusing on Brontë's personal life rather than on her accomplishments. It was also unusual for being a biography about a woman written by a woman. In her book, Gaskell aggressively addressed Brontë's reputation as masculine and godless. Carefully selecting anecdotes and letters, Gaskell shaped Brontë into a heroine of towering virtue - a paragon of morality, duty, and sacrifice. Censoring less flattering aspects of her life (such as her open love for a married teacher), Gaskell portrayed Brontë as the fulfillment of womanly duty -
a devoted wife, daughter, and sister. Indeed, a woman who died during pregnancy - the ultimate sacrifice for a female of the time.
Gaskell's efforts were an overwhelming success. The Life of Charlotte Brontë sold rapidly and received enthusiastic reviews. (...)
Brontë's reputation was entirely transformed.

The Village Voice, October 1, 1970

The New York Times publishes the obituary of the dancer Mary Hinkson (1925-2014):

In the early 1970s she appeared in a revival of Graham’s “Deaths and Entrances” as Emily Brontë, a role Graham herself had danced. Ms. Hinkson stunned audiences with the sharp-angled savagery of her dance of madness in a widely hailed performance. (Anna Kisselgoff)

Financial Times lists the best in children fiction so far in 2014:

Jane, the Fox and Me, by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault, Walker Books, RRP£15
Hélène is a lonely, bullied schoolgirl who draws consolation from Jane Eyre. A stay at summer camp brings a new friend in this masterly, evocative, delicately rendered graphic novel from two Québécois creators. (James Lovegrove)

Fawad Khan as Rochester? India.com is dreaming of it:

Sexy, Broody, powerful, dominating. Do these characteristics resemble Christian Grey or Mr. Rochester? These are few of the characteristics of a true Byronic hero. (...)
A hero with a grim past that makes him struggle to open up to his feelings for someone. Charlotte Brontë’s character of Mr. Rochester in her novel Jane Eyre will make you fall in love with his savage complexity. He has no loveable qualities and this flawed character makes him desirable.
These movies are waiting to be made with Fawad Khan playing these leading characters. Are the director’s listening? (Rashmi Mishra)

The Australian reviews Rachel Cusk's Outline:

Ryan [one of the characters] comments that ‘‘ellipsis’’ can be translated as ‘‘to hide behind silence’’. Watching, hidden in silence, is the basis of Outline and perhaps writing generally. Seeing a family swimming, Faye finds ‘‘a vision of what I no longer had’’, and thinks of Cathy and Heathcliff looking into the Lintons’ house from the surrounding dark in Wuthering Heights. Yet she understands the way desire shapes each scene, and is aware of the danger that a woman, especially, might become in that vision ‘‘a slave, obliterated’’ — or, as Simone de Beauvoir would have it, a parasite. (Felicity Plunkett)

Oliver Kamm's in The Pedant's column in The Times quotes Charlotte Brontë's use of 'old adage' in Jane Eyre:

Charlotte Brontë gives these words to her narrator in Jane Eyre: 'He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious friendship theirs must have been: a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old adage that "extremes meet." '(Chapter XVIII)

Alyssa Rosenberg in The Washington Post praises humorist and writer Mallory Ortberg:

Ortberg has had what feels like a breakout year. She published her book “Texts from Jane Eyre,” which reimagines literary classics in text-speak, a mode that not only makes novels such as “Wuthering Heights” sound a little silly, but reveals the pretentions of famous fictional men and menace that linger below immortal love stories.

The Yorkshire Evening Post reviews a recent performance of Frisky & Mannish in Leeds:

The problem here is that pop culture moves so fast that what was contemporary when the pair emerged on the cabaret comedy scene in 2008 risks being obscure for the largely student crowd. Their version of ‘Wuthering Heights’ may have resonance on the back of Kate Bush’s recent residency at the Hammersmith Apollo, for example, but its delivery by Kate Nash is a culturally dated curio. (Susan Darlington)

Some weird Brontë references now. First, in Australia:

The Australian describing the surfer Stephanie Gilmore:

She thrives on pressure. She detests pressure. She’s a graceful, swooping, beautiful creature on a wave. She sees the symphonious riding of a surfboard as her equivalent to Charlotte Brontë holding a pen; Janis Joplin holding a microphone. Riding a surfboard is her method of self-expression. (Will Swanton)

Now, in Málaga (Spain), El Sur describing the weather:

Claro que puede haber terral de noviembre, con vientos africanos sazonados de polvo y fuego del Rif para desesperación de los vendedores de abrigos; y pocos días después desatarse la furia de los tornados tras una noche de borrasca homérica como en la partida de Ulises, con el cielo sacudido por ese 'concierto imponente' de Charlotte Brontë, como si los dioses convocaran la partitura sinfónica de la tormenta, con Zeus a la batuta dirigiendo la ira de Hefesto, Perséfone y Apolo. (Teodoro León Gross) (Translation)

The Traunsteiner Tagblatt gives details of a meeting organized by the Freundschaftsclub Haywards Heath:

Bei der Veranstaltung des englischen Freundschaftsclubs Hay-ward-Heath in der Traunsteiner Stadtbücherei lasen Eva Wagatha und Walter Spörl in der Originalsprache aus den berühmten Romanen »Wuthering Heights« und »Jane Eyre«.
Die drei Bronte-Schwestern, Emily, Charlotte und Anne, und deren aufschlussreiche Familiengeschichte wurden vorgestellt. Ludwig Wagatha, langjähriges Mitglied des Freundschaftscluës, gab in deutscher Sprache Einblicke in die Familiengeschichte der Brontës. (Translation)

Educación 3.0 lists several novel adaptations suitable to use in the classroom:

Trágica, intensa, profunda… Así es la historia de amor de la novela ‘Cumbres Borrascosas’, en la que muchos de sus personajes se dejan llevar por las pasiones y las emociones de forma desmedida. La versión que os proponemos está protagonizada por Juliette Binoche y Ralph Fiennes. (Translation)

This blogger in L'Express (France) has discovered Wuthering Heights:

Mon amie N sait comment me faire plaisir. Pas en m’offrant des boots (ça marcherait aussi !) mais des livres. Elle m’a fait découvrir l’extraordinaire Femme changée en renard de David Garnett (que depuis j’offre régulièrement), incité à lire pour de bon Les Hauts de Hurlevent (à éviter les nuits où vous dormez seule dans un appartement qui “craque”). (Translation)

Elle (France) talks about Wuthering Heights 2011:

Si vous êtes d’une humeur romantique et accro à la littérature anglaise du XIXème, « Les Hauts de Hurlevent » vous combleront. Les images sont sublimes, soulignant avec une belle justesse les lignes du roman d’Emily Brontë dont est adaptée cette fiction. (Adèle Chaput) (Translation)

Colin MacLean in The Edmonton Sun thinks that Jane Eyre 2011 was 'excellent'.

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Brontë Studies. Volume 39. Issue 4

The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 39, Issue 4, November 2014) is already available online. We provide you with the table of contents and abstracts:

Special Issue: Afterlives of the Brontës: Biography, Fiction and Literary Criticism

Whose Brontë is it Anyway?
pp. 251–253 Author: Van Puymbroeck, Birgit and Malfait, Olivia and Demoor, Marysa

Lives and Afterlives: The Brontë Myth Revisited
pp. 254–266    Author:  Miller, Lucasta
Abstract:
Lucasta Miller revisits her 2001 book The Brontë Myth to explore the thinking behind it. In doing so, she surveys the recent history of English life-writing to cast light on recent trends towards metabiography. She also explores the theoretical issues — and subjective experiences — which the practice of afterlife study involves. In doing so, she offers an apologia for such study, especially as it relates to the Brontës. She argues that studying the posthumous construction of canonical authors can help the process of contextualizing them within their own historical moment, thus helping us to understand them on their own terms.

Beyond The Brontë Myth: Jane Eyre, Hannah Cullwick and Subjectivity in Servitude
pp. 267–278       Author: D'Albertis, Deirdre
Abstract:
Close analysis of the trope of servitude, central to the imaginative world of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and working-class diarist Hannah Cullwick, reveals the challenge as well as the promise of reading these two figures in tandem. Uncoupling the link between will and servitude as one which resulted necessarily in a state either of oppression or emancipation, this essay traces a literary subjectivity largely unaccounted for by The Brontë Myth. Both Cullwick’s diaries and Jane Eyre’s narrative autobiography acknowledge and actively construct servitude as a complex performance of the desire for recognition between master and servant. This desire is deeply rooted in the texts, as well as in the narrating subjects themselves.

Charlotte Brontë’s Polyphonic Voices: Collaboration and Hybrid Authorial Spaces
pp. 279–291   Author:  Scholl, Lesa
Abstract:
Charlotte Brontë was aware that authorship was a hybrid process, one involving translation, sharing work, rewriting and engaging with a variety of literary influences. This paper repositions Charlotte Brontë’s authorial identity by drawing out the collaborative nature of her literary relationships with her key masters: Branwell Brontë, Constantin Heger and her publishers at Smith, Elder & Co. Through a Bakhtinian dialogic lens, the literary entity identified as ‘Charlotte Brontë’ inhabits a separate authorial space from the historical person living at Haworth. She becomes a polyphony of minds and voices.

Currer Bell, Charlotte Brontë and the Construction of Authorial Identity
pp. 292–306  Author:  Wing-chi Ki, Magdalen
Abstract:
Focusing on the recovery of the textual and authoriality-defining politics of Charlotte Brontë’s pseudonym ‘Currer Bell’, this essay examines how Charlotte’s penname affected pre-1850 constructions of gendered authorial identity and how, after that date, Currer Bell was partially erased by means of the two distinct personae that readers fashioned for Charlotte, the female author, and Charlotte, the historical figure. The essay explores the pseudonym’s redefinition and revaluation by means of an analysis of brief accounts of Charlotte’s correspondence and the reviews of her fiction. It also examines how the use of different personae by Charlotte and critics of her works contributed to a myth that conflated distinctions she had introduced to differentiate herself as writer, using the gender-ambiguous remit of Currer Bell, and as the private individual Charlotte Brontë. The essay concludes with a consideration of how Charlotte’s textual inscription is transformed by visual culture media, which facilitated her becoming a cultural icon.

‘Becoming’ in Jane Eyre: Charlotte Brontë through the Eyes of Gilles Deleuze
pp. 307-318  Author:  Posman, Sarah
Abstract:
In four of his books Gilles Deleuze makes a reference to the Brontës. In Dialogues and A Thousand Plateaus he mentions Charlotte Brontë as an example of literature that surpasses a subject-centred narrative, a literature of what he calls a ‘haecceity’ or ‘thisness’, in which events take precedence over subjects making life choices. This essay concentrates on Jane Eyre: An Autobiography in teasing out Deleuze’s surprising mentioning of Charlotte Brontë and explores how a Deleuzian ‘haecceity’-vantage point can change our understanding of life narratives and authorship.

‘The Virgin Soul’: Anglo-French Spectres of Emily Brontë, 1880–1920
pp. 319-329  Author:  Van Puymbroeck, Birgit 
Abstract:
This essay studies Emily Brontë’s afterlives in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century biographies. It shows the rise in Emily Brontë’s popularity from the late nineteenth century onwards and demonstrates the rich cross-fertilization between British, Belgian and French accounts of her authorial persona. At the turn of the century, Emily became the subject of a cult that focused on her moral and inner life. She took preponderance over her sister Charlotte and became the subject of spiritualist, proto-feminist and modernist analyses. By focusing on Emily Brontë’s reception in Belgium, Britain and France, this essay adds a cross-national perspective to the Brontë myth.

Standing Alone: Anne Brontë out of the Shadow
pp. 330-340  Author:  Thormählen, Marianne
Abstract:
Having traced Anne Brontë’s slow emergence from her sisters’ shadow in the course of a century and a half, this article explains the reasons for the long neglect of her works and the circumstances that encouraged twentieth-century readers and academics to begin to take an interest in the youngest Brontë sister. The author argues that Anne’s two novels deserve as much attention from readers and critics as her sisters’ books. She then sets out the distinctive features of Anne Brontë’s fiction, suggesting topics for further research.

Sex, Crimes and Secrets: Invention and Imbroglio in Recent Brontë Biographical Fiction
pp. 341-352   Author:  Stoneman, Patsy
Abstract:
The last twenty years have seen a proliferation of fictional works which supplement, rewrite or allude to Brontë biography, augmenting the known facts with more or less plausible invention. Noting that recent literary theories have destabilized the distinction between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’, I consider two categories of such fiction: those based on a biographical hypothesis, and those in which present-day readers are ‘haunted’ by the Brontë lives. Many of these stories turn on the discovery of documents, and I shall argue that the best of them offer hypotheses which address the aporias — the gaps and puzzles — in scholarly biography.

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Branwell's day

The Independent looks at a couple of just-released Brontë-related novels (Christmas is coming, fellow Brontëites!):

Spin-offs are my least favourite form of literature – they usually mean that the authors can't produce original work so they just live off other writers' backs – but two offerings from the depths of Brontë gloom certainly warrant retrieval from the junk pile.
Jane Stubbs' Thornfield Hall (Corvus, £7.99) wisely makes no attempt to compete with that finest example of derivation, Jean Rhys's account of the first Mrs Rochester, Wide Sargasso Sea, worthy of iconic status in its own right. Stubbs also takes Jane Eyre as her starting point but the story is told by Mrs Fairfax, second most famous housekeeper in literature (first place surely goes to Mrs Danvers in Rebecca).
Genteel but penniless, Alice Fairfax understands that social class is as vital as virginity in the marriage stakes and is grateful for the protection of her rich relative, Mr Rochester. In the attics, Alice discovers that Thornfield Hall is full of guilty secrets, with a sadly misused Bertha Rochester in urgent need of care, and plays an important role in the machinery of the plot. There is a lengthy prelude to Jane Eyre's arrival, and her presence is fleeting but dramatic, like Helen of Troy shooting across the stage in Marlowe's Faustus: nevertheless, the book is thoroughly enjoyable.
Another worthy off-shoot of the Brontë industry is Robert Edric's Sanctuary (Doubleday, £17.99). Edric takes the viewpoint of that celebrated reprobate brother Branwell, and presents his short, frustrated existence in a sequence of intensely-felt glimpses of life at Haworth and the surrounding moors, where the railways are transforming traditional ways. Here is Branwell's "season of cold debauchery", where he joins an artist spying on local women bathing naked. Here also his self-definition as "one of the great bystanders of literary history", conscious of his sisters' growing successes as he himself slips into drunken failure, describing Charlotte as his "true gaoler". The book succeeds in poetically entering into the destructive world of a young man with modest talent who finds himself born into a household of genius.
Edric notes that the Reverend Brontë refused the offer of a post as chaplain to the Governor of Martinique, surely a great "what if?" of literary history which might prove tempting to yet another spin-off merchant. (Jane Jakeman)

Keighley News features Robert Edric's novel as well:

Award-winning writer Robert Edric has reimagined the story of the Brontë family for his latest novel.
Sanctuary focuses on Branwell Brontë, the tortured brother of the famous writing sisters of Haworth.
The novel is described as a lacerating and moving fictionalised portrait of the self-destruction of one of literary history’s great bystanders.
Edric focuses on Branwell, unexhibited artist, unacknowledged writer, sacked railwayman, disgraced tutor and spurned lover.
Branwell returns to Haworth Parsonage – now the Brontë Parsonage Museum – to the crushing disappointment of his father and sisters.
As the women’s success grows, Branwell’s health is failing rapidly, his circle of friends is shrinking fast, and his own literary aspirations have been abandoned.
Attempting to restore himself to a creative and fulfilling existence, he returns to the drugs, alcohol and morbid-self-delusion of his earlier life.
Robert Edric, born in 1956, has won leading fiction prizes for novels including Winter Garden, A New Ice Age, Peacetime and The Book Of The Heathen.
Gathering The Water was long-listed for the Booker Prize in 2006 and In Zodiac Light was shortlisted for the Dublin Impac (correct) Prize in 2010.
Edric, who lives in Yorkshire, most recently wrote The Monster’s Lament. The Daily Telegraph said his novels constituted “one of the most astonishing bodies of work” to appear from a single author in a generation.
Edric’s latest book is said to shine a penetrating light on one of the most celebrated and perennially fascinating families in Britain’s creative history.
Sanctuary was released this month by leading publisher Doubleday, costing £17.99 in hardback. (David Knights)

That, in our opinion, is the right way of vindicating Branwell but there's always the old Branwell-wrote-Wuthering-Heights 'debate', which is back according to Keighley News too:

The writer of a Brontë-themed conspiracy novel has asked forensic experts to prove his theory about who wrote Wuthering Heights.
Chris Firth wants a team of scholars to use their specialist computer software to analyse Emily Brontë’s writing.
Mr Firth believes that Emily’s notorious brother Branwell Brontë actually wrote the celebrated tale of romance and tragedy.
Mr Firth first made the claim 10 years ago in his novel Branwell Brontë’s Barbers Tale.
The story, a fictionalised account of part of Branwell’s life, has now been re-released in paperback as Branwell Brontë’s Tale.
To mark the book’s 10th anniversary Mr Firth has enlisted the same linguistic and computer experts who revealed that The Cuckoo’s Calling, the debut crime novel by ‘Robert Galbraith’, was really written by Harry Potter creator JK Rowling.
Mr Firth said the academics were awaiting samples of Branwell’s surviving prose writing and chapters of Wuthering Heights, so they could run the same ‘forensic stylometry’ test.
Mr Firth said the Java Graphical Authorship Attribution program would test word frequency, sentence structuring and vocabulary ordering.
He said: “The computer tests could prove one and for all whether Branwell was in fact the author of the classic tale, as his friends at the time of publication of the novel claimed.
“Emily never claimed to have written Wuthering Heights and both she and Branwell died before it became a widespread seller of the time.”
Mr Firth suspects that for reasons unknown, Emily’s straight-laced sister Charlotte demonised Branwell and obscured his input to the creative success of the Brontë family.
He said this potential conspiracy theory provided a vehicle for his own “gripping, fascinating and tragically moving” tale.
He added: “My novel minutely examines Branwell’s hectic creative and social life while working as a portrait painter in the bohemian districts of Bradford in the 1830s.
“The latest large-font edition of the historical thriller rolls in at a whopping 366 pages, but with excitement, adventure and vivid historical detail on every page.”
The book is said to be thoroughly-researched and stylishly-written by a native of Bradford, painting a vivid picture of the city as a busy boom-town in the mid 1800s.
Mr Firth added: “that historical thriller reveals the generous, fun-loving genius that the black sheep of the Brontë family was in his early years, as well as the tragic figure he became before his death at the early age of 31.”
Branwell Brontë’s Tale is available as a paperback from Electraglade Press – by e-mailing info@electragladepress.com – or from Amazon as a paperback and Kindle download. (David Knights)

The fact of whether Emily 'claimed' to have written Wuthering Heights or not is up for debate, and she certainly claimed it as much as Anne did claim her own two novels and those are not being attributed to Branwell. Why some people can't accept that a woman named Emily Brontë wrote a novel as powerful as Wuthering Heights is something we can never really understand.

Speaking of the novel, The Daily Beast reminds us of the fact that it has always been a dividing book,

Virginia Woolf loved Wuthering Heights and considered Emily Brontë superior to her sister Charlotte. George Orwell, however, thought Wuthering Heights was “perverse and morbid,” while Henry James despised “the crude and morbid story of Wuthering Heights.” (Nick Romeo)

Also from Keighley News is this story about some changes that have taken place in the shops in Haworth's Main Street:

A Haworth Main Street business has re-opened in a new premises on the same street.
Cobbles and Clay art cafe has moved up the road to take up residence in the building which used to house Ye Olde Bronte Tea Rooms and Gift Shop.
Jill Ross, who owns and manages Cobbles and Clay, said her cafe opened for business in its new home on Saturday October 25.
"It was half term, nice weather, so we've been really busy, which is great," she said. "I'm thrilled. The new building is beautiful."
She added that Venables book shop, which is also in Main Street, would be leasing her former premises.
Mrs Ross, who lives in Oxenhope, said Cobbles and Clay's new base means it has a bigger kitchen and an upstairs space for children's parties and other functions.
"The shop had been empty for a couple of years," she added. "We started work on it in February. We've knocked down walls revealed all sorts of architectural features such as stone floors and open fires.
"It looks fantastic now. A man came in yesterday and said it looked so beautiful he thought I was managing it on behalf of the National Trust, which I take as a compliment!
"We are still doing pottery painting, children's parties, open mike nights and the same sorts of food. We just have more space to do it in.
"It's bigger and better." (Miran Rahman)

And in view of the fact that Julian Fellowes is fighting 'plans for new housing estate near [the] cottage where Thomas Hardy wrote [his] famous novel[s]', the Daily Mail (and Daily Express) reports him as wondering,

'Can you imagine plans to build almost 100 houses at Chawton (Jane Austen's home) or Haworth (the home of the Bronte sisters)?' (Dan Bloom)

What? Like a wind farm right on the moors that inspired at least one of the Brontë novels? Hmmm...

Business Insider lists '13 Bizarre Sleeping Habits Of Super Successful People'. Emily Brontë is one of them (and can you still be considered 'super successful' if the authorship of your only novel has to be defended 167 years after it was first published?).

Novelist Emily Brontë walked around in circles until she fell asleep.
The 19th century novelist and poet suffered from insomnia, and would walk around her dining room table until she felt tired enough to fall asleep. (Emmie Martin)

She did walk around the dining room table but it was with her sisters while they discussed what they had written during the day.

According to the Daily Herald,

Tucked away in the temperature-controlled vaults of BYU’s L. Tom Perry Special Collections Library sits a vast collection of original Victorian-era periodicals, filled with understudied short fiction by the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë and their peers. The periodicals have been indexed and secured thanks to the tireless efforts on special collections curator Maggie Kopp. Thorne-Murphy and her students are driven to get these stories into more hands, but know that passing around 19th century journals won’t do the trick. (Barbara Christiansen)

Jane Eyre 2006 makes it onto a list of the top 5 TV adaptations compiled by Le Figaro (France). Les Soeurs Brontë has a post in French about Haworth at the time the Brontës lived there. Fanda Classiclit posts about Jane Eyre.

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The Professor on Hesperus

Hesperus Press publishes a new edition of Charlotte Brontë's The Professor:

The Professor
by Charlotte Brontë
Publication Date: 21/11/2014
Hesperus Classics
Paperback: ISBN: 9781843915300
eBook: ISBN: 9781780943381

The first book ever to emerge from Charlotte Brontë’s pen, The Professor is an autobiographically inspired romantic love story set in Brussels. Thinly veiling her personal experiences, Brontë unusually uses a male narrator, making this a fascinating and unique read. With the action played out in dark boarding-school classrooms and windy streets, Brontë weaves a tale of much emotion – one that foresees the longer, better-known saga Villette that was to follow many years later.

Fresh out of Eton, orphaned William Crimsworth finds himself in an unenviable situation – a clerk to his little-educated, caddish mill-owner brother – until opportunity presents itself for a complete change of fortune. Crimsworth is offered a job in Brussels as a teacher in an all-girls boarding school, run by a M Pelet. Later headhunted to a better position by the beguiling Zoraide Reuter, Crimsworth believes himself slightly enamoured with his new employer – only to discover her secretly and perfidiously engaged to M Pelet.

His new position almost intolerable, Crimsworth finds solace in teaching Frances Henri, a young Swiss-English seamstress teacher with promising intelligence and ear for language. Mlle Reuter though, jealous of the young professor’s obvious partiality, dismisses Frances from her position. Crimsworth, in despair, is forced to resign from the school and takes up a ghostly existence in Brussels, roaming the streets in the hopes of finding his Frances.

An often neglected classic, The Professor is not only a compellingly written novel but fascinating in its concern with gender issues, religion and social class, making it a book still studied today.

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“I’m glad you’ve read the book, I think it is so beautiful."

Picture source

Express fills us in on the background on the background on the lyrics of Wuthering Heights handwritten by Kate Bush and auctioned a few days ago.

Singer Kate Bush made a teenage boy’s dream come true when she sent him this signed photograph and a handwritten copy of the lyrics to Wuthering Heights.
Thirty six years later, the memorabilia has earned her now middleaged fan almost £7,000.
Kate was just 19 when, in 1978, she replied to a letter from a 14-year-old known only as David, asking to know the lyrics to her number one hit of that year.
Her reply, written in blue ballpoint on a sheet of paper from the Hotel Intercontinental in Paris, said: “Dear David, thank you very much for writing to me – I’m thrilled that you want to know the words of my single.” She adds in reference to her influence for the song, the novel by Emily Brontë: “I’m glad you’ve read the book, I think it is so beautiful. God Bless, love Kate Bush xxx.”
The lyrics were on the back and the photograph was signed: “To David, keep smiling. Love Kate Bush xxx.”
After the items were sold in London this week by TracksAuction.com, David said: “At the time, the song was the most extraordinary thing I had ever heard and I was utterly mesmerised by her performance when she appeared on Top Of The Pops.
“I was in love with the song so I wrote to EMI Records for the lyrics. Much to my amazement a few weeks later I received a reply from the lady herself.
“She had not only handwritten all the lyrics for me but also included a letter and a signed photograph of herself – an image that, at the time, was this teenage boy’s dream and made me the envy of all my friends.
“Even now, after all these years, I’m still amazed by the effort she went to in sending this to me.” (Chris Riches)

But clearly not amazed enough to keep him from selling it.

Keighley News has another article on the possibility of a wind farm in Brontë Country:

An applicant wants to install two wind turbines on 18-metre masts at an Oxenhope Farm.
The proposals for Old Oxenhope Farm, Oxenhope Lane, are due to go before councillors at the Keighley and Shipley Area Planning Panel today. (Nov 27)
Bradford Council has received 11 letters of objection to the plans and seven letters of support.
One of the objectors includes the Brontë Society, which has argued: "In an empty landscape even small turbines have a dominating effect, tending to change perceptions of scale, and the movement of the blades draws the eye, making them impossible to ignore." [...]
Worth Valley ward councillor Rebecca Poulsen said: "It's a difficult application. I'm sympathetic to the farm because in order to win contracts they have to prove their green credentials.
"It's quite a competitive process and they have to show that a certain percentage of their power comes from renewable sources.
"They have made the proposed turbines smaller than they were in previous applications.
"However, this is sensitive because of the location, the views of the landscape, and the links to the Brontës.
"I referred this to the planning panel because I felt it wouldn't be fair to just leave it to a planning officer's decision. I wanted it to be heard in public where all parties can make their views known." (Miran Rahman)

The Illinois Times' 'advice goddess' replies to the following query:

In social situations, my boyfriend will often pretend to have read books I know he hasn’t. He doesn’t just fake it with some casual “Yeah, I read that.” He will try to say something deep and philosophical, but can end up not making much sense. He’s too smart to need to do this. Is there something I can say to persuade him to stop? –Embarrassed Your boyfriend’s just lucky nobody’s suspected he’s lying about what he’s read and tried to trip him up – maybe with “It’s like Heathcliff wandering the moors searching for Cathy after she was abducted by aliens!” or “What a relief when Romeo rushed Juliet to the hospital and they pumped her stomach!” (Amy Alkon)

But then again, like The Daily Star says,

While English majors are obliged to read more than students pursuing other degrees, it is silly to expect them to have read all of Dickens' or Austen's works. It is also unfair to assume that all students of literature love Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice (which are not written by the same author, by the way). (Nifath Karim Chowdhury)

BeliefNet's Commonsense Christianity mentions Agnes Grey:

Agnes Grey is a novel by Anne Brontë, the youngest of the three Brontë sisters (think Emily, and Wuthering Heights; and Charlotte, with Jane Eyre), that follows a young woman as she serves as governess to a series of horrendously atrocious children. Like her sisters, Anne made observations about the religious — Christian — environment of her day, and this passage describes her character Agnes’s assessment of the local rector, or pastor:
“His favourite subjects were church discipline, rites and ceremonies, apostolic succession, the duty of reverence and obedience to the clergy, the atrocious criminality of dissent, the absolute necessity of observing all the forms of godliness, the reprehensible presumption of individuals who attempted to think for themselves in matters connected with religion, or to be guided by their own interpretations of Scripture . . . supporting his maxims and exhortations throughout with quotations from the Fathers: with whom he appeared to be far better acquainted than with the Apostles and Evangelists, and whose importance he seemed to consider at least equal to theirs.” [...]
Published in 1847, this paragraph — so contemporaneous that it’s astonishing — is a sober awakening that the pressure to conform, obey, comply, acquiesce, and passively accept what we are told has been around a long time, and the message of 167 years ago is still being preached today, in Jesus’s name. (Carolyn Henderson)

For Noche de cine (Spain), Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and Thomas Hardy seem to be all the same:

La clásica novela romántica de Thomas Hardy ‘Lejos del mundanal ruido (Far from the madding crowd)’ vuelve a estrenar una versión cinematográfica de la mano del realizador danés Thomas Vinterberg (‘La caza’). Carey Mulligan es la protagonista en esta ocasión al más puro estilo de Jane Austen o Charlotte Brontë. (Javier Bragado) (Translation)

Manchester Evening News features the upcoming performances of LipService at Elizabeth Gaskell's newly-restored home.

Head down to LipService to Elizabeth Gaskell on the weekend of December 5-6 and, if the company’s previous dips into the life of Elizabeth Gaskell are anything to go by, you’ll find the famous writer frequenting with all the successful women and provocateurs of the time.
Perhaps taking tea with pals Charlotte Brontë and Marie Stopes, or staging protests with the Pankhurst family? All that would build on the company’s Hysterical History Show, “a whacky whirlwind tour of Britain’s female national treasures”. (Sarah Walters)

Also in Manchester, The Manchester Review talks about the Peter McMaster's Wuthering Heights adaptation:

In all honesty, I don’t really know where to start. That’s partly because this is one of the most absurd and surreal things I’ve ever seen on a stage. But it’s also because it kind of blew my mind. From the moment you step into the room to see a grown man trotting around the stage and making horse noises, you know this isn’t going to be your standard adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel. But I doubt that, even at that point, anybody predicted the hour that was to follow.
One difficulty in reviewing this play is that much of its magic comes from the element of surprise, so I’m going to try my best not to ruin that for future audiences. One thing I can definitely say is that this is no ordinary Wuthering Heights. If you go there expecting to make notes for your GCSEs or to hear the story of Cathy and Heathcliff in its full and brutal beauty, you might be disappointed. If you go with an open mind, willing to laugh, and as a fan of Kate Bush, you won’t.
This isn’t just the madcap and irreverent comedy that it first appears, though. Despite the bizarre antics, the bawdy humour, and the downright silliness, this is a play with extremely important underlying messages. (Fran Slater)

The Brontë Parsonage Facebook page links to a clip of Arts Officer Jenna Holmes speaking on BBC Radio Leeds. Geeks Unleashed reviews Wuthering Heights. On Michael Jayston Tumblr we can read an interview with Sorcha Cusack, Jane Eyre in the 1973 TV adaptation:

1. When did you read “Jane Eyre” for the first time and do you remember your first impressions of the novel?”
I’m afraid Wuthering Heights made a far more memorable impression though I remember most vividly the early chapters in J.Eyre: the cruelty of the Reeds and the death of Helen Burns. The fact that I read it when I was about 11 no doubt accounts for this.
2. How did you get the role of Jane? And how did you prepare for the role? Did you watch any previous performances of the character?
I had 2 BBC auditions that day. At the first, for The Pallisers the director asked me where I hoped to be in 20 years time - my totally precocious answer was: ‘Playing Phèdre at the Comedie Francaise! They roared with laughter. The director of Jane Eyre was next door and intrigued to know the cause of such hilarity, so the ice was broken and my nerves left.

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Arthur Butterworth. In Memoriam

The English composer and conductor Arthur Butterworth (1923-2014) died last November 20. He has a special interest in the Brontës and composed several pieces based in the poetry of Emily Brontë but also inspired by the Brontë country moorlands:

The Moors, Suite for large orchestra and organ, Op. 26 (1962)
The Path across the Moors, Op. 17 (1959); also for brass band (1964)
A Moorland Symphony, Op. 32 (1967)
The Night Wind for soprano, clarinet and piano (or orchestra), Op. 38 (1969)
Haworth Moor, 3 Songs for chorus and piano, Op. 110 (2000)
Grey Moorland, Concert March, Op. 134

Haworth Moor (2000) :Written for the Huddersfield Singers to words by Emily and Anne Brontë including RemembrancePremiere July 1st 2000. Huddersfield Singers 125th Anniversary Concert, St Paul's Hall, Huddersfield
The Brontë sisters, Emily, Anne and Charlotte in addition to their novels wrote poetry, that of Emily being far superior to the poems of her sisters.
They collaborated in evoking the Land of the Gondals, a romantic childhood creation of their imagination. However, a more immediate - and plausible -source of the imagination was their lonely moorland environment. The aura of the bleak hills, in all seasons of the year were a constant source of fascination, delight, and indeed love of those wild places. This is expressed in the first of these settings, the poem by Anne: "Lines composed in a wood on a windy day" with its exhilaration and evocation of nature.
"Remembrance" by Emily Brontë is a longer and more introspective poem from the Gondal cycle of imaginative writings. Like her sister's poem, it too captures something of the imagery of the moorlands, and the spell it cast over them. However there is a deeper vein of philosophy and insight that has made it one of the more memorable of nineteenth century poetic creations.
"The North Wind" was written by Anne at the end of January 1838 and evokes, as does much of the sisters' nature poetry, the almost ecstatic fascination, amounting even to obsession, they felt for their native harsh and inhospitable moorland.
They all suffered from the climatic conditions; the chill, damp atmosphere insidiously claimed them in turn. However, the legacy of their imaginative insight into life, love and thwarted yearnings have for more than a century and a half captivated generations of us.
The Night Wind (1969)In 1969 he was commissioned by the Arts Council of Great Britain to compose "The Night Wind, Op.38, a set of three poems by Emily Brontë (*), for the Trinidadian soprano, Miriam Nathaniel, a work first performed at the Calder Valley Festival of that year. Almost all his major orchestral works, notably the four symphonies and the suite for large orchestra "The Moors" Op. 26, contemplate this recurring theme of fascination for the remote moorlands of northern England. (Source)

(*) The Night Wind, The Visionary and The linnet in the rocky dells.

The Independent publishes his obituary with a special mention to The Night Wind:

His song cycle The Night Wind sets three poems by Emily Brontë, the poet of Yorkshire and the moors. "Like Emily Brontë I have always been deeply under the spell of the remote and lonely moorlands of the north of England," he wrote, "and much of my music has been influenced by their oftimes forbidding desolate loneliness." Perhaps his love of wild country is most popularly exemplified in his short tone poem The Path Across the Moors. (Lewis Foreman) 

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Hearthrobby Mr Rochester

Arkansas Traveler recommends several 'Good Reads to Catch Up On Over Thanksgiving Break'. One of them is by a new author:

3. “Wuthering Heights” by Emile Brontë:  Romance and ghost stories are an interesting combination, and this book is one of weird obsession and everlasting love. Set nearly entirely in a cold, deserted climate, “Wuthering Heights” is perfect to curl up with in the wintertime. Another classic that has become famous for the love-hate relationship readers will find with the two protagonists, Catherine and Heathcliff, one can’t miss being in on the age-old theme of misused lovers and undying affection. (Michele Dobbins)

Bustle also mentions the novel before suggesting more books to read on Thanksgiving break.

There are three things I never leave for home without: a bottle of wine, a copy of my passport, and a good book. Sure, the wine might only make it through the first night, and yes, the passport occasionally gets forgotten or confiscated at the least of convenient times (ask me about it over that bottle of wine), but the book — it has always been there for me.
Whether it was Wuthering Heights over Christmas Break or Play It As It Lays that fateful weekend my heart was broken and I had to make my way home by bus, the right book has always made the difference. And now, with Thanksgiving break approaching, I’ve started frantically scanning my shelves, lining up my options, and doing some serious weighing of alternatives. (Hannah Nelson-Teutsch)

Pittsburgh Historical Fiction Examiner interviews writer Jennifer Niven.

3. You're having a dinner party and you can invite 5 people from history, who would they be? There are too many to choose from! But maybe Harry Houdini, Emily Brontë, Zelda Fitzgerald, Abraham Lincoln, and Errol Flynn. (Kayla Posney)

The Guardian reviews the second season of Psychobitches and looks back on the first:

The first series was a knockout – Julia Davis played a wailing hybrid of Pam Ayres and Sylvia Plath; the Brontë sisters were foul-mouthed, filthy puppets obsessed with sex, and Sharon Horgan played a campy Eva Peron, who clung on to her bottles of “boobles”. It was silly, and odd, and very funny. (Rebecca Nicholson)

This is how Fast Company describes Michael Fassbender's take on Mr Rochester:

Fassbender is an interesting choice, having tackled roles ranging from a broody, hearthrobby Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre to a broody, hearthrobby version of psychotherapist Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method. (Chris Gayomali)

Bustle on a sidebraid sported by Kristen Stewart:

this tousled braid is exactly the type of wind-ruffled coif I would expect to see on Elizabeth Bennet or Jane Eyre. (Tyler Atwood)

Atticus Review interviews writer Susan Millar DuMars who says she has

written a story called Grace, about the servant who cares for the mad Mrs. Rochester in Jane Eyre. (Georgia Bellas)

The Brontë Parsonage Facebook page shows a lovely detail to be found in the garden of Elizabeth Gaskell's newly-opened house, which according to them, looks 'resplendent in the Manchester gloom'. Ann Dinsdale also 'channeled Charlotte Brontë' on a recent visit to the house.

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The Male Heights in Manchester

Peter McMaster's Wuthering Heights is going to be performed in Manchester:

The Arches presents
Wuthering Heights
by Peter McMaster
Contact Theatre, Manchester

Wednesday 26 November 8:00pm
Thursday 27 November 8:00pm

Four performers explore their experiences of being men in this bold, award-winning, all male interpretation of Emily Brontë’s seminal text.

As they recall the dark expanses of the Yorkshire moors, they sing together, full-throated, and dance optimistically to the howling tones of Kate Bush. They ask, almost 200 years after the book was published, are the aspirations of men very different now?

The energy of this brave new performance is not to be missed.

NOTES
Suitable for over 16s.
Post-show talk on Wed 26 Nov.

EDIT:
And in a completely different register, a student production of Willis Hall Jane Eyre adaptation:

Malvern College
Jane Eyre
from Charlotte Brontë. Adapted by Willis Hall
26-28 November 2014 (Senior Play Lower Sixth/Hundred Production)

EDIT: A gallery of pictures of the production can be found here.

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Bertha, the baddie

The Guardian discusses 'baddies' in books:

It was an odd delight to have to choose a favourite villain in literature. Reading the choices made by fellow contributors has, to an extent, brilliantly confused rather than dully clarified my thoughts. Are we talking about the scope of their megalomania – a Sauron or an Ahab? Or is it the nastiness of their behaviour – a Patrick Bateman or a Humbert Humbert? Or is it the slyness of their villainy – Bertha from Jane Eyre or Mrs Danvers from Rebecca? Henry de Montherlant observed that “happiness writes in white ink on white paper”, and it’s certainly true that villainy thrills on the page in a manner decency struggles to realise. (Stuart Kelly)

On the other side of the coin, Repubblica (Italy) looks at heroines.

Quando si è imparato che bisogna tener duro per le prime tre pagine, perché entrare in una storia è come saltare dentro un buco nero, la letteratura fa tana nei nostri cuori. Ed è in quel momento che nella vita di una lettrice entrano le regine: Jane Austen, Emily e Charlotte Brontë. Orgoglio e pregiudizio, Jane Eyre e Cime Tempestose. Si parte da lì, ovunque si decida di andare. Io sono andata sempre verso le storie, ho sempre avuto questa passione imperdonabile e inestinguibile per la narrativa. Lo dico perché altre sapranno indicare meglio di me saggi e riflessioni, la non-fiction che deve stare sul comodino di ogni donna. Io  sono devota profondamente e senza possibilità di guarigione al valore dell'invenzione, alla verità dell'immaginazione, a  quella catena di meravigliosi inganni che costituisce un romanzo. Ogni romanzo, persino quello che sembra più vicino alla realtà. I diari per esempio, o le lettere. (Elena Stancanelli) (Translation)

Weighing in on the gender imbalance debate, this reader of The Sydney Morning Herald is not quite so sure about Wuthering Heights for a reason:

Bronte makes us ask the eternal question. The gender imbalance notwithstanding, I'm all for the dumping of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, if only to save any future teacher the inevitable embarrassment of not being able to respond to some student's query as to the meaning of "wuthering" ("Gender imbalance in HSC English book lists criticised", November 24).
David Grant (Ballina)

This Portland Tribune columnist is 'reading' the novel nonetheless:

In the CD player of my car is the audiobook for “Wuthering Heights,” the classic novel by Emily Brontë. [...]
"Wuthering” is a novel powerful enough to have withstood the test of time and remain as one of the greatest love stories in the history of literature. [...]
Don’t skip Brontë. Books like “Wuthering” are the meat and potatoes for a well-rounded reader. (Stephen Alexander)

Entertainment Weekly's Shelf Life asks 'writer-editor-actress' Tavi Gevinson the following:

What’s a book you’ve pretended to have read? In high school I pretended to read The Odyssey, Jane Eyre, and Pride & Prejudice. (Stephan Lee)

El Mundo (Spain) reminds us that, like the Brontës, the Goytisolo brothers are a family of writers now that Juan Goytisolo has been awarded with the Cervantes Letters Prize. Girl with her Head in a Book invites you to an upcoming Wuthering Heights readalong. Another ongoing readalong (a Jane Eyre one) is the one that A Night's Dream of Books or The Frugal Chariot are posting about.

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Auditions and Readings

A couple of alerts for today, November 25:

Auditions in Todmorden, UK:

Todmorden Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society
Auditions
26th November
Auditions for Cathy and Heathcliffe (sic) parts only on this night
27th November
Auditions for all other parts

Lucy Gough has written a passionate new adaptation of the timeless classic. Emily Brontë's gothic tale of tortured love is brought to the stage in all its turbulent, passionate glory. Long before Twilight stirred the emotions of a generation, Wuthering Heights embodied the eternal pull between good and evil, dark and light, and heaven and hell.
This exhilarating and vibrant adaptation of the literary classic brings to life the all-encompassing love between the taciturn, brooding Heathcliff and the emotionally unstable Catherine. Their destructive relationship is one of the most enduring love stories of English literature. It's terrific theatre which is completely true to the essence of the book. (Via Todmorden News)

Reading in Shelton, Connecticut:

Plumb Memorial LibraryRetro Reads — Friday, April 25, 6 p.m. This new book group considers classics from youth: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë this month. Read or re-read and share opinions and snacks, a reader’s Happy Hour; new members welcome, copies of the book available. (Via Shelton Herald)

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'Wuthering Heights sure ain't cheerful'

The Independent (Ireland) reviews the Gate Theatre producion of Wuthering Heights.

The first reaction to the Gate production of Anne-Marie Casey's adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is a sense of profound relief: this is Brontë's novel, not a jumble of 21st century slang and jargon in a story framework that matches the original only in an occasional point of contact.
It could be claimed that Casey had an easier task than some adaptors in that Wuthering Heights is an outrageous Gothic tale, its language straightforward and unadorned by fashionable style and thus presenting fewer possible pitfalls. But such advantages have not prevented other adaptors of period classics, here and elsewhere, from torturing them into a slow and mangled death.
Casey's adaptation is faithful from the first. Mr. Lockwood is the man who has rented the ill-fated house in which so many of the protagonists have died, from the wild and tormented Cathy to her betrayed and desperate husband Edgar Linton. And the tale unfolds as it does in the book: as told to him by the housekeeper Nelly. She has kept the dreadful secrets of a fierce and impossible love to herself for 20 years, watching Heathcliff, the man despised even by the crude Yorkshire society into which he was adopted by Cathy's father, howl himself towards the grave to which he has driven his wild lover in the impossibility of their almost unearthly passion.
Casey has added a fantasy of her own: in her text, Heathcliff's "gibberish" when he is picked up as a small and filthy boy on the streets of Liverpool is actually Irish, a doubtful fantasy, since Patrick Prunty, father of the famous sisters, was always at some pains to disguise his own Irishness (even changing his name to the more "refined" Brontë.) [...]
Wuthering Heights sure ain't cheerful, but it is an excellent piece of theatre, even though somewhat downbeat as a Christmas offering. (Emer O'Kelly)

The same newspaper also wonders whether 'modern women' can 'reach the 'Wuthering Heights' of having two partners'.

The Sydney Morning Herald is concerned about the 'Gender imbalance in HSC English texts'.

Anna Funder's Stasiland made it to the new list of prescribed English texts for Higher School Certificate study as did the filmmaker Jane Campion, the science fiction novelist Ursula Le Guin and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
But for these exceptions women writers are a vulnerable species on next year's senior English reading list, according to University of Notre Dame's lecturer in literature and communications, Dr Camilla Nelson.
At least 70 per cent of texts authorised for senior study in years 11 and 12 by the NSW Board of Studies from 2015 to 2020, are authored by men. [...]
The notion that the best books are written by men is absurd but that's precisely the message the gender imbalance sends, says Nelson.
"Among the texts we have lost are Austen's Northanger Abbey, Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Emily Dickinson's poetry which rather supports my suspicion that as the classic nineteenth century texts are taken off the curriculum there's a tendency to replace with contemporary male, rather than contemporary female writers.
"I am certainly not saying that we should necessarily bring back all the classic nineteenth century writers who basically dominated the novel last century. I can certainly see the sense in engaging students with contemporary texts. But the gender politics at work are astonishing." (Linda Morris)

The Yorkshire Post has an update on the plans for a wind farm in Brontë country.

Councillors are being advised to refuse a bid to install two wind turbines on a farm in the heart of the countryside made famous by the Brontës.
The move to construct the turbines on 18-metre high masts at Old Oxenhope Farm, Oxenhope, Keighley, has divided opinion.
Bradford Council has received seven letters in support of the scheme and 10 letters of objection. Oxenhope Parish Council is among its critics.
Coun Neal Cameron, the chairman of the parish council, said: “We tend to look at every case on its merits with special regards to the aesthetics of the locality. We are very much an area of outstanding natural beauty.
“The Brontë sisters’ countryside is very important historically and affects a lot of tourism.
“We tend to treat everything how it will sit in its environment and unfortunately in this application the turbines would be very prominent on the horizon in the locality.
“The farm is equidistant between Haworth, the home of the Brontës which attracts a lot of visitors, and the Brontë waterfalls. We support wholeheartedly the fact that we have a dairy farm in the village. We are very keen to support and retain agricultural activities.”
Critics fear the turbines will adversely affect tourism in the area. However, supporters say the development is vital to the farm business and the application will help the farm so it should be supported.
They say that government policy is to reduce carbon emissions from the dairy industry. They claim that “without allowing farms to develop they inevitably decline and ultimately environmental stewardship declines with them”.
Members of Bradford Council’s Area Planning Panel for Keighley and Shipley will be advised to refuse the application when they meet on Thursday.
The farm is next to a public footpath which is part of the Brontë Way and The Railway Children Walk.

An Ottawa Sun columnist writes about a late member of the community:

Amidst that chaos -- and just two doors down from the bordered-up crack house -- I found Jean-Marc Jubinville. He was sitting on his front porch, dressed in his going-to-mass pants and collared shirt, drinking tea and reading an Anne Brontë novel. [...]
And that quiet grace -- can you come up with a better definition than reading Anne Brontë next to a crack house? -- amazing how often it wins. How often it saves our communities. (Ron Corbett)

Classic Movie Favorites reviews Wuthering Heights 1939. Words for Worms posts about the original novel. Babbling Books continues reading Jane Eyre. Fanda Classiclit also post about Charlotte Brontë's novel. Finally, Dr. Harrison Solow explains 'Why We Still Read Jane Eyre'.

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Charming Orient Shining England

This is a study of the influence of The Arabian Nights in British nineteenth century novelists. Including Charlotte Brontë:

Charming Orient Shining England
Dr. Mahmoud F. Al-Ali
XLIBRIS Self publishing (November 14, 2013)
ISBN-13: 978-1493114511

The Arabian Nights is a composite work consisting of popular stories originally transmitted orally and developed during several centuries, with material added somewhat haphazardly at different periods and places. This study was devoted to the impact of The Arabian Nights on four novelists of the nineteenth century: Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, George Meredith, and Robert Louis Stevenson. These authors were selected on the ground of their life spans, which encompassed almost the whole century. Because they are among the masters of the English novel, it is reasonable to assume that they did not content themselves with mere imitations resulting in pseudo-oriental tales. Their original creations assimilated the influences from The Arabian Nights, forming new unified structures with interwoven references and allusions, which are to be redetected.

Chapter 2 is "The Influence of The Arabian Nights on Charlotte Brontë".

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