“I’m not interested in chocolate box representations"

Sally Wainwright writes in The Yorkshire Post about the new Brontë drama that she is writing for TV, To Walk Invisible:

“I’m not interested in chocolate box representations,” says the Halifax-born screenwriter behind Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax. “I want it to be authentic. It’s very easy for these kind of historic dramas to slip into easy cliche, but right from the start I was determined to get past the Brontë myth which has inevitably romanticised and overshadowed the lives and careers of Emily, Charlotte and Ann. I wanted to immerse myself in what life was really like for these three women living in the north of England.”
Wainwright, who describes herself as a lifelong fan of the Brontës, did what she always does when it comes to research and buried her head in books. Lots of books. With just two hours to tell her story, she knew that it would be impossible to tell the full Brontë biopic. Nor did she want to, preferring instead to focus on one particular story arc. In the end she settled on the three years from 1845 to 1848, which for the Brontës were packed with more drama and tragedy than most families see in a lifetime.
“I think there is a perception that the Brontës spent all their lives at the parsonage, living in quiet isolation, but that’s simply not true. Charlotte and Emily went off to Brussels for a while, Ann was a tutor and Branwell had a number of disastrous attempts to forge his own way in life. However, in 1845 they were together again when for various reasons they were all either drawn or forced back to the family home.” (...)
“The next step is casting and we have been tossing a few names around. The key is getting four actors who are believable as siblings and that’s not easy. I have watched so many dramas and thought, ‘Who are they trying to kid? They don’t come across as a family’. It comes down to that indescribable chemistry which you only know you have when you actually get the actors in a room together.”

The National (Scotland) highlights the rebroadcast of Walking Through History's episode on Brontë Country:

Tony Robinson takes to the moors above Haworth, West Yorkshire, the stunning landscape which inspired the Brontë sisters and, several years later, led to Kate Bush’s first Number 1 single, Wuthering Heights.
This programme is a lovely mingling of literary and natural history, as Robinson sets out on a four-day trek, going from Bradford to Haworth, taking in Thornton where the Brontë children were born. This allows him to stop off for breaks from all that strenuous hiking to visit various experts. We learn what life was like for the Brontës in Haworth and that, with their house looking directly on to a graveyard, they were constantly reminded of death, and life expectancy in the Yorkshire village was terribly low, meaning the graveyard was always being used. Death was everywhere.
Yet the Brontë family, although not rich, were relatively well-off. Things were far worse for those employed in mills and factories and those working the land. Tony Robinson brings forth some terrible tales of how harsh life was in a Victorian village – all far removed from the romantic image of old rural life once you scrutinise it. Yet the same goes for the Brontë novels: they’re often pigeon-holed as romantic. What rubbish! They’re dark, powerful, immense novels with no silly romance in sight. (Julie McDowall)

Charlotte McPherson has visited York and writes about it in Today's Zaman:

For our Today's Zaman readers who are fans of the Brontës. I came across this fascinating fact while visiting the Undercroft at York Minster. You may not have known that Anne Brontë had developed a strong affinity for the minster from her visits there with the Robinsons when she worked at Thorp Green. Her friend, Ellen Nussey, later recorded that as Anne gazed up at the magnificent structure, she said: "If finite power can do this, what is the…?" when emotion stayed her speech, and her companions quickly moved her to a less exciting scene.
Anne Brontë's unfinished, last written words describing her final visit to York Minster in 1849 are words for contemplation even today. "If finite power can do this, what is the…?”

Jezebel interviews Kate Beaton, from Hark! A Vagrant!:

If you’re a history nerd and you’ve spent any time whatsoever online, you’ve probably familiar with Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant comics. Because jokes about Lord Byron and Liszt and the Brontë sisters’ questionable taste in men are great, and hers in particular are hilarious. (Kelly Faircloth)

The Atlantic explains what a pathetic fallacy is with a Jane Eyre example:

For a defense of our rock gods, it might help to turn to the foundational critic of weather imagery in art, the 19th-century writer John Ruskin. In an 1856 essay, he coined the term “pathetic fallacy” for when authors act as though the natural world reflects or possesses human traits. “Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy” from Jane Eyre is an example of pathetic fallacy [.] (Spencer Kornhaber)

The Telegraph recommends some of the best films to see on demand on British TV:

On ITV Player: Jane Eyre 1997
Kay Mellor’s pared back 1997 take on the Brontë classic has been slightly neglected in the wake of more recent adaptations, but Samantha Morton’s measured, quietly formidable Jane and Ciaran Hinds as a fuming, fulminating Rochester are good value. (Catherine Gee)

The Times mentions the Brontës in an article about Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman:

Indeed, many of the greatest writers have been shy or socially awkward, recoiling from attention, finding more honest expression on paper. Jane Austen ("By a Lady") and the Brontë sisters ("Acton, Ellis and Currer Bell") discovered freedom behind the invisibility cloak of pseudonyms.  (Ben Mactintyre)

Time Magazine talks about the classics tie-in editions:

There are two ways to try to capture readers’ dollars when it comes to promoting old books with new movies. One is to partner with the studio to put out an official “tie-in” edition featuring the movie poster on the cover. This tie-in method has previously worked well for Vintage Classics, which has that deal for Madding Crowd. It saw the biggest sales boosts from tie-in covers in recent years in Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, The Painted Veil and Mildred Pierce (an HBO mini-series). (Sarah Begley)

FrontiersMedia analyses the filmography of the actress Ida Lupino who was Emily Brontë in Devotion 1946:

This fanciful version of the lives of the Brontë Sisters has Ida as Emily (Wuthering Heights) and Olivia de Havilland as Charlotte (Jane Eyre). A lot of it was fake, but Lupino was magnificent as the tormented Brontë whose book would go on to immortality. (Mike McCrann)

The Verge traces a profile of the website The Awl:

"This is going to be gross because it’s so sincere," says The Toast’s Mallory Ortberg, "butThe Awl is truly the best thing that ever happened to me." Her book, Texts from Jane Eyre, began as a Hairpin series that was inspired by a comment left on an Awl story by her future Toast co-editor Nicole Cliffe. (Josh Dzieza)

De Standaard (Belgium) publishes an article where the children author Floortje Zwigtman writes a letter to no other than Emily Brontë:

Ik was nog maar een tiener toen ik je leerde kennen. We moesten boeken van een leeslijst lezen, en ik koos altijd negentiende-eeuwse romans, want ook al waren die dik en moeilijk, ze hadden tenminste een verhaal. Zo kwam ik eerst bij je zus terecht, want Jane Eyre is echt iets voor pubermeisjes –zo’n romantisch en mysterieus verhaal. Later ontdekte ik dat er nog een Brontë-zus was, en begon vol verwachting aan jouw Wuthering Heights. (Translation)

Women Write About Comics and Cannonball Read 7 reviews Re Jane by Patricia Park.