Overcooked Heights

Tony Earnshaw in The Yorkshire Post is no fan of Wuthering Heights 1939:

Think any number of overcooked turkeys… I’m reminded of Samuel Goldwyn’s legendary take on Wuthering Heights, starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier. Not a foot of film was exposed in Yorkshire. Instead the moors were recreated in California’s Conejo Valley, with fake heather painted purple (in a black-and-white film).
Yet the Oberon/Olivier version is still acclaimed as a classic. Beauty, clearly, is in the eyes of the beholders.

The New York Times reviews Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans:

Show of hands: Was anybody here an odd-looking, precocious, misunderstood child? Oh. . . . Everybody? Maybe that’s why so many of the novels we love most, from Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” to Rowling’s Harry Potter series, feature some version of this small person.

The children author Mary Sebag-Montefiore tells about her experience adapting classics for children in The Guardian:

There are few things more glorious than bringing our fantastic classics to new generations. I never want alter the integrity or the atmosphere of the original; I use the writers’ own words wherever possible, but the story must also zip along. I hope the complexities of people and the past - for instance, Nancy’s unbreakable love for the evil Bill Sykes, Heathcliff’s revenge, Pierre, in War and Peace, trying to make sense of love, loss, war and betrayal – will unravel in the child’s mind with all the riches of growth of understanding. With luck, he or she will one day want to read the real thing; if not, at least they’ll know something.

The Catherine Nichols 'experiment' on gender bias in publication is also in The Independent:

Sadly, it seems Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot, Middlemarch) and the Brontë sisters were onto something when they wrote as men and not enough has changed in centuries after all. Sigh. (Jess Denham)

and in The Christian Science Monitor:

Nichols' experiment is also nothing new. Scores of other female writers disguised their names. Middlemarch author George Eliot was Mary Ann Evans in real life, Louisa May Alcott wrote as A.M. Barnard, and the Brontë sisters as Currer and Eliis Bell.  (Husna Haq) 

Even in Elle (Italy) or ActuaLitté (France).

Contra Costa Times presents the latest novel by Jil Plummer, Amber Dust:

Her latest novel, "Amber Dust," was inspired when Plummer lived in England's Yorkshire moors, filled with heather, forests, rolling hills, shimmering coastline, historic abbeys, castles, villages and hamlets. Amid that scenery, reminiscent of Plummer's favorite novel, "Wuthering Heights," lies the backdrop of her new novel.
"I remember hiking up the hills from our cottage and going across the streams and valleys dotted with sheep," said Plummer. "Everything I've done in my life adds life to my books." (Janice De Jesus)

But the pseudonyms also mean anonymity. We are not very happy that the Brontës are used in this context: this is what PRWatch reports of a recent meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC):

Jon Riches of the Goldwater Institute, funded in part by the Charles G. Koch Foundation, was first up. (...(
Instead, Riches recommended the phrase "mandatory government disclosure." Among other problems, "mandatory government disclosure prevents public discourse from focusing on the message and instead focuses on the messenger," said Riches. The solution is "not to silence, but to allow all speech and trust the people to figure out what is true and what is false."
In other words, when the Kochs spend hundreds of millions in phony issue ads attacking candidates, when they fail to disclose any of their funders and put names like "Americans for Prosperity" and "Citizens for a Strong America" on the ad, voters are just going to have to figure it out for themselves.
And then Riches dove deep into the rabbit hole: "anonymous speech has been part of America since its beginning," he chirped, citing the Federalist Papers. Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Lewis Carroll and even George Orwell published anonymously, Riches reminded the crowd. (Mary Bottari)

Banbridge Leader, Lurgan Mail and Lisburn Today present the Banbridge ChapterHouse performances of Jane Eyre today, August 7:

To coincide with the theatre event Libraries NI has been hosting a series of readings from Jane Eyre.
On Saturday 1 August Victoria Gleason was in Rathfriland Library to do a reading from the famous love story.
Roma Tomelty will be entertaining audiences in Banbridge Library on Tuesday 4 August at 7pm and Dromore Library on Wednesday 5 August at 7pm.
Admission to all of the readings is free however prior booking is advisable.
To book contact Banbridge Library on telephone number: 028 4062 3973 and Dromore Library on telephone number 028 9269 2280.

Twinsburg Bulletin talks with the local actress, Talia Cosentino:

Her ultimate dream role?
"Jane from 'Jane Eyre,'" Cosentino responded. "It's a beautiful play with a beautiful story. I would love to perform that role some day." (April Helms)

Metro lists the worst things you can do in a train's quiet coach:

14. Laugh!
Take your favourite book of humour with you, and spend the endless hours laughing joyously and without inhibition. Even better, read something romantic like Wuthering Heights and still chuckle like a chimp. Feel the tide of hilarity course through the carriage like lava. (Simon Buckley)

Helsingin Sanomat (Finland) talks about the Brontës alleged photographs; The Girl who Love Books visits Haworth, the Parsonage and Top Withins; blooming twig maintains a love/hate relationship with Wuthering Heights. LJMU English is more on the love side. Lynchburg College Archives unearths photographs of a 1946 student production of Jane Eyre.