'A key part of the Brontë sisters’ heritage will be lost forever'

The Guardian has an article on Wycoller Hall and its Lancashire county council’s support due to be removed in 2018.

A country house that provided the model for Mr Rochester’s home in Jane Eyre is under “dire threat”, say campaigners. More than 6,000 people have signed a petition calling on Lancashire county council to reconsider plans to scrap their management and maintenance of Wycoller Hall, near Colne.
The ruin of the 16th-century manor house, at the centre of a country park, was immortalised by Charlotte Brontë as Ferndean Manor in her 1847 novel – the property where romantic lead Mr Rochester relocates after fire destroys his home at Thornfield Hall. Wycoller Hall is just over the moors from Haworth in West Yorkshire, where the Brontë family lived. It is believed that Charlotte and Emily visited Wycoller village frequently.
Although fallen into disrepair, Wycoller Hall is a listed building and is currently managed by Lancashire county council. The council is proposing to stop maintenance and abandon ranger service patrols as part of £262m budget cuts, but campaigners fear this will make the property vulnerable to vandalism and result in its being “lost forever”.
Richard Wilcocks, former chairman of the Brontë Society, said the council’s proposals were a “smack in the face” on the 200th anniversary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth. “It is very depressing that Lancashire county council is planning to close down essential services for Wycoller Hall, which is much more than a place of interest for Brontë lovers,” Wilcocks said. “This action amounts to an act of vandalism against part of our heritage, and it is particularly thoughtless and cynical this year, when the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth is being celebrated.”
According to the Friends of Wycoller, who have set up an online petition against the proposals: “Ferndean Manor … is under dire threat – as is the picturesque and inspirational Brontë Way, which starts at Ferndean Manor and leads to Brontë Parsonage museum, Haworth.
“Visitors will no longer be able to see the great aisled barn or use the countryside activity centre. The visitor toilets will close and the privately run cafe and shop are unlikely to survive. A key part of the Brontë sisters’ heritage will be lost forever.” (David Barnett)

Click here to sign the petition. Apollo Magazine relays the story too.

The Washington Post reviews Winter by Christopher Nicholson, described as 'a passionate reimagining of Thomas Hardy’s troubled love life', and tells a funny anecdote:

The novelist and poet Thomas Hardy was once asked if he’d read “Wuthering Heights.” No, he never had. And why not? Because, explained the author of the heartbreaking “Tess of the d’Urbervilles,” he’d heard that it was “depressing.” (Michael Dirda)

Chicago Tribune reviews Samantha Hunt's novel Mr Splitfoot.

That the American Gothic so often takes the shape of a road trip isn't surprising. The Gothic tends to offer up dark inversions of a society's cherished ideals — think of the domestic angel gone mad in "Jane Eyre" and "The Yellow Wallpaper," or patrimony turned poisonous in "Wuthering Heights" — and what do Americans idealize more than the freedom of the open road? The creepy car trip, traces of which appear everywhere from "Lolita" to "Psycho," is a fun-house reflection of our national fetish for limitless mobility, its villains often drawn from the ranks of the immobile — in other words, locals. (Amy Gentry)

The Washington Post reviews the film Southside with You, based on Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date.

Mr. Darcy. Heathcliff. Rhett Butler. Edward Rochester. They’re all swoon-worthy male characters, and now there’s a new name to add to the list: Barack Obama. (Stephanie Merry)

Business of Fashion takes a look at Armani Privé's new collection summarising it as 'A Sci-Fi Wuthering Heights'.

Lilac. It’s a lovely colour on a bush. And there’s something about chinchilla that takes the tone well. It may also be the colour of Old Hollywood. Even though we know the town in black and white, it’s not so hard to imagine it redolent with the scent, the shade. For his couture show tonight, Giorgio Armani courted those impressions by putting each and every one of his models in a black wig that was supposed to evoke Merle Oberon, Cathy to Laurence Oliver’s Heathcliff in 1939’s very black and white Wuthering Heights. Appreciate that oddity and you may be able to come to terms with the collection. (Tim Blanks)

BooksBlog (Italy) tells the story of doctor Paul Kalanithi who died when he was 37 years old.

Nel maggio 2013 Kalanithi, neurochirurgo alla Stanford University, mandò un’e-mail a un amico per spiegargli di avere un cancro in fase terminale: “La buona notizia è che sono sopravvissuto alle due Bronte, a Keats e a Stephen Crane, la cattiva notizia e che non ho scritto nulla”. (Davide Mazzocco) (Translation)

If you are a Brontëite who happens to be an Aries, here's your horoscope (ugh) for the week according to Pacific Sun:

Do you know Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights? At one point, the heroine Catherine tells her friend about Edgar, a man she’s interested in. “He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace,” Catherine says. “I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine.” If you’re a typical Aries, you’re more aligned with Catherine than with Edgar. But I’m hoping you might consider making a temporary compromise in the coming weeks. “At last, we agreed to try both, …” Catherine concluded, “and then we kissed each other and were friends.” (Rob Brezsny)

Bustle has selected 20 love quotes to celebrate Valentine's Day, including one from Wuthering Heights. The story of a man whose life was saved by books on IOL, one of them being Wuthering Heights (South Africa). Daily Kos has one more Jane Eyre strip. Pajiba posts about Wuthering Heights 2011. On the Brussels Brontë Blog, Eric Ruijssenaars has written a post about the curious story of an 1853 Dutch translation of a novel called Broeder en zuster by Acton Currer Bell.