Brontë as a trailblazer

The Guardian announces the upcoming broadcast of Charlotte Brontë in Babylon in BBC Radio 4:

Charlotte Brontë In Babylon (Weekdays, 7.45pm, Radio 4) is the story of the five visits the author made to London in her life, meeting her publishers, proving her identity while preserving her anonymity, and dealing with the scandalous price of things in the shops. (David Hepworth)

Charlotte Cory is also the curator of the Charlotte Brontë exhibition at the John Soane Museum in London which opens next week. There is a special celebration on March 18. She says on the Brontë Parsonage Facebook Wall:

Hi everyone, charlotte cory here. if you enjoy the drama series this week and are in london, i have some of the actors from the cast coming to the Sir John Soane's Museum on Friday night for a candlelit jane eyre themed evening around this magical house. and you can see the very dress that charlotte bronte wore to the thackeray dinner (episode 3) and her little account book (from episode 1) and meet some celebrated bronte experts and enjoy a nice glass of wine or an 1859 Colonel Fox's gin. i think there are a few tickets left. but you can visit the exhibition at any other time for free and soak in the atmosphere of this perfectly preserved architectural gem...

The News & Observer recommends Catherine Lowell's The Madwoman Upstairs:

If you immediately thought of “The Madwoman in the Attic,” you’ll be delighted with this breezy Brontë-centric tale. Oxford student Samantha Whipple is the sole surviving descendant of the famous writing family, but she is clueless about the location of the “Vast Brontë Estate” that the literary community suspects her family has concealed for generations.
But someone may be leaving clues in her eccentric tower room at Oxford – books from her father’s library, which she thought were lost in a fire. (Salem Macknee)

Herefordshire Live covers the shooting in Herefordshire of Elisaveta Abrahall's new Wuthering Heights film:

A new adaptation of Wuthering Heights is being filmed in Herefordshire. We spoke to actors Sha'ori Morris and Paul Atlas, who play Catherine and Heathcliff, about Emily Bronte's epic novel and how county-based production company Three Hedgehogs Film are recreating the wild Moors in the north of the shire. (Lauren Rogers) (Read more)

Literary Hub interviews Tracy Chevalier:

BP: What draws you to Brontë’s great work? To its protagonist?
TC: I first encountered Jane Eyre in college, as an English major at Oberlin. I remember being really taken with the romance between Jane and Rochester, which is unbelievable and yet believable at the same time. It’s so satisfying to have him fall in love with her, and it’s a happy ending even though he’s much reduced. But I think, even if it’s a kind of qualified happy ending, that it means something to readers because Jane has grown. I was enamored of her character, and that’s what’s stayed with me. That’s what makes the book, in the end—not the moors, not the orphanage, but how Jane remains strong and determined and very much herself no matter what is thrown at her. The novel is a sort of life lesson in watching a woman grow.
BP: The Charlotte Brontë Bicentenary is significant in large part because Jane Eyre is such a revolutionary, important work. What makes it so?
TC: Jane Eyre is one of the first novels in the first person, for one thing. She’s the first heroine who speaks in the first person, rather than having a somewhat distant, condescending, omniscient narrator tell us her story. This means we get to know her much better than, for example, Austen’s characters, who are always kept at a remove by their narrator. With Jane, you have much more at stake as a reader because of the immediacy. She uses this wonderful device of bringing the reader right in, which is so powerful. You’ve gone on a journey with Jane. You have much more at stake, emotionally, than with many earlier novels.
The other side, which cannot be ignored, is women’s social lot from Brontë’s time to our own. When she wrote Jane Eyre there were very few successful women writers. She came out of nowhere, and she showed us how to do it, that you can come from obscurity and have no privilege or connections and still write a masterpiece. One of the reasons I approached only women writers for this collection is because we, as women, are particularly in debt to Brontë as a trailblazer. (Bethanne Patrick)

Jennifer Moody in the Albany Democrat-Herald shares her personal musical history:

I haven't dated all that many people in my life, but I learned some good music from them, too. One was a huge Cars fan; all those songs still make me smile. Another was more of an '80s headbanger, so there I picked up Judas Priest, Dokken, Queensryche, Iron Maiden and Motley Crue. The third liked Janis Joplin, someone I'd never given a chance before. The fourth introduced me to the song "Wuthering Heights," although he preferred Pat Benetar's cover to the original, which is by Kate Bush.

Good Housekeeping (April 2016) has two Brontë mentions. One in an article about How to be a Heroine:

From Jane Eyre to Bridget Jones, some characters find a special place in our hearts. On the 200th anniversary of her birht, we celebrate Charlotte Brontë's most famous heroine, and those who followed...
1847
Jane Eyre. A Feminist... before the word was invented
Charlotte Brontë's best-known work was recently voted the most popular novel of all time. It tells the tale of the orphan Jane's abusive childhood and how she eventually finds love with the brooding Mr Rochester. This prototype feminist never lets herself be dominated by a man.

The other is a book recommendation:

Nelly Dean by Alison Case
This retelling of Wuthering Heights from the housekeeper's point of view was very enjoyable. Although I knew the story well, it was utterly gripping.

Daily O on Jean Rhys:

Sometimes, it's good when success comes late. It doesn't mark your life. By the time you are identified with that One Big Work, you are ready to die. This was Jean Rhys' story. She wrote beautiful, slim, understated novels about mistreated, rootless women: After Leaving Mr McKenzie (1931), Voyage in the Dark (1934) and Good Morning Midnight (1939). Then, silence. It would be 27 years before she would publish Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966. She died 13 years later. Wide Sargasso Sea became her super-hit novel, the only one she is remembered by. The novel still sells thousands of copies and is widely prescribed in American schools. Norton put out a beautiful edition of her complete novels in 1985. Not many cared for it. By that time, Rhys was dead and couldn't care less herself. (Palash Krishna Mehrotra)

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article64831287.html#storylink=cpy

nnz-online (Germany) reviews the German translation of Jolien Janzing's De Meester:

In ihren neuen Roman „Die geheime Liebe der Carlotte Brontë“ skizziert die niederländische Autorin Jolien Janzing das Leben von Charlotte Brontë. Das Buch gewährt einen Einblick in ihr Seelenleben und basiert auf wahren historischen Ereignissen. Es erzählt aber auch eine unbekannte Episode aus dem Leben der Frau hinter Jane Eyre. (...) (Mario Bartsch) (Translation)

Le Huffington Post (France) explores Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own:

Atteinte d'une grave maladie nerveuse, Elizabeth Barrett bénéficiait de conditions matérielles bien supérieures à celles de Jane Austen ou des sœurs Brontë, ces énergiques romancières d'exception évoquées dans Un lieu à soi. (Jeannine Hayat) (Translation)

Cruzeiro do Sul (Brazil) remembers an anecdote about a copy of Wuthering Heights:

Há trinta anos, uma garota de quem eu estava a fim me pediu O morro dos ventos uivantes, de Emily Brontë. Com receio do efeito de uma reação negativa, emprestei o livro. Que, para variar, não retornou jamais. E a minha história com a garota não passou de um cineminha com filme nacional, uma comédia péssima. Nem a garota, nem o livro. Felizmente a história romântica de Emily Brontë não era difícil ser encontrada nas livrarias. (Carlos Araújo) (Translation)

Culturamas (Spain) reviews La Llamada de Teresa by Helena Cosano:

La belleza siempre se encuentra en el interior. Qué más daría si las tapas descorchadas de “Jane Eyre” y su aire lúgubre nos hacía asquear siquiera la idea de leerlo. Bastaba darle una oportunidad al clásico de Charlotte Brönte (sic) para saber que ni la portada, ni la encuadernación más esplendorosa harían justicia a un texto como aquel.
Algo parecido ocurre con la última novela de Helena Cosano, y no en vano ha aparecido el nombre de Jane Eyre a colación. (...)
Al igual que Jane Eyre – con la que he creído ver bastantes semejanzas-, Teresa se ve condenada a adentrarse en una mansión gótica (un convento) para poder descubrir su propia libertad, feminidad y poder. Gracias a un hombre inalcanzable que la ama, pese a hacerse invisible en ocasiones, provocando su desesperación. Rochester en el caso de Eyre, Dios en el caso de Teresa. Al fin y al cabo, quizás nos encontremos tan solo ante una novela de amor. Y cuál no lo es. (Elena Rosillo) (Translation)

A winner of the  Poetry Out Loud contest whose favourite poem is No Coward Soul is Mine in GoErie; The Daily Spectacle reviews Wuthering Heights. Rita Maria Martinez, the author of The Jane and Bertha in Me, posts on Literary Ladies Guide to the Writing Life about' Brontë on the Brain: A Bicentennial and an Unsung Hero'.