Independent Will

The New York Times announces the upcoming Charlotte Brontë exhibition in New York:

Brontë’s original 1847 manuscript will be open to that page at the Morgan Library & Museum, starting Sept. 9. The document will be part of an exhibition honoring the 200th anniversary of Brontë’s birth, a collaboration with the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, England, that purports to be the largest Brontë exhibition ever presented in New York City.
The show, “Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will,” is to include literary manuscripts, letters and rare printed books from the Morgan’s collection, along with personal artifacts, drawings and photographs from the Parsonage.
In addition, the Morgan will borrow for the show two portraits of Brontë from the National Portrait Gallery in London (which currently has a Brontë portrait show) and the “Jane Eyre” manuscript from the British Library.
Highlights include Brontë’s earliest surviving miniature manuscript, her portable writing desk and paint box, a blue-and-white floral two-piece dress she wore in the 1850s and a pair of her ankle boots.
“The unifying theme of the exhibition is Brontë’s own independent will,” said Christine Nelson, the Morgan’s curator of literary and historical manuscripts, “the ambitious steps she took to attain creative success and the bold stance she took as a woman writing under a male pseudonym,” Currer Bell. (Robin Pogrebin)

The Herts Advertiser presents one of the productions at the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe Festival:

Jane Eyre: An Autobiography is the latest piece of theatre from St Albans-based Dyad Productions, the creators of Dalloway, The Unremarkable Death of Marilyn Monroe, Female Gothic, I, Elizabeth, The Diaries of Adam and Eve, Christmas Gothic and Austen’s Women.
It can be seen at the Maltings theatre from Wednesday, July 27, to Friday, July 29.
Directed and written by Elton Townend Jones and performed by Rebecca Vaughan, the story is told through the eyes of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë’s creation who shocked the Victorians.
Rebecca embodies every woman Jane and several other characters in an intimate study of love’s realities. (Madeleine Burton)

Fusion discusses the #singlebecause Twitter hashtag:

The devastation of heartbreak and loneliness has long been a source of literary inspiration. Whether it’s Jane Eyre pining for the mercurial Mr. Rochester on an English moor (crying into her crinoline!) or Blair Waldorf lamenting her lost love over a Park Avenue brunch, we can’t seem to get enough of people’s romantic entanglements and misfirings. (Laura Feinstein)

Planet Hugill reviews the recent CD edition of Carlisle Floyd's Wuthering Heights opera:

Floyd's music is intense and dramatic, in a form of continuous arioso as the libretto is more poetic prose than poetry, with individual speeches standing out aria-like, including the one which gave rise to the piece in the first place. The language is more regular than Emily Bronte's, and there is little of the sense of place which characterises the novel. Though the music gusts, I never really feel the moors. That said, Floyd does use the orchestra a lot and the texture is punctuated with atmospheric orchestral episodes. This is a tragedy of two people drawn to each other yet failing to find themselves which has been made less specific and more international.
The recording was made at a pair of concerts performances and we have to be grateful for Florentine Opera that we finally have Wuthering Heights on disc. The disc comes with a libretto (though the sung text has subtle differences to the printed) and you need it. If the performances have a fault it is that the cast's diction is lacking; without the printed words it is difficult to follow the plot and there is a significant amount of dialogue in the opera. (Read more) (Robert Hugill)

Financial Mail (SouthAfrica) reviews the film Me Before You:

Many whose hearts have been claimed by Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre remember its famous line: “Reader, I married him.” Recall, though, that Jane weds Rochester only once a fire has engulfed his mad wife in the attic and warped his sight and body. Me Before You echoes that extraordinary climax. The echo that resonates in this strange film is ancient: the alleviation of pain and suffering through love. (Peter Wilhelm)

The Packet (Canada) review the novel From a Good Home by Trudi Johnson:

While squinting through the keyhole, I watched Hannah prepare for her trip. “Ah,” said I. “Shades of Jane Eyre. Here’s a young maid leaving home to work for a wealthy man.”
Of course, after I hove open the doors and went inside I realized I was wrong — again. Well, mostly wrong.
Jane left home and got in tack with wealthy Mr. Rochester who had skeletons in his closets, so to speak — a crazy ol’ wife barred up in the attic or some such, if my faulty noggin serves me well. (Harold N. Waters)

Lainey Gossip talks about the emails between Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer in the New York Times:

It’s all quirky anecdote followed by a deep thought about deepness and then a question about freedom. Repeated over and over again. They’re the parents of Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Or, maybe, her descendants. Or this is performance art. And she’s writing as, I dunno, Emily Brontë and he’s Thomas Hardy and they’re imagining what their letters to each other who read would read like. Is it supposed to be this annoying? And, also, boring?

Literary places to visit according to The Week (India):

 Explore the desolate, sweeping moorlands of Yorkshire, the birthplace of 19th century English writer Charlotte Brontë, whose novel Jane Eyre is considered a classic of Western literature. Visit the village of Haworth, where Charlotte and her sister Emily Bronte (author of Wuthering Heights) grew up, and stop by the Bronte Parsonage Museum to know everything Brontë.
The highlight of the bicentenary celebrations is an exhibiton on the sisters—Charlotte Great and Small—curated by novelist Tracy Chavalier. The exhibition which runs till February 2017, features letters written by Charlotte, some of her clothes and art installations. If you plan to explore Brontë country, you might as well head to nearby Wycoller to see the ruined hall, often cited as the inspiration for the Ferndean—the manor house buried deep in the woods—in Jane Eyre. (Ancy K. Sunny)

Berliner Morgenpost has an article on the Brontë 200th anniversary and, particularly, Jane Eyre:

Zum 200. Geburtstag von Charlotte Brontë wird das Schicksal ihrer populären Romanheldin Jane Eyre neu übersetzt
An Winterabenden, wenn Bessie gut gelaunt ist, dann dürfen sich die Kinder zu ihr setzen, wenn sie im Kaminzimmer bügelt und sie erzählt ihnen etwas. Nicht, dass Bessie eine besonders gute Erzählerin wäre, aber sie kennt viele Geschichten von Liebe und von Abenteuern. Sie kennt Märchen und Balladen und die Kinder hören gebannt zu, auf jeden Fall dieses eine, Jane, deren Schicksal uns die nächsten 600 Seiten bewegen wird. Wenn es dann in ihrem eigenen Leben endlich auch um Liebe und Abenteuer geht, dann vergleicht sie es mit diesen Geschichten. Und das Erzählte mischt sich mit dem Erlebten.
Zum Beispiel an diesem Abend, viele Jahre später, an dem Jane Eyre dem Helden der Geschichte zum ersten Mal begegnet. Der Mond ist schon aufgegangen und unsere Heldin hat auf dem Weg ins nächste Dorf eine Pause gemacht. Jetzt sitzt sie da und betrachtet das Herrenhaus, in dem sie als Gouvernante lebt, auf der einen und das Dorf auf der anderen Seite. "In der völligen Stille hörte ich deutlich das leise Gemurmel des Lebens", berichtet sie uns. Da taucht auf einmal ein "grobes Geräusch" auf. Schon stellt sie sich vor, dass ein Geist namens "Gytrash" unterwegs sein könnte. Nicht, weil sie an diese fantastische Figur tatsächlich glaubt, es ist eher die Erinnerung an eine von Bessies Geschichten aus ihrer Kindheit. Reisende würde er überfallen, mal in Hund, mal in Pferdegestalt. (Read more) (Judith Luig) (Translation)

Un Minuto Radio (Colombia) has an article on the Brontës; The Silver Petticoat Review lists '8 Times Mr. Rochester Made Us Swoon'; NewCBlog Don Robbins posts about Jane Eyre 2011; Pages Unbound Reviews posts about Jane Eyre.

Tonight, on BBC Two a new chance to watch the documentary Being the Brontës:

BBC Two
Being the Brontës
July 15, 23.35 h

Finally, a job alert from the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

If you would like to work at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, then this is the page to bookmark. We advertise all our upcoming positions here.
Retail Assistant Posts
Job One: 22.5 hours a week on days to be agreed.
Job Two: 4 hours a week every Sunday.

More information here.