Sadness and Difficulty but also Happy Times

You know, Yorkshire Day is coming and the Whitby Gazette lists some a possible top ten of Yorkshire icons, including:

The Brontë Sisters
You can probably the name the famous trio without even thinking about it. The names of Anne, Emily and Charlotte Brontë are synonymous with English literature and of course, they gave the world some true literary masterpieces which stand the test of time and are enjoyed throughout the world to this day.
Associated with the village of Haworth, the sisters, Charlotte (1816–1855), Emily (1818–1848), and Anne (1820–1849) were all skilled novelists and poets with Charlotte's Jane Eyre the first to taste success, while Emily's Wuthering Heights and Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall were later masterpieces.
Their home, the parsonage at Haworth, now the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where they lived with their brother Branwell, has become a place of pilgrimage for hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. (Darren Burke)

BT has an article on different literary anniversaries:

Visiting Charlotte Bronte's Haworth in Yorkshire
Strolling along Haworth's main street, I stop every few metres for a photograph of the quaint stone shopfronts and postcard-worthy views over the Yorkshire moors. I find it hard to imagine the village was once a crowded industrial town and a cesspool of death and disease during the early 19th century period, when English literature's great Brontë sisters lived here. At that time, the average age of death was 24.
The girls' father, Patrick, played a pivotal role in helping clean up the village's water supply, the main cause of high infant mortality rates, disease and other deaths. But his own children failed to benefit, as they passed away before he was buried in 1861.
His valiant efforts are documented at the Brontë Parsonage, the Bronte's former family home which is now a museum. I visit to find out more about the tragedy-tinged lives of Charlotte, Emily, Anne and their brother Branwell.
The Parsonage illustrates a picture of three women who resisted social convention and expectation to realise their unbridled ambitions. It is 200 years since Charlotte was born, and a special exhibition curated by author Tracy Chevalier aims to further explore that contrast between her constrained life and furious determination.
Some of Charlotte's books and toys are on display, along with examples of her writing and coded letters which scholars believe were attempts by the sisters to disguise their - often outrageous for the times - work. (...)
Top Withens in the nearby moors is believed to have inspired Wuthering Heights, although Emily's descriptions are of a much larger farmhouse than the small stone ruins that remain today.
The walk up there is as enjoyable and atmospheric as it would have been in the mid-1800s, though. Many people congregate around Brontë Falls, a mile from Haworth, where the sisters would picnic during the summer months.
Although sadness and difficulty ultimately helped shape the Brontë's timeless novels, I take solace in the fact they were able to enjoy some happy times in their lives. (Nicholas McAvaney)

Latin Times quotes The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in the Aunt and Uncle's Day:

“It is not money my aunt thinks about. She knows better than to value worldly wealth above its price.” – Anne Brontë. (María G. Valdez)

The Huddersfield Daily Examiner talks about the family history website findmypast.co.uk:

The youngest member of the Brontë literary family, Anne Brontë, can be found in the burial registers for St Mary’s parish church in Scarborough. While the rest of her siblings were buried in the family vault in Howarth (sic) on the Yorkshire moors, Anne chose to “lay the flower where it had fallen” and was laid to rest in St Mary’s churchyard, beneath the castle walls, overlooking the bay. (Andrew Hirst)

This is how Jane Eyre could look if written in 2016 according to Stuff (New Zealand):

Mr Rochester reveals to Jane that he is actually in a polyamorous relationship with Mr Mason's sister, Bertha. Mr Rochester then asks Jane if she'd like to accompany him, along with Bertha, to the Renaissance Faire. (Clem Bastow)

klru highlights the Crash Course Literature 2014 video on Jane Eyre:

Reader, it’s Jane Eyre – Crash Course Literature 207
The 1847 novel, Jane Eyre, may just be the the first coming of age novel that coins the term ‘stared from the bottom now we’re here.’ Sorry Drake. In this episode of Crash Course Literature, you’ll learn a little about the story, learn about Jane as a feminist heroine and even get some critical analysis on how Bertha might just be a dark mirror that acts out Jane’s emotional reactions. (Elisa)

Bookriot recommends Jane Steele:

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye – Jane Steele’s life may at first have similarities to Jane Eyre’s but only one is a serial killer… (Jaime Canaves)

This novel is also recommended on the School Library Journal:

Lyndsay Faye’s Jane Steele and Catherine Lowell’s The Madwoman Upstairs both take cues from Brontë’s most famous work, Jane Eyre, reworking it in new and imaginative ways. Faye chooses the more straightforward path of adapting the story of a young governess who falls for her socially superior employer. Faye ups the ante considerably by bringing murder into the mix: her Jane has a criminal past and isn’t afraid to stand up for herself. Still, this remains primarily a fun update of a classic. Lowell, on the other hand, starts with the real world of Brontë, making her protagonist, Samantha Whipple, a descendant of the great novelist. The novel is set in the present day and concerns Whipple’s conflicted relationship with her famed ancestor, as well as with her more recent relatives, such as her recently deceased father. But Lowell still manages to imbue her novel with the same elements of mystery and gothic romance as her model and should have teens aching to read or reread Jane Eyre. (Mark Flowers)

La Croix (France) has an article on Emily Brontë:

Démiurges et « génies » comme ils se baptisent, les quatre orphelins donnent la mort ou la vie à leur gré dans leurs royaumes imaginaires. Emily et Anne créent leur propre monde, Gondal, dont elles écrivent la chronique.
L’attachement d’Emily à cet univers de fiction rend compliquée sa confrontation avec le réel, le monde derrière les murs du presbytère. De tous, c’est elle qui vivra le plus mal ses séjours au loin.
Éblouie par les poèmes d’Emily, Charlotte la convainc – difficilement car elle n’a aucun souci de notoriété – de les rendre publics. Sous des pseudonymes masculins (Currer, Ellis et Acton Bell, ne conservant que les initiales de leurs prénoms), ils sont publiés à compte d’auteur avec ceux d’Anne et de Charlotte, mais connaissent une diffusion confidentielle.
La déterminée Charlotte décide de poursuivre avec des romans, et adresse à des éditeurs Jane Eyre qu’elle a écrit, Agnes Grey d’Anne et Les Hauts de Hurlevent d’Emily – les deux derniers sont publiés dans une édition pleine de coquilles qui décevra beaucoup ses auteurs.
Tout entier situé dans les montagnes des Yorkshire qu’elle n’a quittées que rarement et à regret, le texte d’Emily court sur quarante ans et plusieurs générations ; roman âpre où l’amour passionné, la vengeance et la mort ont la part belle, il décrit avec acuité les personnalités des héros, à commencer par les terribles Heathcliff et Catherine Earnshaw.
Le succès éclatant et immédiat de Jane Eyre a souvent fait oublier celui plus modeste à sa parution mais réel des Hauts de Hurlevent.
Face à l’absence d’un point de vue moral ou moralisateur, la critique est embarrassée, tel ce chroniqueur américain qui évoque « un récit qui nous prend dans une étreinte de fer et nous oblige à lire son histoire de passions et de maux, que nous le voulions ou non. Fascinés par son étrange sortilège, nous lisons ce que nous détestons. » (Corinne Renou-Nativel) (Translation)

Frankfurter Allgemeine (Germany) talks about Poldark, the original novels and the recent BBC adaptation:

Damals veröffentlichte William (sic) Graham den ersten von zwölf Romanen um den Veteranen Poldark, der vormacht, dass es nach dem Krieg weitergeht. In seinem Charakter vereint er das Beste männlicher Heroen, wie sie Jane Austen und die Brontë-Schwestern ersonnen haben: von Mr. Darcy über Heathcliff bis Mr. Rochester. (Ursula Scheer) (Translation)

Just Being Brooklyn reviews Wuthering Heights.