Macabre Imagination

Classic rewrites and sequels on Time Magazine:

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell
When America Samantha Whipple goes off to study at Oxford, her reputation precedes her: she is a descendent of the famous Brontë family, and her father (lately perished in a fire) was a famous writer himself. With speculation rampant about a hidden, lucrative Brontë estate lurking somewhere in the world, Samantha—herself a kind of modern Jane Eyre—sets out to learn more about her mysterious family with help from her tutor, a Rochester figure with baggage of his own.

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye
In this Jane Eyre rewrite, the heroine breaks the fourth wall with a different confession: “Reader, I murdered him.” Jane Steele’s life runs in parallel to the other, more famous Jane, but this 19th-century governess is mad as hell and looking for vengeance. As she fights to win back the family home that was promised to her, she leaves a string of corpses in her wake.

Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre, edited by Tracy Chevalier
Top-tier writers like Tessa Hadley, Emma Donoghue and Lionel Shriver contribute stories inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s classic, from a tale of love in a Zambian village to a dystopian romance. Some imagine the story from the point of view of other characters, like Rochester and Grace Poole.

Nelly Dean: A Return to Wuthering Heights by Alison Case
The narrator of Emily Brontë’s novel returns, this time to tell her own story. The housekeeper of Wuthering Heights writes to Mr. Lockwood to expand on the details she previously shared with him about Cathy, Heathcliff and the gang. As her own life progresses, she becomes further entangled with the family and faces her own personal letdowns and tragedies. (Sarah Begley)

The Petoskey News-Review on gardening:

Gardeners know they are taking an enormous risk by the very act of digging in a fledgling plant. It’s all about the “triumph of hope over experience,” as author Anne Brontë wrote in 1848 in her wonderful novel, “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” (Written, by the way, under the masculine pseudonym Acton Bell—the only way a woman could really hope to publish a successful novel in that era). (Mary Agria)

The problem is that it was not Anne Brontë who wrote that. It is attributed to Dr Samuel Johnson (although Oscar Wilde also used it later on). In the 1996 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall TV series, David Nokes included the following line of dialogue:

Helen Graham to Gilbert Markham: How is it Dr. Johnson described a second marriage: a triumph of hope over experience?

FAD Magazine interviews the artist Ivy Haldeman:

Do you have a favourite book?
It is hard to pick a favorite, but there are particular things that I treasure: the emotional confusion and ruminations on constant housework in Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist, the macabre imagination on display in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, the turns of phrases in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. (Kwatu Boateng)

The Edinburgh Reporter interviews Jonathan Holloway about his adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities:

You’re bringing an adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities to The Fringe. Dickens’ novel begins by noting how similar the time of the French Revolution was to the present time – for Dickens, the mid-nineteenth century. What made you want to bring the story to a twenty-first century audience? What parallels do you perceive among the eras? (Ricky Brown)
A Tale Of Two Cities works for me because it offers a vehicle for exploring two types of grief – the loss of a child and lost love. These are two things that colour many lives. The loss of a child in a time of conflict can become the conduit through which grief morphs into revenge and the envelope of a broader religious/territorial conflict provides the means of bringing that hatred to life through acts of violence. Falling in love is both a remarkable gift and a curse. I adapted Wuthering Heights for the BBC and, for me, it became a salute to overwhelming, obsessive passion. I took my cue from that regarding 

Chiara Moscardelli's column in La Stampa (Italy) quotes Wuthering Heights:

Ma c’è un altro tipo di amore, il più complesso e sofferto. Quello che nasce dalle paure, dai sensi di colpa, dalla solitudine. La letteratura è ricca di amori di questo tipo. Da Anna Karenina a Madame Bovary, passando attraverso l’amore straziante tra Catherine e Heathcliff, l’uomo sbagliato per eccellenza, di Cime tempestose, fino alle moderne Lea ed Emma, protagoniste di Equazione di un amore di Simona Sparaco e Splendi più che puoi di Sara Rattaro il tema affrontato è sempre lo stesso. L’amore potente, distruttivo a volte umiliante verso cui noi donne siamo, spesso, pericolosamente attratte. (Translation)

Calcio Mercato (Italy) lists some recently-retired football players, including Ighli Vannucchi:

Ighli Vannucchi, 1977, ex centrocampista di Lucchese, Salernitana, Venezia, Empoli, Palermo, Guamo, Spezia, Virtus Entella, Viareggio, Forte dei Marmi. “Il nome Ighli è un’idea di mia mamma, che l’ha preso dal film “Cime tempestose” di Robert Fuest (1970)” (Cesare Bardaro) (Translation)

Investimentos e Notícias (Brazil) recommends Olympic readings. For instance, Wuthering Heights:

Essa cumplicidade eu descobri anos atrás, quando pude compartilhar o sorriso da experiência dos leitores de O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes (Zahar, R$ 69,90), que ganha edição comentada na excelente coleção Clássicos Zahar. Lançado há quase 200 anos, o único romance da inglesa Emily Brontë traz a história de um amor proibido, quase incestuoso, trágico, que se alimenta da destruição de quem tenta interferir no desarranjo romântico entre a jovem herdeira Catherine e seu irmão de criação, o agregado Heathcliff, obstinado em mostrar seu valor pessoal para ter lugar na sociedade que o rejeita. A ascensão financeira de Heathcliff, no entanto, não lhe garante o casamento com Catherine – e os dois permanecem infelizes até a morte. (Olga de Mello) (Translation)

The Camden Herald publishes the obituary of Phyllis A. Prater, Brontë Society member; Jen Campbell reviews several books on her YouTube channel, including Rita Maria Martínez's The Jane and Bertha in Me.