The history of humans: The taming of fire; penicillin; the publication of Jane Eyre...

Belfast Telegraph explores a link between the Brontë story and Antrim in Ireland:

There is a connection between Killead in south Antrim and Charlotte Brontë, author of the novel Jane Eyre, a play based on which finishes its run at the Grand Opera House in Belfast tonight.
You see, Arthur Bell Nicholls, who married the eldest of the Brontë sisters in June 1854, used to live on winding Tullywest Road on the outskirts of the picturesque little village.
In fact, the house where he grew up while attending Killead Presbyterian Church is still standing.
As a young man, Nicholls studied for the ministry and eventually was appointed curate to Charlotte's father, the Rev Patrick Brontë, at Haworth in Yorkshire.
And, in between clerical duties for him and writing stories for her, the couple fell in love and married.
The story goes that they honeymooned back in Ireland and villagers like to believe they worshipped at Killead Presbyterian Church - although this is disputed by members of The Brontë Society. (Eddie McIllwayne) 

Financial Times reviews A Secret Sisterhood: The Hidden Friendships of Austen, Brontë, Eliot and Woolf, by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney

Midorikawa and Sweeney, whose blog Something Rhymed has unearthed many female literary bonds, focus here on female friendships that underpinned the writing careers of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf, explaining along the way why these important relationships have been suppressed, passed over or misinterpreted. (...)
When the authors turn to Charlotte Brontë, long marginalised as a spinster scribbling with her sisters in the Haworth parsonage or tramping solo on the Yorkshire moors, they excavate the profound literary influence of her rebellious school friend, the nonconformist Mary Taylor. It was Taylor, they point out, who challenged Brontë’s self-image as a conservative thinker, and Taylor too who encouraged her to write directly about industrial agitation, resulting in the overtly political Shirley. (Julia Pascal)

Georgina Lawton discusses her heritage in The Guardian:

Wuthering Heights has been one of my favourite books since I studied it for A-level seven years ago. I was fascinated by the tumultuous (and oddly asexual) relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff, but mostly with the theme of liminality that runs through the book, and many other works of othic literature. Liminality refers to something – or someone – that sits on the boundary between two things; it’s a middle ground between polar opposites. Kind of like being mixed race.
I didn’t realise it at the time, but I identified with Heathcliff (he’s a dark-skinned Gypsy anti-hero) because I have been straddling the borders of race liminality my whole life. Growing up brown-skinned in a white family and facing questions as to why that was, I have had to navigate many different racial identities depending on who I was with, never quite owning one.

The Toronto Star on sequels/prequels/whateverquels of classics:

But Massacre of Mankind hopes to join a narrower category of literary continuations: those that become literature themselves. Think the (...)
1966’s Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhyss, an account of Edward Rochester’s first marriage to the mentally ill Bertha Mason, before he meets Jane Eyre. Mr. Rochester’s charming yet questionable character was what inspired Sarah Shoemaker to become a first-time novelist at age 80 earlier this summer with her Jane Eyre spinoff Mr. Rochester. “He seems so demanding, sometimes playful, but also angry a lot of the time,” Shoemaker says of Charlotte Brontë’s brooding hero. (Ryan Porter)

San Francisco Chronicle quotes from Life in Code by Ellen Ullman:

“The web,” she writes, “is just another stunning point in the two-hundred-thousand-year history of human beings on earth. The taming of fire; the discovery of penicillin; the publication of Jane Eyre — add anything you like.” (Kevin Canfield)

Evening Express presents the Aberdeen performances of Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre:

It is a tale of choosing happiness, discovering independence and succeeding on your own terms that still resonates today … 170 years after it was written.
Now, after a successful and critically acclaimed season at the National Theatre, the new adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre is coming to His Majesty’s Theatre.

Rewrite This Story reviews the Belfast performances:

The National Theatre and Bristol Old Vic’s joint production of Jane Eyre is astonishingly good … and it is far from being what one would expect. It may be based on Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, but this work – devised by the original company – is modern in its approach, in its styling and in its staging and manages to retain Jane Eyre’s core characterisation of being a free spirit and a strong-willed individual who strives for equality and for the right to be herself. (Damien Murray)

Emerdblog also reviews the production.

The York Press reviews the novel Elmet by Fiona Mozley:

Ted Hughes’ ‘badlands’ of West Yorkshire depicted here were once part of the ancient Celtic kingdom of Elmet. However, the struggles of the motherless Daniel and Cathy and their giant ‘Daddy’ to settle their land are reminiscent of the pioneers of the western tradition of the US sprinkled with gothic tropes. Although set in nearly modern times, it is timeless, with shades of Hardy and the Brontes and rural folk struggling beneath the tyranny of the landowning class. (Catherine Turnbull)

Stylist also comments on the same novel:

Aged 29, Mozley is the breakout star of this year’s Man Booker Prize longlist. And with good reason: Elmet, with its rugged landscape, violence and high emotion, recalls Wuthering Heights written with a wholly new voice. This debut is the start of something big... (Francesca Brown)

Taste of Cinema posts on Guillermo Del Toro's films:

In the same fashion that Pacific Rim is a tribute to Japanese Kaiju tradition or Mimic is self-proclaimed offspring of Alien, Crimson Peak serves as a love letter to romance gothic stories, written in the dialect of texts such as Shelley’s Frankenstein and Jane Eyre, both of which have deeply influenced del Toro’s style and thematic framework. (Frank Zayas)

The decline and eventual disappearance of the long s in Belleville News-Democrat:

Still, many had a hard time letting the written form die, thinking it made their manuſcripts look more formal. For example, Charlotte Brontë’s letters of the mid-1800s often contain the long s as did English poet Edward Lear’s diaries as late as 1884. In fact, vestiges of the old letter form remain. Anyone who has struggled with calculus will know it as the symbol in problems involving integrals. (Roger Schlueter)

Catastrophic endings in Beco Literário (in Portuguese):

Porém, outro final catastrófico e desastroso é de “Morro dos Ventos Uivantes” (Emily Brontë). Simplesmente catastrófico, desastroso e lindo. Amei! (Gustavo Machado) (Translation)

Radio Praha (in French) interviews the author Pierre Cendors:

Que nous dit votre roman en général du processus de gestation de l’œuvre littéraire? (Václav Richter)
« Qu’elle est multiforme, qu’elle est protéiforme, qu’elle peut aussi bien s’incarner chez une personne, comme je l’ai évoqué tout à l’heure, par exemple chez Rimbaud mais qui peut se retrouver chez Ted Hughes, un siècle plus tard, chez Emily Brontë, également. (Translation)

Mateo Cestari, director of the Jane Eyre adaptation now on stage in Caracas, was interviewed on the program Vladimir a la 1 in Globovisión (Venezuela):

Cestari comentó que "Jane Eyre: Detrás del Fuego" fue un reto pues la misma es una historia de 600 páginas y se tuvo que adaptar a un libreto de hora y media.
"Aquí es ella donde ella lo salva él, es interesante porque ella en la novela se habla de toda la vida a ella", dijo.
Por otro lado Jhon Colmenares, dijo que el arte es un arte es un "elemento fundamental para la transformación social". (Robert Betancourt) (Translation)

Studio (in Italian) lists the worst marriages in literature:

Un’altra catastrofe matrimoniale da riprendere in mano è Il grande mare dei Sargassi di Jean Rhys, scrittrice britannica di origini caraibiche: prequel di Jane Eyre, racconta la genesi di Bertha, la “pazza in soffitta” moglie di Rochester. (Translation)

LitReactor has a list with combinations of music and books like:

Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights
This is not even a whole album – just a single song – but it’s too damn good to leave out. Inspired by my beloved Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Kate Bush put out a same-titled song in 1978. You guys, it’s just spectacularly melodramatic and weird. The first time I listened to it I had no idea who would want to hear such a thing, but then somehow it became one of my favorite songs. The strange, over-the-top qualities of the song actually perfectly fit the novel, and it includes direct quotes from Cathy, which suits my little literary heart just fine. (Annie Neugebauer)

Keighley News tells that Clare Twomey, alma mater behind the Wuthering Heights. A Manuscript project, now has a new project in London's Tate Gallery. Medium publishes a list of books for Christian readers which includes Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Another list on Medium is Norwegian Book Clubs’ top 100 books of all time which includes just Wuthering Heights. Pichenettes (in French) reviews Wuthering Heights 1939. Dickens Does Books posts about Jane Eyre. I was just thinking... reviews The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Finally, the Haddon Hall Blog gives good reasons why Haddon has made the perfect Thornfield Hall in a handful of Jane Eyre adaptations.