Would Jane Eyre be a blogger if she was living today?

Somerset County Gazette announces that Jane Eyre. An Autobiography will be on stage a at the Brewhouse Theatre at 7.30pm on September 13 and has talked to the star of the show Rebecca Vaughan, who plays all characters.

Speaking about the play, Rebecca said: "We are going back to the original novel.
"The book was originally written as an autobiography and was not seen as novel.
"People were shocked by the fact this woman who was a governess was talking about living with a married man who wanted to marry her but would have had to commit bigamy.
"I was really interested in the novel and wanted to do something more than a period costume drama.
"I think we tend to sugar coat the past and by looking at it afresh is an interesting experiment.
"The novel was written under a non-de plume and was not what was seen in a usual Victorian novel.
"In the novel Jane is angry and so modern and the response we have had from the audiences has been amazing.
"Jane Eyre is multi-faceted.
"We see the way in which Jane is trapped just as much as Rochester is trapped as is Bertha Antoinetta Mason Rochester who is Mr Rochester's crazy wife and is locked in the attic."
Rebecca described her play for her as being 'a joyful play with an interesting character'.
She added: "We learn about how woman are trapped by being owned by their father and if he died their brother and then being owned by their husbands.
"They cannot leave the house when single without a chaperon and only leave the house when married with their husband.
"What Jane learns is she has to be true to herself and trust her own instincts.
"She is critical of the age she lives in.
"Her weakness would be in her early years she was too easily swayed and sometime does not listen.
"She adores and loves Rochester and she should leave him but she does not listen.
"Jane was in many respects a modern woman who was intelligent and educated.
"Many woman like her could not believe how trapped their were and probably felt like howling at the moon.
"If Jane Eyre was living today she would be a blogger, a journalist, she would be interested in what was going on in the world.
"She would be on social media, she would be thinking about life.
"What I hope people get from the play are two things.
"One if they have never read the novel then I hope it makes them want to go away and read it.
"If they have read it I hope they believe we have done it justice." (Lawrence John)

Break A Leg gives 5 stars to Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre as seen at the Birmingham Rep.

The Huffington Post (France) thinks there's not a better cure for a broken heart than Jane Eyre.

On ne s'en rend pas forcément compte, mais quoi de mieux que "Jane Eyre" pour guérir d'un chagrin d'amour? (Lauren Provost) (Translation)

Booktopia finds a Brontëite from an early age in writer Mary-Anne O’Connor.

4. What were three big events – in the family circle or on the world stage or in your reading life, for example – you can now say, had a great effect on you and influenced you in your career path? [...] To choose a book? I would have to call a tie between Jane Eyre and Little Women. Both Jane and Jo refused to settle for less than what they felt was on their terms. And such spirit! Also, having such strength when times are darkest is truly a gift and they are the kinds of heroines I want to portray. (Anastasia Hadjidemetri)

Queens Chronicle quotes Lyndsay Faye on her work in Jane Steele.

Faye describes the title character of her novel as a hybrid of Jane Eyre, the main character of the famous eponymous English novel, and the well-meaning murderer of the TV show “Dexter.”
“It’s easy for the boilerplate to say that she’s a serial killer, but while she kills a large number of people in the novel, she always does so with a strong, strong motive,” Faye said in an interview.
Heavily referencing and paying homage to the famous Charlotte Brontë novel, Faye’s book has been described as a retelling of it. “Jane Steele’s life very closely mirrors that of Jane Eyre and she’s reading ‘Jane Eyre’ during the course of the book,” Faye told the Chronicle. (Ryan Brady)

TES suggests 'Three quick fixes to help [creative writing] students write better opening sentences'.

Why not teach kids some famous opening lines from famous literary works, and train them to manipulate them to achieve bathos? Imagine what Dickens could do to a student piece on their favourite meal: “It was the best of bacon double cheeseburgers; it was the worst of bacon double cheeseburgers.” Or what Brontë could do for a piece about exam preparation: “There was no possibility of having any sort of thing one would could reasonably call a life that day.” What could JP Hartley do for a piece on a time a student tried a new experience: “Chess club is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” (Matt Pinkett)

SverigesRadio (Sweden) reviews the film Lady Macbeth.

Till en början verkar det både bekant och tydligt. Vi ser en ung kvinna som gifts bort och hamnar i ett kärlekslöst äktenskap i ett kallt hus på heden. Det blåser. Det är ensamt. Systrarna Brontë skulle kunna bo i gården bredvid. (Anneli Dufva) (Translation)

Digital Journal takes it for granted that actor Matthew Lewis has 'been featured on the BBC Three comedy-drama, Bluestone 42, and the 2016 film, The Brontes'. When actually the latter has never been made (yet?)

Here's how The Conversation describes Kate Bush's song Wuthering Heights.

Channeling other characters is what Bush has done since the beginning of her career with Wuthering Heights (1978), a song that precociously fuses eroticism with a voice from beyond the grave. (David McCooey)

Keighley News is looking forward to the White Rose Awards will be handed out on October 30.

Among the finalists are Haworth's Brontë Parsonage Museum, which is in the running for the Large Attraction of the Year title (Alistair Shand)

The Brooklyn Rail publishes a fiction piece by Emmalea Russo: from Seizure Book

I had been busy doing experiments: What if I contrasted some aspect of Wuthering Heights with Yeats’ poetry? The moors! The moors. What if I pour red wine in a water bottle and drink it slowly throughout my day of heady courses? How will I feel? What if I stay up all night writing a thirty page paper on Schiller’s aesthetics?

Writergurlny features Hindley Earnshaw. Actualitté (France) has a laugh with the imaginary Brontë sisters action dolls. This columnist from The New Indian Express looks back on reading books such as Jane Eyre from the school library. On the Brussels Brontë Blog, Marina Saegerman shares the first part of a trip to Branwell Brontë and Wordsworth’s Lake District.