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Friday, February 09, 2018

The Brontë Parsonage Museum announces that
Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall is to visit Haworth on Friday 16 February.
Camilla will visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum, which has recently reopened following a period of conservation work and preparations for the bicentenary of Emily Brontë.
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the Museum in Haworth Parsonage, the house where the Brontës spent most of their lives and wrote their great novels.
During her visit, Her Royal Highness will be guided through the historic rooms of the Parsonage by Principal Curator, Ann Dinsdale.
The Royal will also have a close-up viewing of some of the ‘treasures’ relating to Emily Brontë in the museum library. [...]
The visit will also involve a private reception where Her Royal Highness will meet museum staff and volunteers and local school children who recently took part in a creative writing competition organised by the Museum.
The Duchess of Cornwall is an avid reader and undertakes a number of engagements to promote the importance of supporting literacy both to children and adults alike. The Duchess has been Patron of the National Literacy Trust since 2010 and is also Patron of other organisations including Book Trust, The Wicked Young Writers Award, Beanstalk, First Story and BBC Radio 2's 500 words competition.
Kitty Wright, Executive Director of The Brontë Society said, “It will be an immense honour to welcome Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall to the Museum and we are looking forward to sharing our world-class collection with her.  All the staff are looking forward to the visit and we can think of no better start to Emily Brontë’s bicentenary celebrations.”
Coincidentally, The Telegraph and Argus recommends that current exhibitions at the Parsonage as 'worth the trip'.

More on the 'updated' takes on classic novels edited by John Sutherland released this weekend. From the Mirror:
Meanwhile in Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff’s stubborn pride drives him to leave comments under Nelly’s Twitter poll: ‘Who should Catherine choose?’
And the overall novel is reimagined as a series of blog entries posted by Mr Lockwood – which gain both welcome and unwanted attention in the ‘Comments’ section. (Shivali Best)
From the Daily Mail:
Wuthering Heights is reimagined as a series of blog posts by narrator Mr Lockwood, who amasses a host of unwelcome entries in the ‘comments’ section.
Cathy’s love life is only further complicated by her soon-to-be husband Edgar Linton’s social media habits – a reference to his spoiled and arrogant ways in the classic novel.
Wuthering Heights is reimagined as a series of blog posts by narrator Mr Lockwood, who amasses a host of unwelcome entries in the ‘comments’ section.
Cathy’s love life is only further complicated by her soon-to-be husband Edgar Linton’s social media habits – a reference to his spoiled and arrogant ways in the classic novel. (Alisha Rouse)
It's also in The Telegraph and Argus, Harper's Bazaar and others.

This is Lancashire features The Octagon Theatre's new production: Hamlet.
For Octagon regulars, there will be a lot of familiar faces in the production.
“The whole cast of Jane Eyre (which ends at the Octagon this weekend) are in it, so if people have seen Jane Eyre they can come and watch Hamlet and go ‘that’s Rochester playing Laertes’,” said [actor David Ricardo-Pearce].
A column by Sally Fraser in the Scottish Catholic Observer begins as follows:
‘Sally, Jane Austen is from Yorkshire isn’t she?” asks Fr Lylie as I stand waiting for the kettle to boil. “No, Charlotte Brontë is from Yorkshire,” I reply. “Ah yes, of course, Charlotte Brontë. And there is a Yorkshire pudding, yes? And also a Yorkshire Tea.”
Yes, that’s right, I say, quickly dismissing an urge to unnecessarily complicate things with mention of Parkin, a slightly disappointing Yorkshire gingerbread, and reflecting on the fact that I cannot name an author, pudding and beverage from Sri Lanka, where Fr Lylie hails from, so he is doing pretty well on my homeland. (Saiqa Chaudhari)
Atlas Obscura features Linda Watson, a transcriber who 'can decipher almost anything'.
The British Library had the company transcribe not just Austen’s work, but also manuscripts from the Brontës, William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Donne, and other luminaries. (Sarah Laskow)
A writer for Palatinate picks Jane Eyre as her desert island read.
When thinking about which book I would hope to have with me as a castaway, I toyed with bending the rules and trying to take my complete Shakespeare collection, my Harry Potter books, or even How to Build a Raft. However, the book that kept calling to me, despite its admittedly clichéd status, was Charlotte Brontë’s classic Jane Eyre. This is because every time I read it, I find new aspects of the story to ponder and react in a different way to the characters.
I was fourteen when I read Jane Eyre for the first time and immediately I admired how poor and plain Jane was driven by her strong, and occasionally indignant, moral compass. Channelled through Brontë’s elegant prose, Jane’s voice is both intimate and powerful. The text manages to capture her passionate heart and the fierceness of her convictions, and yet also her fragility. Whilst aged fourteen I wept with Jane when poor Helen died and fell in love with the Byronic Mr Rochester, I was surprised when rereading the novel several years that my reaction to the characters had changed so much. This time around I was angry how Rochester dared to treat both Jane and Bertha and saw Brontë’s own independent spirit manifested in Jane’s response to him and her cousin St John, as well as in her decision to take control of her own destiny.
With its grand houses, desolate moors, and courageous heroine, Jane Eyre leaves a lasting impression. It raises interesting questions about Christianity, feminism and gender expectations that are ever relevant in the 21st century. I remember asking myself “what would Jane do?” when I read it all those years ago, a question which I may find myself returning to, in the face of the challenges of a desert island. (May Wall)
Valley News reviews the novel Heart Spring Mountain by Robin MacArthur.
To be fair, I’m probably not the target audience for MacArthur’s book, which focuses on women characters from a female point of view. Then again, that description fits The House of Mirth, Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Dalloway, Jane Eyre and many other novels that I’ve read and reread with pleasure. (Alex Hanson)
While WAMU reviews the novel Self-Portrait with Boy by Rachel Lyon.
Lyon’s heroine, a young woman named Lu Rile who has just graduated from art school, is a bit like plain Jane Eyre, minus the moral compass. (Maureen Corrigan)
A Valentine's Day 'kit' called Valentine's - Jane Eyre on Newsbeast (Greece). A frolic through fiction posts about  Jane Eyre. Art and Soul posts about The Heights by Juliet Bell. On the Brussels Brontë Blog, Eric Ruijssenaars posts about 'daily life in Brussels in 1842 and 1843' focusing on the news of the world. The Brontë Babe does a Brontë tour of London.

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