Did Charlotte Bronte live in a grand country house with a man called Edward Rochester who tried to commit bigamy with her before she wrote Jane Eyre?

The Irish Times wonders,

Was there ever any worse advice than write what you know? Who of the greats ever wrote what they knew? Did Charlotte Brontë live in a grand country house with a man called Edward Rochester who tried to commit bigamy with her before she wrote Jane Eyre? Was Gustave Flaubert a woman who committed adultery before he wrote Madame Bovary? And how many of us could write a good book if we only wrote what we know? I would have to write about a middle-aged woman who lives in a midlands town, visits Tesco and tends her garden. No story there. No bestseller. Because it’s not interesting. As writers we have to make things up if we want to spin a good yarn. We have to have a murder or two, a broken heart, a bank robbery, a ride in a spaceship.
But what those writers, Flaubert and Brontë, had in common is that they made you feel they did know those lives, that they did have those experiences. They made us believe the lie. (Kit de Waal)

The Artifice discusses 'bad boys' and 'The Persistent Presence of the Byronic Hero'.

Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester comes across as cynical and arrogant while at the same time sophisticated and intelligent. After Jane, our heroine, thaws his icy heart, his cruel facade melts away and we are introduced to kind and passionate gentleman haunted by his past mistakes. In true Byronic hero fashion, Rochester has some skeletons in his closet, or in this case, a Bertha in his attic. Sorry Jane, but Mr. Rochester already has a Mrs., a veritable loony that he keeps hidden away in the depths of his tremendous mansion. Rochester imprisons one woman and lies to another all for the sake of love and protection. He spares Bertha the misery of an asylum by keeping her confined in her own home and spares Jane emotional turmoil by hiding the truth (well, for awhile at least). (EmskitheNerd)

La Prensa (Argentina) reviews Laura Ramos's book on the Brontë family Infernales.

Fueron todas decisiones acertadas. La ausencia de una mirada feminista impidió que la autora -que en su vida personal sí tiene esa mirada- cayera en el anacronismo, pecado grave del historiador y del biógrafo. Su evidente inmersión en el tema y la época, y la apelación a fuentes primarias, que es predominante aunque no exclusiva, otorgaron al libro de ese aire buscado de originalidad, pese a que relata unas vidas ya recorridas por otros. Anne, Emily, Branwell (el proscripto de la cofradía, "oveja negra" y símbolo del malogrado joven "romántico") y sobre todo Charlotte, la que sobrevivió apenas unos años a los demás, resurgen en estas páginas con su timidez enfermiza, su prodigiosa capacidad creativa y sus tenues voces templadas por la ironía y una irreverencia que bordeaba la blasfemia.
Otro rasgo a agradecer es la inclusión de notas al final del volumen, junto con una bibliografía actualizada y un índice onomástico, apartados que en nuestro país, por alguna razón nunca aclarada, no suelen aparecer en las obras no académicas de ensayo o historia que publican sellos comerciales. (Jorge Martínez) (Translation)  

La Huella Digital (Spain) interviews writer Carmen G. de la Cueva.

Si conoces también la obra de Mary Beard, sus ensayos La historia de una británica, en los que habla de cómo a lo largo de la historia a las mujeres se les ha negado el espacio público, y el espacio público también es el espacio de las escritoras. Muchas escritoras han tenido que publicar con seudónimo masculino… o sea, la historia cultural no es machista, es misógina. Todo lo que sufrió Emilia Pardo Bazán, por ejemplo, Jane Austen, las hermanas Brontë, Emily Dickinson, incluso Elena Fortún era considerada una autora popular, y hasta ahora no se la está empezando a poner en el canon. (Esther María García Pastor) (Translation)

Awards Circuit interviews director Clio Barnard about her new film Dark River.

KP: I also noticed that your cinematographer is Adriano Goldman (Netflix’s “The Crown”). How did you choose him? CB: I really liked Adriano’s work on a film from a few years ago called “Jane Eyre.” [2011] I wanted to work with him because I loved how he filmed Yorkshire. It was the Yorkshire I remembered. My Yorkshire. Maybe he had it right because he had the outsider’s perspective, being from Brazil. A lot of people now tend to romanticize it, but I needed it to be what he gave me. (Karen M. Peterson)

The Irish Times reviews the film Patrick.

Sarah and Patrick are, as she puts it, “a match made in hell”. He eats bedroom slippers, destroys furniture and turns up his nose at regular dog food. She moans and struggles with the duties of fur-motherhood, a new unruly class that has no interest in learning about Jane Eyre, and a slightly condescending family. (Tara Brady)

Daily Mail features actress Natalie Dormer about her role in the new BBC adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock.

A reimagining of the 1967 novel by Joan Lindsay, the story was originally told on screen in Peter Weir's classic 1975 film version. Picnic at Hanging Rock is etched into the fabric of Australian folklore to such an extent that many people believe the fictional disappearance of the girls actually took place. 'The novel is revered. It's like Australia's Jane Eyre; it's part of their national identity,' she says. (Elaine Lipworth)

Economía y Negocios (Chile) reviews the film The Bookshop.

Su principal cliente pasa a ser Mr. Brundish (Bill Nighy), un veterano reclusivo que no sale de su casa y no se relaciona con la gente del pueblo. Brundish tiene sus gustos literarios muy definidos (si se trata de biografías, las prefiere sobre gente buena; y si se trata de novelas, que sean sobre gente mala), y, tratándose de los años 50, hasta es atrevido: detesta a las hermanas Brontë y se fascina con Ray Bradbury. (Ascanio Cavallo) (Translation)

Yorkshire Evening Post suggests a trip to Oakwell Hall, reminding readers of the fact that

Charlotte Brontë was so inspired by the house during her visits in the 19th century that she featured it as “Fieldhead” in her classic novel Shirley. (Lauren Mackenzie)

Il Giornale (Italy) has an article on the prices of famous people's autographs.

Il No di Charlotte
La lettera con cui Charlotte Brontë rifiuta la una proposta di matrimonio dal reverendo Henry Nussey è stata venduta per 56.250 dollari. Un affare. Soprattutto non sposarlo. (Massimo M. Veronese) (Translation)

Voz Pópuli (Spain) interviews American soprano Lisette Oropesa, who is a Brontëite.

He visto en su Instagram que lee; y mucho. Me encanta leer y quisiera tener más tiempo para hacerlo. Mi autor preferido es John Steinbeck, pero tambien me gustan las hermanas Brontë, Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, y muchos más... (Karina Sainz Borgo) (Translation)

A columnist from Stuff (New Zealand) could do with a more understanding reread of the final pages of Jane Eyre.

Two decades later there's a temptation to squirm remembering the state of me, but that outfit was of its time, much like Sex and The City. Let's face it, a lot of the politics look flawed now– Samantha's fling with a black man wasn't exactly a nuanced examination of stereotypes – but all art is of its moment, and the best stories show us how we are, not how we would like to be seen.  Here were four women who were open about wanting sex and having it, vocal about it when it was disappointing, unusual or embarrassing. There weren't a lot of characters like that around when I was younger. I loved Jane Eyre for declaring her love for Rochester, but "Reader, I married him" doesn't tell us much about their sexual compatibility. (Noelle McCarthy)