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Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Tuesday, July 17, 2018 11:33 am by M. in , , , , , ,    No comments
Boundless explores the possibility that Emily Brontë's second novel will turn up someday:
There is an assumption that the only novel Emily Brontë wrote was the only one she published. But was there a second? Never say never, argues one writer. (...)
‘Frustratingly, we simply don’t know what she thought of the reviews,’ says Claire O’Callaghan, author of Emily Brontë Reappraised (Saraband), a book published last month that is aimed at dispelling the mythology surrounding the novelist. ‘But it’s intriguing that she did keep five of them – largely critical – and they were found in her writing desk.’ (...)
So, yes, it is conjecture, but does she really sound like someone who would be unduly discouraged by the fact that a few critics just didn’t get her? Perhaps, then, it was the case that she had simply poured everything she had into her first novel and had no more to offer. ‘That notion couldn’t be further from the truth,’ says O’Callaghan. ‘This was somebody who, from a very young age, lived in a creative world in her mind. There was the imaginary world of Gondal she created, and which spawned so much, including her poetry and, some would argue, Wuthering Heights.’ (...)
And in the absence of knowledge, there has been a great deal of speculation. Author and historian Sarah Fermi has a theory about the second novel’s intended subject matter, taking as her starting point a meeting in the 1840s between Charlotte Brontë and Francis Butterfield, a Chartist living in West Yorkshire. Fermi argues that anomalies in the account of this meeting imply that it was Emily rather than Charlotte who visited Butterfield. She postulates that this suggests Emily might have been planning a contemporary novel, set in Yorkshire, about, and in defence of, Chartism the working class movement for social and political reform.
In the 1983 novel, The Case of the Missing Brontë, by prolific crime writer and former chairman of the Brontë Society, Robert Barnard, the manuscript of the second novel resurfaces in the possession of a descendant of a woman with whom Branwell had an affair and triggers dastardly deeds in the Yorkshire dales.
And Morwenna Holman, a woman in Leeds, wrote a sequel to Wuthering Heights after an apparently extensive communication with the spirit of the author. (...)
‘There is always a small possibility,’ concurs O’Callaghan. ‘We know that after Charlotte’s death in 1855, things were sold off and moved from the house. Who knows? It’s lovely to think that somewhere – maybe even undiscovered at the Parsonage – there might be a manuscript that somebody will find one day.’And Barker recalls: ‘When I worked at the Parsonage, a lady turned up one day and said she had a Charlotte Brontë letter. And she really had – a genuine Charlotte Brontë letter that had never been published. It does happen every now and again. I do think it unlikely that a second Emily novel will ever turn up but I would never say never.’(Neil Armstrong)
USA Today's Happy Ever After interviews Tiffany Brownlee, author of Wrong in All the Right Ways:
Joyce Lamb : Welcome to HEA, Tiffany! Please tell us a bit about your new release, Wrong in All the Right Ways.Tiffany: My debut, Wrong in All the Right Ways, is a YA retelling of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights that explores the highs and lows of falling in love for the first time. Emma, a high school senior, has planned out every aspect of her life, but what she doesn’t expect is to fall for her new foster brother, Dylan. She attempts to conceal her feelings for him out of fear that it will ruin his chances of getting adopted into her family. But the more time Emma spends with Dylan, the harder it becomes to keep her feelings at bay, which then throws them both into a secretive relationship with a very uncertain outcome. Plus, it just so happens that Emma’s English class is reading Wuthering Heights, and as she tackles the text, Emma realizes that her complex relationship with Dylan is not very different from Catherine and Heathcliff’s.
The Belfast Telegraph reminds us of the Irish origins of the Brontës:
It's reasonably well-known now that Patrick Prunty migrated to England from Rathfriland in 1802 at the age of 25 and went on to become the father of the famous Bronte sisters. While acting as a chaplain to one of the several railway companies pushing tracks across common land and bringing new technology to rural England, he was once attacked by labourers opposed to the railways.
In response, he purchased a shotgun and made a point of firing it out of his bedroom window every morning for the rest of his life to warn his neighbours and the townsfolk that he wasn't a man to be messed with. (Gail Walker)
Female First interviews the writer Laura Briggs:
Travel isn't something I get much time for, but I do love the thrill of visiting somewhere new. I have been lucky enough to see many places in England, including lots of sites famous for their literary connections. As a book buff, it was amazing to visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Wordsworth's Dove Cottage, and especially Jane Austen's House in Chawton.
And BookRiot does the same with Donna Hill:
Silvana Reyes Lopez: What authors have inspired you?
DH: Although I write romances, I also write in other genres: women’s fiction, paranormal, erotica, mystery, so my inspiration comes from a variety of writers. Toni Morrison, James Patterson, Charlotte Brontë, Patricia Cornwell, Jeffrey Deaver, Bernice McFadden, Rochelle Alers, Margaret Johnson Hodge, Deborah Johnson to name a few.
Bustle lists female detectives:
Thursday Next lives in a world very similar to our own, except with time cops and pet dodo birds and a society that treats classic literature as cutting edge pop culture. Thursday herself is a Literary Detective, but this case is unusual even in her line of work: Jane Eyre has been kidnapped from the pages of her own novel. Thursday's world may be quirkier (and more literary) than most, but she's one of the most kick ass and well-read lady detectives out there, with a team of increasingly ridiculous sidekicks to boot. (Charlotte Ahlin
Schools Week interviews Michael Merrick, Deputy Head at St Cuthbert's Catholic Community School:
The team is on a mission to enrich the curriculum across both schools, an endeavour doubtless boosted by the fact both deputies come from a secondary context. “We brought a lot of year 9 texts into year 6,” says Denny, citing Shakespeare and Charlotte Brontë.
But is Jane Eyre really accessible to 11-year-olds — and at that age wouldn’t an author like David Walliams be more appropriate? “I wonder if we’d ask that question of Eton Prep School or Cheltenham Ladies’ College,” [Luke] Denny retorts. “Do we just assume those schools’ pupils could access it? Because if they can, I’d guess we would say our children are entitled to that same education.” (Cath Murray)
The New Yorker updates the Cowboys and Farmers should be friends (Oklahoma!) to Economists and Humanists:
As that example perhaps shows, there are moments when, describing the links between finance and real life, Desai reveals just how far apart they are. “The story of General Motors and Fisher Body”—the company that made G.M.’s car bodies—“in the 1910s and 1920s is, for economists, Anna Karenina, Middlemarch, and Jane Eyre all rolled in one—the classic story that explains the nature of flirtation, commitment, marriage, and love,” he writes. (John Lanchester)
The Hindu talks about Dickens's Great Expectations:
If you like this book
You may like “Jane Eyre”, by Charlotte Brontë, in which an orphan makes her own way in the world. (Latha Anantharaman)
Autostraddle reviews the second season of Anne with an E:
Aunt Jo invites Anne and Diana to her house for a party in season two’s “Memory Has as Many Mood as the Temper” and things go from slightly canonically queer to heckin’ queer. Right out of the gate, Jo reveals to Anne that she and Gertie were, “in their way, married.” In fact, Gertie’s books are still on her bedside table, just how she left them. Anne picks up Jane Eyre and Jo asks her to take over Gertie’s tradition of reading a passage from a favorite book at the party. (Heather Hogan)
Diária do Vale (Brazil) talks about a new Brazilian edition of Wuthering Heights.
O livro vai além e conta a história dos descendentes de Catherine, que ocupa a segunda metade do livro. A nova edição do “Morro dos ventos uivantes” tem apresentação de Rodrigo Lacerda e noventa notas de pé de página explicando melhor o cenário e a moral da Inglaterra vitoriana. Também temos uma cronologia da vida e obra da autora e os dois textos que Charlotte Brontë escreveu para a reedição do livro após a morte de sua irmã. (Jorge Luis Calife) (Translation) 
Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden) quotes writer Mare Kandre:
I ett intervjuklipp från tiden för debuten säger Kandre att hon mest läser "gamla engelskor", som systrarna Brontë och Virginia Woolf. (Jonas Brun) (Translation)
Filipstads Tidning reviews a concert by jazz singer Rigmor Gustafsson:
På den finns bland annat den skimrande poppärlan Wuthering Heights, och när Rigmor Gustafsson tolkar denna välkända Kate Bush-hit är det vackert så att ögonen tåras. (Translation)
Still some Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever tidbits: Dazed, Tone Deaf, BrinkwireSmooth Radio, Bega District News, PajibaPlásticos y Decibelios (Spain),  muzotakt (Poland), Channel 24 (Southafrica), RTBF (Belgium),  Musik Express (Germany), Sentire Ascoltare (Italy), Intermedia (Russia)...

Antiques Trade Gazette mentions the Peter Harrington auction of a first American edition of Wuthering Heights at the end of the month. The Word Players company went to WBIR's 10 News and perform a song from their upcoming production of Jane Eyre. The Musical in Knoxville, TN. Books Baking & Blogging reviews Samantha Ellis's How to Be a Heroine.

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