Enormously Improbable

Is the recent summer heatwave affecting Brontë country tourism? Keighley News investigates:

Rebecca Yorke, marketing and communications officer at Haworth’s Bronte Parsonage Museum, said: “It’s hard to tell if the weather this summer has had an effect on numbers of people visiting.
“With us being on the edge of the moors we benefit when it’s sunny, as people can combine a walk in the hills with a visit to the parsonage.
“But on the other hand we also benefit when it’s a bit cold and drizzly, as we’re an indoor attraction.” (Miran Rahman)

Big Issue North interviews Lily Cole:

Annabel Leydon: What’s the creative concept behind Balls?
L.C.: The film was a collaboration between the Foundling Museum, the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and the Rapid Response Unit, produced by Fury Films and timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Emily Brontë’s birth.
I took the male protagonist in Emily Brontë’s book Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, as the starting point. In the book, Heathcliff was found as a child – so a foundling – in Liverpool in the late 18th century, so I used real archival materials from the 18th century to create a fictionalised account of his origins, based on real accounts of foundling babies and their parents at the time.
A.L.:Why did you film it in Liverpool?
L.C.: We filmed it in Liverpool because of the connection that Heathcliff has to Liverpool: found on the streets there in the late 18th century. We know that Branwell Brontë – Emily’s brother – visited Liverpool a few months before she wrote the book, and Liverpool was a hub of the slave trade and Irish emigration, so it’s likely she chose Liverpool as his origin to reference to social and racial tensions of the time.
A.L.:The Brontës used pseudonyms to gain credibility for their work. Have reactions like [Nick] Holland’s ever led you to consider doing the same?
L.C.: I was very tempted with this film – and a book I am writing – to publish under a pseudonym, as so often people judge works based on associations or assumptions they might already have about the author, and I wanted to be able to measure honest responses. But my producer persuaded me to use my own name!

She is also interviewed on The Times:

The book I’m reading
Educated by Tara Westover and The New Jerusalem by Patti Smith. Both arrived as gifts into my life, as often the best books do. Educated came from Westover’s literary agent, who happens to be my new literary agent, and it makes me feel very good about working with her because it’s a brilliant memoir. The New Jerusalem was a gift from Patti after we bonded over our shared love of Emily Jane Brontë and Wuthering Heights.

The Guardian interviews yet another writer, Sophie MacKintosh:

The book I’m most ashamed not to have read
I’ve never read Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, even though I know it’s exactly my aesthetic – gothic, intense and eerie.

Slate, Entertainment Weekly and Post-Bulletin review the film The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Start with a cast plucked straight from the halls of Downton Abbey, a love triangle representing the tension between city and country life, and lengthy discussions of literary staples like Charles Lamb and the Brontë sisters. (Marissa Martinelli)

Lily James stars in his adaptation of the bestselling 2008 novel as Juliet Ashton, a writer in post-WWII London who has found far more success writing housewifely fluff under a pseudonym than with her own work, which leans more toward critical biographies of lesser Brontë sisters. (Leah Greenblatt)

Bustle reminds us of how Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley met:

The super talented (and let's be honest, super hot) pair met on the set of the TV adaptation of literary classic Wuthering Heights back in 2009, reports Herald Scotland. Yep, they met playing actual Heathcliff and actual Cathy. Where is Kate Bush RN? Also, Emily Brontë is fully saying "aww" in her grave over this. (Aoife Hanna)

JSTOR Daily quotes the story of when Harriet Beecher Stowe 'saw' Charlotte Brontë's ghost:

So Stowe was perhaps primed when she saw “a cool headed clear minded woman” contact the spirit of Charlotte Brontë via planchette. She wrote to Eliot all about this extraordinary encounter with the writer they mutually admired, enumerating the specifics that in her mind made it clear it was not hoax. Eliot responded politely but skeptically, noting that it seemed “amazing” but also “enormously improbable.” (Amy Shearn)

The Weekend Australian on orphans in literature:

Orphans are everywhere in literature: Jane Eyre, Heathcliff, Oliver Twist, Daniel Deronda and onward­s to the present day. They obviously are useful to storytellers, particularly to the writers of children’s books, who naturally want their heroes to undertake adventures without the controlling eye of ordin­arily caring parents. (Philip Hensher)

Publishers Weekly presents Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls:

Barker has a knack for capturing the voices of women in everyday life and says she sees the “immensely powerful grapevine between women” as a feature of women’s history—and a way to make progress. “You can view some Victorian novels as coded messages between women,” she says. “Jane Eyre is a notable example. Women have always had this capacity to convey support or intimation to other women. In cases of sexual harassment, that kind of oral grapevine should still be operating—particularly for young women.” (Hope Reese)

A librarian recommends Jane Eyre in The Daily Comet;  a giveaway from The Borough Press:

To be in with a chance of winning a signed book [I Am Heathcliff] from the dip, RT and reply to this thread with your favourite Wuthering Height's quote. You will also need to follow @BoroughPress so that we can DM you if you win. Competition closes 17th August. UK entries only.

Chicago Public Library publishes a reading list of Brontë readalikes for teens; The Books Perfume posts about Jane Eyre.