A banqueting hall for Jane Goodall's favourite writers

The New York Times has a heartbreaking article on the precarious state in which British Museums find themselves after 18 months of Covid and restrictions.

“We’re still seeing the impact of the pandemic play out,” said Sharon Heal, the director of the Museums Association, a trade body. “It’s not back to normal at all.”

According to research by the association, almost 4,700 staff members have been laid off across Britain’s museum sector since the pandemic began. The Brontë Parsonage Museum, in the house where the author sisters lived, lost 12 employees over the past year. (Alex Marshall)

Also in The New York Times, bookish questions for Jane Goodall.

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

Shakespeare, Tolkien, Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë. Or, oh — I want Keats, Byron, Rachel Carson, Dickens, Darwin — and, oh, I so want Churchill and, and, and — my dinner party will need a banqueting hall to fit them all in!

Both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights make it onto the list of 'The greatest romance novels of all-time' compiled by Happy mag.

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë (1847)

As another novel that’s on par with Austen’s legendary romantic legacy, Jane Eyre is a Victorian bildungsroman that follows the life of the eponymous protagonist as she grows up in Northern England and falls in love with the mysterious, swoon-worthy Edward Fairfax Rochester.

Detailing the classic “two-lovers-must-overcome-obstacle-to-be-reunited” trope, it’s one of the best romantic novels of all time, full of those agonizing, yet devotional, declarations of passion, as well as critical social commentary on the nature of love and marriage.

Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë (1847)

A family of talented children, the Brontës (yes — Charlotte and Emily are related) had some of the most significant literary outputs in not just the 1800s, but modern literature. Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights has got a firm place as one of the most groundbreaking pieces of romantic fiction in recent history.

Ranked No 13. in the 100 best novels by The Guardian, Wuthering Heights was described as:  “The scope and drift of its imagination, its passionate exploration of a fatal yet regenerative love affair, and its brilliant manipulation of time and space put it in a league of its own. This is great English literature, the fruit of a quite extraordinary childhood.” (Ria Pandey)

Bezzia (Spain) recommends the paperback edition of a Spanish translation of Agnes Grey.

Autora: Anne Brontë

Traducido por: Menchu Gutiérrez

Editorial: Alba

“¡Qué maravilloso sería convertirse en una institutriz! Salir al mundo…ganar mi propio sustento… ¡Enseñar a madurar a los jóvenes!” Éste es el sueño de la hija de un modesto vicario, un ideal de independencia económica y personal, y de entrega a una noble tarea como la educación. Una vez cumplido, sin embargo, los personajes de este sueño se revelan más bien como monstruos de pesadilla: niños brutales, jovencitas intrigantes y casquivanas, padres grotescos, madres mezquinas e indulgentes…y en medio de todo ello la joven soñadora, tratada poco menos que como una criada.

Agnes Grey (1847), primera novela de Anne Brontë, es una árida revelación basada en experiencias autobiográficas del precario status, material y moral, de una institutriz victoriana; y constituye a la vez un relato íntimo, casi secreto, de amor y humillación, en el que el “yo más severo” y el “yo más vulnerable” sostiene una dramática batalla bajo lo que la propia heroína define como el “sombrío tinte del mundo inferior, mi propio mundo”. (María Vázquez) (Translation)

Leo Weekly has asked its staff to list 'Songs That Perfectly Capture The Halloween Mood' and according to one of them, in

‘Wuthering Heights’ – Kate Bush

Kate Bush retells the ghost story of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” characters, Cathy and Heathcliff. (Erica Rucker)