2022. A Brontë year.

Last year, we began this message with optimism, the first Covid-19 vaccines were being administered, Brexit worst-case scenarios were being avoided, the US was on the verge of passing one of the darkest pages in its history. We end the year with mixed feelings, however. We experienced a year that can only be described with surfing metaphors. We have surfed the waves of the different Covid-19 variants, we even had some months of delusional (almost) normality, we've been to the edge with so many crises it's almost tedious to enumerate: the climate emergency taking the form of extreme weather phenomena (floods, fires, snow, tornadoes...), an attempt of coup d'état at the heart of the USA, the Ever Given ship blocking the Suez canal, supply chain problems, fuel shortages, growing energy prices, a world ever more divided... and omicron and the associated pingdemic as the icing in the cake. But 2021 was also the year in which humans flew a helicopter for the first time on another planet (Ingenuity on Mars), put into space the most ambitious space telescope ever (the JWST), China officially eliminated malaria... and even a 90-year old Captain Kirk touched the sky for the very first time.

So, the funny thing is that we don't feel pessimistic. We want to believe that Omicron is not another variant, but probably the one that will change the Covid-19 into an endemic and seasonal crossover between flu and cold. We'd like to dream that we will be able to travel again without paying ludicrous amounts of pounds for useless tests (the 2-day money scam is the UK's very own contribution to the Covid absurdity) and visit Haworth again... some sunny day as Vera Lynn, another one that left us last year, used to sing. We are not so optimistic about the rest of the challenges of our society... but, hey... one disaster at a time, please.

Let's talk Brontë. 2022 will bring a new (or revised, we don't really know) biography of Anne Brontë by Edward Chitham: The Novelist of Wildfell Hall. A New Life of Anne Brontë (April):

This new biography makes use of recent research including a return to the issues of her `twinship` with Emily (a critical `twin`, as Wildfell Hall shows). The work also examines the family events of the autumn of 1837, when her life `hung by a thread.` Where possible primary sources are emphasised, avoiding Charlotte`s stage-managing of Brontë family history.

One of the highlights of the season will be the publication for the first time in paperback of George Smith. A Memoir (May); 

This 1902 book, originally intended for private
circulation, is a memoir of George Smith (1824–1901), founder, proprietor and publisher of The Cornhill Magazine and later the Dictionary of National Biography. The small volume, compiled by Smith's wife, consists of a memoir of Smith by Sidney Lee, followed by four short autobiographical pieces that Smith wrote for The Cornhill. He recalls his years at the publishing house of Smith, Elder and Co.; his encounters with Charlotte Brontë, who stayed with the Smiths in London; his idea of founding a magazine; and the 'lawful pleasures' of court cases for libel.

 Lynne Tatlock will examine the transmission, diffusion, and literary survival of Jane Eyre in the German-speaking territories in Jane Eyre in German Lands. The Import of Romance, 1848–1918 (February). The Many Faces of Jane Eyre: Film, Stage and TV Adaptations by Jennifer Lafferty (January) will take Brontëites "on an intriguing journey through the eclectic collection of big and small screen as well as theatrical adaptations of [Jane Eyre]".

The world of retellings and parallel sagas will continue to flourish in 2022. The Rochester Trilogy by Skye Warren with Best Kept Secret (January); Luccia Gray's Eyre Hall series will add Snow Moon at Eyre Hall (February); Christina Bauer's Fairy Tales of the Magicorum will include Mirrors and Mysteries: Rapunzel Meets Jane Eyre (February); the Reclaimed Classics series will be joined by Wuthering Heights Remix: What Our Souls Are Made Of by Tasha Suri (July). Probably in early 2022 (crowdfunding pending), Shereen Malherbe will publish The Land Beneath the Light, "A Palestinian reimagining of Jane Eyre" and in late 2022 maybe Escaping Mr Rochester by L.L. McKinney will be published. This is a YA queer romance where "Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason must save each other from the horrifying machinations of Mr. Rochester." Also, Annie Sereno publishes Blame It on the Brontës (May) where her main character Athena is an authority on the Brontë novels and Nicola Friar may publish her first novel A Tale of Two Glass Towns: "part science fiction, part fantasy, and part Brontë". 

Lit for Little Hands: Jane Eyre, adapted by Brooke Jorden and llustrated by Olga Skomorokhova (February) and Wuthering Heights. A Graphic Novel, adapted by Ellis McCarthy. and illustrated by Naresh Kumar (Feburary) will be some of 2022 new illustrated Brontë novels adaptations. Finally, the most intriguing new publication of the next year could be: The World of the Brontës A 1000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle by Amber Adams and Eleanor Taylor:

Enter the world of the Brontës with this 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. Travel across the blustery Yorkshire moors and into the dark, gloomy schoolrooms and firelit drawing rooms of nineteenth-century England to spot Cathy,
Heathcliff, Jane Eyre, Mr Rochester, Helen Graham, Arthur Huntingdon and a host of other characters while you build the puzzle. Includes a fold-out poster that highlights characters, locations and real-life figures.

On the stage, the big headlines will still belong to the Wise Children Company when their Wuthering Heights production devised and directed by Emma Rice which will premiere at the National Theatre in London (February). Later, the production will visit Cornwall, Norwich, Nottingham, Salford, Sunderland and Edinburgh. Theirs will not be only Wuthering Heights in town, because Lizzie Lister, Mick Lister, and Clare Lonsdale will present a one-hour musical "Wuthering Heights like you’ve never seen before, retold through a haunting, filmic score, fusing the classical with the contemporary" (February). The Shake and Stir Company will tour Australia (May-November) with their Jane Eyre production (originally premiered in 2019):

Witness one of the most iconic pieces of English literature retold in a faithful yet fiercely original, new stage adaptation from the nationally-renowned shake & stir theatre co (A Christmas Carol, 1984, Dracula).

This stunning new production, featuring original music, written and performed live on stage by multi ARIA Award winner Sarah McLeod, will set a fire blazing in your soul.

Another Australian production that returns is Cara Whittaker's The Lost Voice of Anne Brontë which after several cancellations hopefully will be premiered in Melbourne (January). Also in Melbourne a different Jane Eyre by the Skin of our Teeth Productions is announced (July). Not the only play that returns to the stages. Buglight Theatre brings back Jane Hair: The Brontës Restyled where "Stylists Anne, Emily & Charlotte Bronte are back taking bookings for an evening of sibling rivalry and literary debate in Bradford’s most creative beauty salon" (March touring  Yorkshire). 

A new Jane Eyre adaptation by Erin Shields "taking a sharp, witty, and modern feminist dive into Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece in its romantic original setting" will be on the Edmonton stages in March-April. The Jane Eyre musical by Gordon & Caird will be produced in Nordhausen, Germany: Jane Eyre. Das Musical (April). The April de Angelis version of Wuthering Heights will be performed in Colchester (April). Polly Teale's Brontë  (in Edmonton) and Jane Eyre  in Penzance (June), Tonbridge (July) and Bristol (June).

If we talk about films, this will be the year of the premiere of Emily by Frances O'Connor, with Emma Mackey, Fionn Whitehead, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Alexandra Dowling, Amelia Gething, Gemma Jones and Adrian Dunbar. The film is distributed by Warner Bros and doesn't have a release date yet.

One of the collaborators of the costume designer of Emily, Michael O'Connor, has been the writer, illustrator, and historical consultant Eleanor Houghton (who also has a Brontë book in the works) who will be at the centre of the new exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

Eleanor has recently been asked to curate a large-scale, online and in-house exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The exhibition will place focus on the clothing of the Brontë family. 

And that's all that we know for the moment. Let's hope that no new Greek letters choose to colonise our daily lives and that not only all those events and releases we have listed above but all those many others we know for sure will surprise, engage and amaze us will come to fruition making 2022, a very Brontë year.