Trigger warning: this post contains words

Well, we preferred reporting lovely reviews of Emily to the drudgery of having to report about trigger warnings. Now it's Villette's turn. From The Telegraph:

Another classic in the English canon, Charlotte Brontë’s 1853 novel Villette, has been given a content warning by Warwick for its perceived attitudes toward religion and depictions of the French-speaking Belgians.

A warning issued by the English department at Warwick and seen by The Telegraph states that the book by the eldest Brontë sister contains “strong xenophobia and religious intolerance”.

The book about an English woman staying in Europe contains observations like the “continental ‘female’” being “different” to the British one, and discussions of Catholic “Popery” including the statement “God is not with Rome”.

The trigger warning also warns students of this 170-year-old book, which often revolves around the psychological struggles of its main character Lucy, that the text contains:  “Ableism; unsettling representations of mental illness”. (Craig Simpson)

Daily Mail reports it too. During the Franco dictatorship in Spain, a mutilated translation of Villette was published without all the bits that criticised Catholicism. That used to seem unbelievably wrong but perhaps that would now be deemed comfortably right again.

In a rather risqué turn, The Strand dares to recommend Villette sans trigger warning on a selection of 'Gothic literature recommendations for the Halloween haters'.

#1: Villette by Charlotte Brontë

Nobody does a ghost story better than the Gothic queen herself, Charlotte Brontë. Villette has to be one of my favourite novels of all time on account of its unforgettable protagonist, spunky love-interest, and mind-bending plot twist. Follow Lucy Snowe as she navigates her new job as a professor in the fictional town of Villette (based on Brussels, where Brontë taught and fell in love herself). The story is littered with graveyard scenes, dark cobblestone alleys, and even features a mysterious schoolyard ghost. As with Jane Eyre, Brontë explores the tension between morality and desire which the inadvertent cruelty of men inspire in her female protagonists. Let there be no doubt: Villette will haunt you. (Una V)

CBR lists and ranks the '10 Best Comic Adaptations Based On Classic Books'.

6/10

Jane Eyre Goes To Art School In Jane

Screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, best known for The Devil Wears Prada, teamed up with illustrator Ramón K. Pérez to bring a comic adaptation for Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. As readers might expect from McKenna, this version is a fashionable, fun, up-to-date version of the story. (George Elsmere)

The Washington Post reviews The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës by Devoney Looser.

Although Jane and Maria Porter’s morally uplifting melodramas have little in common with Jane Austen’s wry comedies of manners or the Brontë sisters’ passionate chronicles, literary scholar Devoney Looser’s subtitle for her book “Sister Novelists” rightly claims the Porters as trailblazers who paved the way for other female writers. They published under their own names at a time when English “authoresses” were expected to hide behind gender-ambiguous pseudonyms or remain anonymous. Both were best-selling authors, and Jane was also an unabashed businesswoman, bargaining with their publishers to get better terms as their reputations — and sales — grew. Looser’s dual biography admiringly portrays two single women from modest circumstances who seized fame and tenuous economic security through talent and determination. (Wendy Smith)

LitHub recommends it as one of '16 new releases to support your out-of-control book-buying habit'. And Daily Kos recommends it too.