On the Death of Anne Brontë

Today marks the 177th anniversary of the death of Anne Brontë in Scarborough. 

On the Death of Anne Brontë

By Charlotte Brontë

There's little joy in life for me,

      And little terror in the grave;

I 've lived the parting hour to see

      Of one I would have died to save.

Calmly to watch the failing breath,

      Wishing each sigh might be the last;

Longing to see the shade of death

      O'er those belovèd features cast.

The cloud, the stillness that must part

      The darling of my life from me;

And then to thank God from my heart,

      To thank Him well and fervently;

Although I knew that we had lost

      The hope and glory of our life;

And now, benighted, tempest-tossed,

      Must bear alone the weary strife.

It would be a good idea to read that sad, sad poem with Guiem Soldevila's take on it in the background.

Anyway, onto happier news as The Telegraph and Argus reports that Graham Watson's The Invention of Charlotte Brontë has been nominated for the Plutarch Award.

A Charlotte Brontë biography is tipped for a prestigious international book award.

The debut book by Graham Watson, titled The Invention of Charlotte Brontë, was shortlisted from more than 200 international titles.

It is among only two UK nominees for the Plutarch Award, which recognises the best English-language biography of the past year.

The award is judged by a panel of historians and biographers in the Biographers International Organisation.

The book, which focuses on the last five years of Charlotte Brontë's life and the first Brontë biography, Elizabeth Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Brontë, has also been named a Book of the Year by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

The biography has received high praise from reviews across the USA and was awarded the coveted Kirkus Reviews star for excellence. The New York Review of Books described the biography as "immersive", whilst the Wall Street Journal called it "a gripping testimony into the twists and turns, revelations and silences, and endless revisions by which literary legends endure".

The Plutarch Award winner will be announced at the Biographers International Conference in New York City on May 29.

Graham Watson said: "My book is the result of a life-long passion I’ve had for the Brontës and Yorkshire.

"Being nominated for such a prestigious award is an incredible honour." (Harry Williams)

Writer Natasha Lester writes about 'Why many women-authored classics are currently being reinvented' for Katie Couric Media.

Classic literary heroines are having a moment. With Margot Robbie starring as Cathy in February’s much-talked-about Wuthering Heights adaptation, Emma Corrin taking on the role of Lizzie Bennett in Netflix’s Pride and Prejudice series, Daisy Edgar-Jones headlining a new Sense and Sensibility flick out this fall, and Aimee Lou Wood starring as Jane Eyre in a television adaptation of the novel, the classics — particularly those written by women — are no longer solely the domain of high school English syllabuses and libraries. Even the hosts of the New York Times podcast The Book Review declared their resolution to read more classics this year, rather than dedicating their reading time to new releases. [...]

Hot take? The popularity of romantasy books — set in a fantastical world, where a love story is central to the plot — including such blockbusters as Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses and Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing, has something to do with it. It might seem like the two genres couldn’t be more different, but romantasy has trained us, for one, to root for the morally gray hero. In the classics, that might look like Heathcliff imprisoning a young woman in his home in a fit of selfish passion. What’s more, Wuthering Heights is the epitome of a story centered around the fated mates trope, where two people are destined to be together because of a bond that defies even the finality of death, a trope revitalized by the romantasy genre. [...]

In The Chateau on Sunset, readers can live vicariously through Aria, the Jane Eyre character, who sets fire to the Hollywood casting couch, igniting an inferno that burns down all Weinstein-like men in its path. If only!

Romantasy novels have reminded us how much we love fierce heroines. Yes, there are strong women to be found in other genres, but fierceness is different — fierceness is strength buttressed by wild fury, and it’s almost compulsory in the romantic-fantasy mash-ups crafted by the likes of Maas and Yarros. The women in both Austen’s and the Brontë sisters’ classic novels don’t swoop into battle on the back of a dragon with a knife in hand as they do in Yarros’s stories; instead, they use their ferocious voices when it matters most. Who can forget Lizzie Bennett telling Darcy that he’s the “last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed upon to marry”? Who didn’t cheer aloud at the bravery it took for her to do that at a time when women were supposed to just nod and say yes?

And what about poor, penniless Jane Eyre, in an era when feminism was at least a century away from gaining any traction, declaring to Rochester that she was his equal, that “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me”? Who didn’t love the unapologetic, almost relentless, ambition of Kat Shaw in Fargo’s novel The Favorites? Haven’t we all wanted to declare our independence or our dislike of a man in our past, or to chase after what we desire without being made to feel unwomanly? 

All these books could only have been written by women because only a woman can understand the fierce desire in our hearts to speak up, to take action, to stop apologizing. The power in these novels and screen adaptations is all woman, and we’re here for it.

So, for those who think the resurgence in interest in the classics is simply because, in their known plotlines and characters, we find comfort and familiarity, I say: that’s not the whole story. These new adaptations offer us access to fantasy, and who doesn’t want to escape from this world and into another realm from time to time? They remind us to speak out. And they also show us that we can dream and we can hope — and, more importantly, if we use our own ferocious voices, we have the power to make our dreams and our hopes come true.

Anthony Willis talks about blending orchestral score and Charli XCX’s music in Wuthering Heights 2026 on Headliner.

With all that said, it’s hard to imagine an easier ‘yes’ than when Willis was approached to complete a trilogy of Fennell collaborations for one of 2026’s biggest films thus far, Wuthering Heights. It sees him scoring another Elordi performance, who takes on the timeless Heathcliff character from the beloved Emily Brontë novel, with extra star power coming from Margot Robbie.

Little surprise that Willis says, “I was so thrilled to come back. Emerald was gracious that she wanted to bring a lot of the team from Saltburn back. Margot Robbie had been a producer on Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, but this time, her coming to star in it was really exciting. I was determined to go to the Wuthering Heights set to start that creative process and get an eye for what Emerald was thinking. I went over when they were filming the downstairs scenes for Thrushcross Grange. Really, it was the sorrow and the sadness that the early conversations about the music wanted to capture. The kissing montage sequence is absolutely gorgeous; the first version was about six or seven minutes long.”

As with Saltburn, Willis went for a very elegant, classical sound in this film that also has a fragile sheen of opulence, with the true intent being on the darkness and emotional toil bubbling beneath it. One of his standout cues is Isabella’s Dollhouse, in which he uses a felted piano that sounds almost like a toy, amidst gorgeous swells of flutes, harp, and strings.

“You could almost say it’s a kind of prepared piano, because we would put different things into it to change the tone. Gavin Greenaway came and played that for us. We also use that same sound in the more emotional piano cues, almost like a folk piano, because you’re muting the typical resonances you might hear in a modern upright. It gives it some history, some character, and some age. It takes out the clean part and gives it that folk element. The doll’s house is how Cathy wants to be seen; all dressed up with frills and lace. But tracks like Again and Again, You’re Not Enough for Her, and Be With Me Always have that folk piano tune that represents Cathy’s true heart and her soul.”

Music formed a significant part of the film’s marketing campaign; as well as Willis writing the full orchestral score, a certain person behind the Brat Summer phenomenon also released a new album of songs for, and inspired by, the movie. Charli XCX played a key part in the hype machine, releasing the first single House featuring John Cale of the Velvet Underground, ahead of Wuthering Heights hitting cinemas. The film’s main trailer prominently used the ‘Fall in love again and again’ refrain from Everything is romantic, one of many behemoth tracks from her ultra-successful record Brat.

“Charli made an incredible album for this film as a companion experience. I’ve loved her music as long as I’ve known about it, and I really think this is her most interesting work. Her producer, Finn Keane, did a great job. What Finn and I both latched onto early on was the relationship of placing strings near the bridge — sul ponticello. You get this overtone that lives in a sweet spot between being dark and ethereal. It’s both enticing and a little bleak. Especially for Cathy and Heathcliff, that’s what their relationship is: is it desperately sad, or is it actually beautiful? That was where Emerald wanted to live for a lot of the music, and it became the bridge between the Charli album and the score.”

As he travelled between the Yorkshire Dales filming locations and back to London to work, Willis curated a minimalist set-up with the power to create a film score on the go. He says, “I was able to work on this film with one rig that I could take back and forth to London and have in the edit, thanks to the power of the new chips in the MacBook Pro. I use Vienna Ensemble Pro, Logic, and a lot of Cinematic Studio Strings. I also use Spitfire libraries and the Una Corda sample from Native Instruments, which was useful for the original version of the music box piano. I loved working with the LCO (London Contemporary Orchestra) in London and the incredible team at AIR Studios. While I have a lot of tools to help me write, the score itself really comes to life in the final chapter when we go into the recording sessions.

“It’s a nerve-wracking thing because you’ve been living with this sample-based music, and then you replace 98 per cent of it sonically in a single week. I get very involved with that process. Emerald and I chose the takes in the recording together. I’d play her an edit of the recording before we mix it so that she’s on board and feels it captures the way she felt during the recording session. It takes a lot of people to put these scores together; it really is a huge job.” (Adam Protz)

Travel Noire invites its readers to 'Step Inside The Magic Of The 'Wuthering Heights' Filming Locations'.