'We’re claiming them back'

The Irish Times reports on a recent visit of President Catherine Connolly to her alma mater, the University of Leeds where

She also viewed the university’s collection of material associated with Yorkshire’s most famous literary family, the Brontës, whose father, Patrick Prunty (who changed his surname to avoid the connotation with Ireland), was originally from Co Down.

“We’re claiming them back,” the President joked in reference to the Brontë sisters, Emily, Charlotte and Anne.

Paper was scarce in 18th-century England and Connolly viewed a mock newspaper written up by Charlotte Brontë in tiny handwriting on an Epsom salts wrapper when she was just 13. Charlotte read the newspaper to the family collection of toy soldiers. (Ronan McGreevy)

She also gave a speech at the Leeds Irish Centre as reported by Yorkshire Evening Post:

She also mentioned Patrick Brontë, the County Down father of the Brontë sisters. (Charles Gray)

Irish News recommends '5 new books to read this week' including

4. This Dark Night: The Life Of Emily Brontë by Deborah Lutz is published in hardback by Bloomsbury Continuum, priced £20 (ebook £14). Available May 28

Drawing on newly unearthed material, Deborah Lutz’s This Dark Night is a lively, comprehensive, and thoroughly researched biography of Gothic fiction titan Emily Brontë. Rooted in the dramatic landscape of the Yorkshire moors, Lutz paints a vivid portrait of the surroundings, people and politics that gave rise to Wuthering Heights. Readers hoping for a biography with an exclusive focus on the middle Brontë sister will not find it here, however. So entwined was her life with those of her sisters, Charlotte and Anne, that any attempt to separate Emily entirely would be misrepresentative. It is Lutz’s dissection of Bronte’s works, from early writings set in the fictional Gondal, to her now renowned 1847 novel, that place her at the biography’s centre. Despite a somewhat slow start, This Dark Night, underpinned by wide-ranging sources and expert analysis, is a discerning insight into the woman behind a tale which has captivated generations. (Prudence Wade)

Gulf Weekly also reviews this biography:

The much-awaited biographical book This Dark Night: Emily Brontë, A Life by Deborah Lutz has hit the shelves.

Drawing on formerly inaccessible notebooks and manuscripts, it constructs a portrait of the gothic 1847 novel Wuthering Heights’ author, who is considered to be an elusive figure with a ghostly legacy provoked by her early death.

It tackles her relationship with her famous writing sisters Charlotte and Anne, and how grieving their mother impacted her writing.

The author also illustrates how Emily, who lived from 1818 to 1848, discussed debates of her time such as class and race, which author Deborah believes still resonate today.

She recounted experiencing grief during the writing process.

“While I was writing the passages about the death of the Brontës’ mother, my mother died,” she said on social media.

“She had been ill and frail for a very long time, so her death was no surprise. But then, exactly a month after her death, my dear, dear dog Penny suddenly died. That loss was devastating, especially on top of my mother’s death,” she added. 

“When I got back to writing, I had the occasion to ponder the ways that death and grieving became an integral part of Emily Brontë’s work and life.”

The 19th-century English-American literature professor is known for her classic works, including The Brontë Cabinet (2015), which brought alive the fascinating lives of the Brontë sisters through the things they wore, stitched, wrote on and inscribed.

It was shortlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography and has been translated into Spanish and Japanese. (Rima Al Haddad)

According to Comic Book Resources, 'It's Official, Wuthering Heights Failed For One Major Reason'. (The question is: did it actually fail?)

Wuthering Heights was always meant to be controversial. Whether literature fans wanted another adaptation or not, Emerald Fennell’s version was more Gone With the Wind than Edgar Allan Poe. Even so, when the film hit screens for Valentine’s Day 2026, something was missing. The Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie team-up was marketed as one of the steamiest and most erotic romances of the decade.

Save for some erotic asphyxiation in the first scene, Wuthering Heights felt extremely performative and did not deliver on the promise of a subversive bodice ripper. Whether the movie was a decent adaptation of Emily Brontë’s book was beside the point. Wuthering Heights failed in its edginess because another film had already stolen its thunder. That honor went surprisingly to Saltburn, Fennell’s second feature, also starring Elordi. [...]

Wuthering Heights wasn’t brave enough to make these characters' motivations work and make them truly reprehensible, as opposed to just catty. The film was never going to be a proper adaptation of the Gothic book, but it at least could have been daring. Instead, it was toothless and utterly unsexy, refusing to take any big risks. Love it or hate it, Saltburn at the very least swung for the fences. (Carolyn Jenkins)

Spectator Australia asks the same question that film director Pedro Almodóvar asked a few weeks about about Jacob Elordi: 'Sex symbol or respected actor?'

Fortunately you don’t have to admire Jacob Elordi’s stab at Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights to be knocked out by On Swift Horses which is a remarkably good film now available on Binge. [...]

It’s fascinating – needless to say – what people are saying about the rise of Jacob Elordi. It was no less a figure than Pedro Almodovar who asked whether Jacob Elordi was ‘just a sex symbol or a respected actor’.This was in the context of the great director saying Wuthering Heights was ‘very bad’ and that it was not the fault of Margot Robbie or Jacob Elordi – ‘They do what they can,’ he said. The great Spanish director of Volver added that Frankenstein’s monster was a very convenient role for an actor. (Peter Craven)

A contributor to The Oxford Blue mentions Charli XCX's Wuthering Heights album.

The Phoenix Picturehouse and the Ultimate Picture Palace have become two of my regular Oxford haunts. I have seen Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Sirāt, The Secret Agent, and Project Hail Mary, among others. 

It’s no surprise that I am constantly distracted by soundtracks: the drolly bittersweet placement of Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down”, Charli XCX’s gothic and brooding backdrop to the moors of “Wuthering Heights”, stomach-dropping grief carried by Sirāt’s industrial techno score, and Jeremy Allen White’s sincere recreations of the folk-rock I grew up with. I usually leave the cinema buzzing. Maybe I’m easily impressed, or maybe it has been a great year for music in the media. (Julia Blackmon)

US Magazine interviews Elizabeth Smart:

My very favorite book is Jane Eyre, and there’s a part where Mr. Rochester is talking to Jane, and he’s comparing her to a bird in a cage, and he is like, I could crush this cage, but I’d never get at the bird inside. And I mentioned this quote in my first book, when I talked about what actually happened to me when I was kidnapped. My captors could hurt my body, but my body always protected my spirit. I felt that way through my whole life; my body has carried me through every worst day. It’s given me my children. My body has been through a lot, but it has never let anyone crush my spirit. If it stopped protecting me, then I’d be dead. But here I am alive. So now I feel bodybuilding, for me, is honoring my body. Like, taking the time and the care and the attention that it’s deserved all along, because now it’s stronger. I’m healthier, I’m fitter. (Stephanie Radvan and Andrea Simpson)

Keighley News announces a talk at Keighley Local Studies Library on Labour Party pioneer Philip Snowden, aka Labour's Heathcliff.

Speaker Alexander Clifford, a historian and editor of a new edition of Snowden’s autobiography, says: "With typical Yorkshire grit, Snowden overcame grinding rural poverty and paralysing disability to become the Labour Party’s first Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"But one decision would change his life totally, turning him from socialist hero to traitor and villain and resulting in his expulsion from the party.

"Snowden embraced his new role with gusto, dedicating the rest of his life to attacking the party and people he had once loved.

"His bitter, self-destructive quest for vengeance has strange parallels to a more famous fictional moorland outsider.

"My talk will explore the fascinating story of how and why Philip Snowden betrayed his party to ruthlessly pursue a political vendetta. Was he Labour’s Heathcliff?" (Alistair Shand)