In Twin City Theatre Company’s Stars of Tomorrow production, a rambunctious cast and crew of young theatre-makers barrels full-speed through an exuberantly irreverent reimagining of Emily Brontë’s time at the Roe Head Girls’ School, with a dash of Scooby Doo sprinkled on top for good measure. The play envisions the Brontë sisters’ deceased mother as a skilled necromancer. While Charlotte and Anne are reticent to continue their mother’s legacy, Emily eagerly follows in her mother’s footsteps when a phantom begins terrorizing Roe Head, where Emily and Anne are students and Charlotte is a teacher. Together, they must solve the mystery of the phantom, navigate the onerous expectations placed on young women in the 1800s (or any era, for that matter), and save the school from shutting down once and for all.Emily Ritter makes her directorial debut after performing in the last four Twin City student productions, and most recently Songs for a New World. Ritter marshals a sizeable cast, which ranges in age from elementary school children to recent college graduates. As Emily and Charlotte Brontë, Taylor Curtis and Winnie Blanchfield drive much of the action. Charlotte’s role as a teacher brings her priorities into conflict, forcing her to choose between her job responsibilities and her desire to support the obstinate and irrepressible Emily. That conflict serves as the play’s emotional backbone, as the characters explore the timeless themes of intergenerational misunderstanding. Curtis’s performance as Emily is appropriately single-minded and acerbic. Blanchfield captures the plight of a character stuck between two worlds; Charlotte is no longer one of the girls, but she is also not resigned to settling for an adulthood consumed by a loveless marriage, career advancement, or both. (Douglas Malcolm)
Megan McGinnis: I’m Megan McGinnis, and I’m co-directing this production of Jane Eyre.I actually started my journey with Jane Eyre in 1998. I auditioned to be in the show and wasn’t cast, but I completely fell in love with the musical after seeing it on Broadway many times.Then, in 2009, I began working with John Caird and Paul Gordon on Daddy Long Legs. That production really cemented our creative relationship, and when I directed a new American production of Jane Eyre a couple of years ago, they came into rehearsals and continued developing the piece. I suddenly realised I wasn’t directing a finished musical anymore—I was directing something that was still evolving.When this UK premiere came along, John and Paul invited me to join them as co-director, and I couldn’t be happier that I said yes.Jane Eyre is one of the great literary masterpieces. What was it about Charlotte Brontë’s story that first spoke to you?Megan McGinnis: I first read the novel while I was at college, and it came at exactly the right time in my life.Reading about a woman who was honest about her flaws but still believed she deserved happiness, love and equality was incredibly powerful. Jane never lets society define her worth, even though obstacles are constantly put in her way.Sadly, it’s also a reminder that many of the issues women faced in the 1840s are still relevant today, which is one of the reasons the story continues to resonate with audiences.One of the production’s most interesting creative decisions is that the ensemble all become Jane’s voice at different points throughout the story. How does that work in practice?Megan McGinnis: That’s really the beauty of this adaptation.Everyone on stage becomes part of Jane’s journey, and because the novel is written from her perspective, the ensemble helps carry that narration in a really theatrical way.It also means every member of the company has ownership of the storytelling, and that’s something that has made rehearsals incredibly exciting.
Historic books, which have been chosen for display by Rosemary Wood, Becca Smith, Alice Measom McMahon, and Polly Anna Rosa Steiner, address environmental connections and the use of plants in healing by witches and healers, as well as local representation of witches in the Northwest of England and colonial stereotyping. Books on display include J. G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough, William Harrison Ainsworth’s The Lancashire Witches, and Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea. (Bradley Lengden)
But while this story is a newish angle on the slavery story (perhaps taking some cues from Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, or Jean Rhys’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea), it isn’t always successful at executing what it sets out to achieve. (Aoife Barry)
But from the moment Claudia arrives and approaches the creepy-looking plantation house on the hill, she is plunged into a Gothic horror. Think hauntings, centuries-old curses and possession by evil entities, all rooted in the West African tradition of obeah. There are echoes here of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, plus every horror film that has tried to spook us with unidentifiable noises, doors that suddenly won’t open and disturbing things hidden beneath the floorboards. (Anita Singh)
Indiana was a smash hit and an enduring one, and it’s fair to suggest, as Sampson does, that this “creole romance” had a direct influence on both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Sand quickly became known in Paris for a literary facility every bit the match for her subversive social persona and lifestyle. (Gregory Day)
«Sea lo que sea de lo que estén hechas nuestras almas, la tuya y la mía son las mismas». Emily Brontë definió a la perfección uno de los amores más tóxicos de la historia de la literatura, que daría pie a las novelas románticas juveniles de nuestros días; aunque parece que hubo un tiempo en que habían desaparecido, simplemente cambiaron de generación. (Diego Rueda) (Translation)
Con el objetivo de fortalecer el hábito de la lectura y generar espacios de convivencia entre la ciudadanía, el Gobierno Municipal de Villa de Pozos, a través de la Biblioteca Municipal "Dr. Francisco de Asís Castro", retomará este martes 4 de agosto las sesiones del Café Literario, un espacio dedicado al análisis de obras literarias y al intercambio de ideas entre las y los participantes.La directora de Bibliotecas, Sofía Narváez, informó que las reuniones se llevan a cabo todos los martes del mes a las 10:00 de la mañana en las instalaciones de la biblioteca. En esta nueva etapa, el libro seleccionado será Cumbres Borrascosas, de la escritora inglesa Emily Brontë, obra que servirá como punto de partida para las actividades de lectura, análisis y diálogo entre los asistentes. (Plano Informativo) (Translation)
Startefacts lists five Wuthering Heights adaptations: Wuthering Heights 1978, Wuthering Heights 2009, Arashi ga oka 1988, Abismos de Pasión 1954 and Hihintayin kita sa langit 1991.
In Emerald Fennell’s 2026 take on Wuthering Heights, costume designer Jacqueline Durran created a theatrical hoop-skirted gown with a sweeping train for Cathy’s ill-fated marriage to Edgar Linton. (Meg Walters)
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TheWrap: When you started on the project, what were the things that you and Emerald talked about in terms of the look of “Wuthering Heights?”Linus Sandgren: It started with her, obviously, talking about the film in regards to her vision. I hadn’t read the book, I read her script, and she’s really great at actually explaining with few words, so you get images in your head when she’s talking … you sort of see images when she explains things. With “Saltburn,” she would explain how he’s licking the bathtub, you get images in your head.What was lovely was that the core of the story, the core of the visual storytelling comes from how she saw it as she read the book for the first time, basically, and therefore it was a mishmash of inspirational images that could be coming from Brutalist architecture that she’s seen in her neighborhood with films she’s seen as a kid or other things. She built that story in her head and the dream for her was to make a film that looked like that.She wanted to shoot it all on stage. Basically, to be able to create, at least the world, to look in a specific way and not just shoot in a random house. Everything is derived from her fantasy that has evolved, I’m sure, over the years, and so she had very specific ideas for costume and the design. It would be like the element of a rock and she would have images of rocks, and then images of unclear details of an animal on the wall that you don’t know what it is, but it looks gross, but it’s also beautiful, and it’s actually nothing special. It’s just a piece between the leg and the chest on a pig, but it looks like something else.It was [a] playful and very inspirational room that she had, with inspiring images that were not necessarily in the movie but they were helping us feel the freedom to go much further than you would normally do in in a film that would have to stick to reality – in a way that it was meant to be heightened realism and focus on the love story itself and let the world be expressive for this strong love story, in the same way romantic painters painted dramatic landscapes of man and nature. I think we use the same idea in different ways. Nature and man could be combined in, as much as we could fit, everything to whatever goes on emotionally. And then we had the freedom to be more dramatic than normal, Emerald encouraged [it].From shot to shot, as we went through the story, we decided on what would benefit this scene emotionally to make us feel when we watch these images and the actors in them, how they feel like inside, you always want to do that, but I think to a degree, in this case, it was only what we cared about. That was fun, because that was different from other films, and also, it was a dramatic, emotional and sensual story, which also was different for me.Emerald is the most fun to work with, because it’s always laughter. We always have so fun. Doing this film after “Saltburn” was really a fun challenge, but more challenging for all of us was the technical stuff, because it demanded more technical solutions for everything to work.What were those technical challenges?Well, for example, you decide to shoot on stage and build a house on stage with the interior and the exterior of the house. We shot only landscape shots and the introduction and the hanging and different things on location, but otherwise anytime you were outside around the Wuthering Heights house or Thrushcross Grange, it was on stage.One, you need a variation of weather to both entertain the audience, but also, we saw that as an opportunity to use the weather for the different emotions. That was an important key. It’s like when you play Zelda, then you mix these superpower drinks, you put down like a little bit of Kubrick here and then a little bit of “Gone With the Wind” here and German Expressionism there.I always try to think, which painterly style are we in? “Saltburn” was more baroque, because it could be like a picture that depicts something really hard to watch, but at the same time, you can’t resist watching it because it looks great. In this case, it was like, go all in on romanticism, use the nature with the emotions of the characters and an absolute classic.Also, because we were on stage, that it couldn’t look too artificial. The lighting, in a way, I feel like it should look naturalistic as much as possible, like the correct color temperatures that is in the real world, but an unrealistic amount of dramatic lighting, because it was always somewhat dramatic – either it was foggy or it was like rainy or it was the last sun with the dramatic clouds. Because it happened to be always a little bit dramatic, I guess that is what creates that heightened reality or surrealism in combination with strange sets.When we’re on location, we wanted to maintain that look on location and the technical challenges there would become that it’s sunny and windy, and you want to have a foggy looking or rainy looking scene, we added fog and added rain. All those scenes that look foggy or rainy were a challenge. There was also a challenge to light it in such a way that you had a great flexibility, because we shot on, I forgot now how many days, but it must have been over 40 days on the stages. And, from one day to another, you change, or even from one shot to another, you change direction, and a lot of lights are up there in the ceiling and on pipes and stuff. We needed to always have the flexibility to turn around. And so, we had to add more lights than we needed in a way that I basically peppered the ceiling with the LED lights.It was technical challenges like this because we aimed for creating somewhat realistic but also a dramatic once-a-month type of moment for every shot or every scene. Why it becomes a little more surreal but it was really about trying to capture whatever felt important in that particular scene, emotionally, in the most appropriate way, to enhance that with the visuals, which you don’t always do in films, because sometimes you want it to not be looking the way it feels or you want to do it in more subtle ways or realistic ways. Here it was more all in, which was different and fun. (Drew Taylor)
Fans of period dramas – particularly those inspired by novels from the Brontë sisters – are in for an absolute treat, as one largely overlooked television gem is being celebrated as essential viewing. Having accumulated rave reviews and widespread critical acclaim in the years following its release, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall made its debut on the BBC in November 1996.The three-part miniseries is adapted from Anne Brontë's 1848 novel of the same name and was directed by Mike Barker. Available to watch for free on BBC iPlayer, this outstanding period drama has prompted viewers to declare it surpasses even adaptations of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. (Parul Sharma)
The Brontë Birthplace in Thornton is giving free admission to anyone named Charlotte on Saturday, April 25 and Sunday, April 26, in celebration of Charlotte Brontë’s 210th birthday.Charlotte Brontë, author of Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette and The Professor, was born at the house on Market Street on April 21.Thomas Haigh, audience development and marketing lead at the Brontë Birthplace, said: "It was here in this very house that Charlotte’s story began, long before Jane Eyre and long before her name became famous across the world."We want to mark this special day by doing something a bit unexpected."We would love to get as many Charlottes as possible to step inside the place where her life began and to be part of a shared, living tribute to her legacy."The house will be open from 11am to 4pm, with visitors invited to explore the museum, bring family members, and enjoy the on-site café.Visitors will also be entered into a prize draw to stay in Charlotte’s room, which is now an Airbnb. (Harry Williams)
One morning in early June, 1850, Charlotte Brontë finally met her literary hero, William Makepeace Thackeray. To do so, the 4ft 8in writer - recently unmasked as Currer Bell, the author of Jane Eyre, published in 1847 - chose to wear her “power gown”, a vibrant blue-and-white floral print dress made in a fine alpaca fabric woven in her native Yorkshire.The meeting took place in the drawing room of her publisher George Smith. Thackeray was impressed, later recalling: “New to the London world, she entered it with an independent, indomitable spirit of her own.”From experience, Charlotte knew that appearance and favourable first impressions mattered. She had been stung by criticism when she joined the stylish young ladies of Roe Head School in Mirfield in 1931, told that she was “very ugly” by one pupil, Mary Taylor, who later described her as wearing “very old-fashioned clothes, and looking very cold and miserable”.A surviving drawing by Charlotte, of a young woman wearing a highly fashionable, early 1930s-style puff-sleeved gown, shows how much she had noticed and been influenced by the Roe Head girls.This is highlighted by historian and costume consultant Eleanor Houghton, whose new book, Charlotte Brontë’s Life Through Clothes, examines how surviving pieces from the author’s wardrobe give remarkable insight into her experience, her feelings and her work.The book is illustrated by Eleanor’s own beautiful drawings which capture the detail of the dresses, shawls, bonnets, boots, combs, corsets and more.Charlotte made her own clothes, with housekeeper Martha Brown, using fabrics from Yorkshire mills. The gown that later became known as the “Thackeray Dress” was made in a cloth called Alpaca Orleans, a blend of alpaca and cotton, woven by Sir Titus Salt who had mills in Bradford just nine miles from Haworth (Salts Mill in Saltaire opened later in 1953).ir Titus was a fabric pioneer, and managed to transform fine alpaca fleece into a lustrous but hardwearing fabric that quickly became a rival to silk. Printed (probably in Accrington) in a vibrant blue and white pattern of leaves and flowers, Charlotte bought the fabric around 1848 - and the blues retain their bright quality to this day.Charlotte left most of her wardrobe to her husband, Arthur Bell Nichols, and some also to Martha. Pieces were acquired by fans down the years, but many found their way home to the Brontë Parsonage Museum at Haworth, which now looks after around 150 items.The Thackeray dress was given to Martha’s niece, who made significant alterations, adding a brown collar and removing fabric from its full skirt.Charlotte’s clothing reveals a woman more body and fashion-conscious than suspected. In Brussels, she bought a corset measuring just 18.5 inches around the waist. It became a staple, and later caused concern to her publisher George Smith. Eleanor Houghton writes: “Nearly forty years after her death, still impacted by what he had seen, Smith told his friend, the novelist George Gissing, that Charlotte was ‘very vain of her narrow waist … and laced herself so tight as to injure herself’.”Pointing out that tight lacing at the time was the practice of a minority of women, Eleanor suggests that Charlotte, always conscious of her perceived lack of beauty, was “deliberately and blatantly exhibiting her femininity”. The corset might also have served as an armour as she sought strength and protection while nursing a heart broken by her unrequited love for M Heger in Brussels.On display now at the Brontë Parsonage is a paisley print dress Charlotte wore in the 1840s, exotic and vibrant in shades of duck egg blue, mint, red and black. One Haworth resident, who recalled seeing them many times in the village, said: “I don’t know that I ever saw them in owt but print - I’ve heard it said they were pinched - but it was a nice print … They looked grand.”Born on April 21, 1816, this Tuesday marks the 210th anniversary of Charlotte Brontë birth. The Brontë Parsonage Museum and the nearby Brontë Birthplace in Thornton are hosting special events, including performances and talks.Eleanor has been a consultant for many TV and film historical dramas including the BBC’s To Walk Invisible, written and directed by Sally Wainwright, and Frances O’Connor’s 2023 biopic, Emily.In 2022, in collaboration with the Brontë Parsonage Museum, she curated a large exhibition of Charlotte’s surviving wardrobe. “The museum has become a second home. The staff have been endlessly patient and helpful and always willing to clamber to the back of the Bonnell Store or to upend the library in search of a particular garment or record,” she says.“I considered why Charlotte had chosen each piece, what it revealed of her taste, the challenges she faced, and the sartorial conventions and codes of 19th‑century society.”She traced how and where the clothes were worn, how they were changed, and how they shaped Charlotte’s daily experience, studying them alongside letters and diaries, to uncover a rich, complex picture of Charlotte and her ever-changing world.“The village’s surviving mills and weavers’ cottages are reminders, too, that Charlotte lived in a landscape shaped by the Industrial Revolution and by the textile economy that produced so many of the fabrics in her wardrobe.“These gowns, bonnets, bags, and boots have presented to us a very different Charlotte Brontë,” she says. “She is a woman who is more rounded, more three-dimensional and braver, bolder, and yet somehow more vulnerable. She is less isolated and more globalised. She is more fashion-conscious and defies long-held preconceptions.“She shows herself to be very self-critical, but also provocative and tenacious. By hearing the clothes’ testimonies, we encounter Charlotte not simply as a writer but as a real, thinking, feeling, breathing woman.“Yet these clothes reveal more than Charlotte alone. They bring the world she inhabited vividly into view — nineteenth-century Yorkshire, with its rugged moors and sprawling villages; the networks of makers, merchants, and markets; the drive and creativity of industrial innovation; and the global routes that brought fabrics, fibres and influences from France, Peru, Mexico, Canada, and the United States to a little parsonage in the West Riding."They allow us to see how Charlotte navigated her social and material world, balancing expectation, personal comfort, and self-expression — and in doing so, they let us step closer to the woman behind Jane Eyre, behind Lucy Snowe, and to see beyond them to the life she really lived. (Stephanie Smith)
A lost manuscript which had been hidden for more than a century has uncovered a teenage Charlotte Brontë's fascination with "very naughty" Parisian society.The Journal of a Frenchman was the missing part of a series of The Young Men's Magazine, which Brontë edited and wrote aged 14.It belongs to the Brontë Parsonage Museum and has been analysed for the first time by the University of Chester's Professor Deborah Wynne, who said she was honoured to be chosen.On reading the magazine Wynne said she discovered aspects to Charlotte Brontë she "hadn't really encountered before"."It's written as though Charlotte herself is a French young man who's a dandy. He gets drunk and disorderly."So you've got this Yorkshire clergyman's daughter, who seems so respectable, but she seems to know all about being drunk and disorderly in Paris in this journal entry."And you realise she had this sense of humour, which doesn't always come out in quite the same raucous way in her novels."She's more ladylike in the way she writes in her novels, whereas she gave herself this freedom to write as a man and really went to town with that," she said.In 2019, the magazine was discovered and purchased by the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, where the sisters lived and wrote their novels, such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.The museum had all other issues of The Young Men's Magazine and bought the September 1830 issue when it appeared in a Parisian auction house.The museum set up a fundraising campaign, which Wynne donated to, and it returned to Haworth where it has now been examined and preserved.Six scholars were invited to analyse the work the results of which were published in The Journal of the Brontë Society last year.Wynne said discovering the manuscript was "fitting together this piece into a jigsaw"."It was an amazing experience to see that manuscript and know it had been hidden away for over a century," she said."To know I was the first person to actually push all of that jigsaw together, as it were, it was really exciting. So it's been one of the best projects I've ever worked on."She said themes in the manuscript reappear in Brontë's later more well-known works, such as Jane Eyre and Villette."She really presents the aristocratic characters in France negatively. And later in her novels, a lot of the aristocratic characters are presented negatively too," she said."So you can sort of see how she's already a little bit disapproving of her Frenchman. And in the end, he loses all of his money and he becomes a tavern keeper. And he says he's much happier drawing pints for the people who come into his tavern."There is this sense that France is a very naughty sort of place. It's a place where things go on that don't in Yorkshire parsonages."Measuring just 3cm by 6cm the magazine is part of a series of works the Brontë children wrote on scraps of paper because of the high cost of paper in the Victorian era.Principal curator at the Brontë Parsonage, Ann Dinsdale, explained the little manuscripts were meant to look like printed books and magazines produced at the time."These tiny little books have got title pages, they've got contents pages, they contain all the kinds of stories, reviews, poetry that you'd expect to find in Blackwood's magazine."Some of them have even got advertisements in the back. So these were the first publications by the Brontës really."She said the children would have created them using quill pens."It would have taken a fair amount of practise to kind of devise this almost sort of italicised style of writing that they developed for the little books," she said."It became like a secret code among the siblings because they must have realised that if their father or their aunt came across any of these tiny manuscripts they wouldn't have been able to read them."Which is probably quite a good thing because some of the content is not the kind of thing you would expect from the minister's children." (Grace Wood)
Alongside the biblical references are literary greats: the figure of Jane Eyre, less straightened than sturdy, as well as the young and handsome Mr Rochester; Orpheus and the maenads, wild and free; Germaine Greer sitting with her knees apart and the soles of her feet together. (Chloë Ashby)
Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is weighing in on Jacob Elordi’s rapid rise and questioning whether the actor has yet proven his full range. [...]Almodóvar acknowledged Elordi’s growing star power, saying he believes the Australian actor is “without doubt” on track to become a major star. Still, he admitted he remains uncertain about how to define him, raising the question of whether Elordi is primarily a sex symbol or a performer with deeper dramatic range.“I’ve been wondering whether he’s just a sex symbol or a respected actor,” Almodóvar said, adding that he would need to see Elordi in a role that demands more before reaching a clear conclusion.The director also critiqued some of Elordi’s recent projects, arguing that they do not fully showcase the actor’s abilities. He pointed to “Wuthering Heights” and “Frankenstein,” suggesting the material limits the opportunity for more layered performances. Almodóvar candidly characterized “Wuthering Heights” as “very bad,” while noting that neither Elordi nor his co-star Margot Robbie were to blame. (Kennedy French)
3 Wuthering HeightsWhere? Yorkshire DalesYorkshire’s raw, wild, moody moors are as much a character in Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel as Cathy and Heathcliff. So where else could filming for Emerald Fennell’s movie version take place? The production used spots around rippling Swaledale, one of the loveliest and least-touched valleys in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Scenes were shot amid Low Row’s comely stone cottages and in the untamed moors above, around Old Gang Smelt Mill and Surrender Bridge – which, incidentally, also starred in the opening credits of All Creatures Great and Small. There’s great walking country all around. (Sarah Baxter)
Ever watched a movie and wondered what the main character would smell like? [...] Margot Robbie’s Barbie would go for a sugary pink gourmand scent, while her Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights would reek of mud, rain and zero closure. (Kritika Kapoor)
Queen Camilla officially opened the Brontë Birthplace today and was met by crowds of people lining the streets including a royal superfan with a tattoo of Queen Elizabeth II.The Royal visit formed part of the celebratations of the district’s year as City of Culture.The Brontë Birthplace in Thornton – a cottage where the famous sisters were born - is now in public ownership after a two-year campaign which attracted more than 700 investors and achieved national recognition and grants from Bradford 2025, the Community Ownership Fund, the National Lottery Fund and Rural England.Queen Camilla was met with rapturous applause as she exited her car, with people of all ages and cultures on either side of Market Street eager to meet her.She took time to speak to those who had waited patiently for her before being shown around the regenerated Brontë Birthplace as she met committee members, volunteers. and was greeted by broadcaster and journalist Christa Ackroyd.The Queen was shown the original fireplace in front of which the three sisters were born.Her Majesty also spoke to pupils from St Oswald CE Primary School in Bradford who have taken part in the ‘Be More Brontë’ project – an education programme developed to spark a love of literature and reading and also show that, just like the Brontë sisters, anything is possible with ambition and hard work.School headmistress, and education lead on the Brontë Birthplace committee, Gillian Wilson, asked the Queen if she wanted to write a postcard message.Camilla wrote “Be More Brontë” and was complimented by eight-year-old Paige Booth who said: “Nice handwriting.”The Queen smiled and said: “My very bad writing.”She later unveiled an easel plaque to commemorate the opening. (Brad Deas)
The refurbished house in Bradford where the Brontë sisters were born is now welcoming visitors, having been opened on Thursday by the queen.Nestled in a narrow street in the village of Thornton, the home where the literary dynasty spent the early years of their lives was officially opened by Queen Camilla during her visit to Bradford, this year’s City of Culture, with King Charles.This follows 18 months of hard-fought campaigning and fundraising to purchase the historic building and transform it into a museum, educational centre and overnight accommodation.The modest house is where the Brontë sisters Charlotte, Anne and Emily were born and lived with their church minister father Patrick and their brother Branwell. The family, including their mother Maria and two older children, Maria and Elizabeth, moved to the now-famous parsonage in Haworth in April 1820, when Charlotte was four, Wuthering Heights author Emily, two, and Anne, who went on to write The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, just three months old. Maria died not long after the move, aged 38, and the two older sisters both died in 1825, aged 11 and 10.The building at 72-74 Market Street, Thornton, Grade II* listed since 1952, has had various uses since they left, including housing several butchers and most recently a cafe, which closed down during the Covid-19 pandemic.A team of campaigners including Bradford-born TV presenter Christa Ackroyd and Nigel West, a volunteer fundraiser who has family links to the Brontës, have worked tirelessly to first buy the building, which went on sale for £300,000, and then raise money to renovate it.Thanks to a £250,000 grant from the Bradford City of Culture fund and a huge crowdfunding appeal, they hit their £650,000 target. The house will now act as a museum and an educational centre for visiting school groups.Almost a million visitors travel to Haworth every year, many of them for the Brontë links. The team behind the project is now hoping a good chunk of them will also visit Thornton, six miles away.From July the house’s bedrooms will be open for overnight stays. The biggest has been called Charlotte’s Room, dominated by a four-poster bed, but in reality it would have been where all six Brontë children slept, with Patrick and Maria next door in what is now known as Emily’s Room. A third, named for Anne, is actually in a part of the building that was added to long after the family left.West said: “This will be the only place in the world where you can sleep in the same room that the Brontës slept in. Downstairs, in what is now the cafe, they were born on the floor right in front of the fireplace.” (David Barnett)
It’s not often a senior member of Britain’s royal family opens a cultural centre with extensive Irish connections, but that’s exactly what Queen Camilla did yesterday – and the Brontës were the reason.Those three sisters produced an exceptional body of work which includes Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, jewels in the English literary canon, but they have strong Irish ties through their father.He was born Patrick Brunty and grew up in the parish of Drumballyroney in Co Down. In time, he became vicar of Haworth, the Yorkshire village where he gave his children free rein in his library and encouraged their creativity.Patrick had ambitions to be an author himself, and although he never achieved the success of his daughters, he was published.Sophie White: How and why to avoid advice, plus three simple rules to live byCatherine Prasifka: What the election of Pope Leo XIV has in common with Taylor Swift’s Eras tourOliver Callan: I felt like Hemingway of the hydrangeas after my latest intrepid gardening scrapeA key element of the family’s story is centred on a Grade II* (grade two-star ) listed building in Thornton, near Bradford, where Queen Camilla met volunteers and Brontë enthusiasts yesterday. It has been designated the Brontë Birthplace, Thornton, but when Patrick arrived to take up residence it was a parsonage. With him was his wife Maria and their two young children: a time of hope and promise.It was mid-May 1815 – 210 years ago, almost to the day – and although Patrick is closely bracketed with the parsonage in nearby Haworth, where they moved in 1820, he spent five productive years in Thornton. In later life, he called them his “happiest days”.In front of a fireplace in the parlour there, the four youngest children were born – the only four out of six to reach adulthood. They were Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, and it’s not hard to imagine their laughter ringing through the rooms.Moves are afoot to twin Thornton with Banagher, another link with Ireland, because the Co Offaly town was an important stop on Charlotte’s month-long Irish honeymoon. It was home to Arthur Bell Nicholls, her husband and Patrick’s curate in Haworth.Underlining that shared history and those meaningful bonds across the Irish Sea, Banagher Brontë Group representatives travelled to Thornton for the official opening.Present were James Scully, its chairperson, and Nicola Daly, its secretary and owner of Hill House in Banagher, now Charlotte’s Way guesthouse.Arthur retreated to Hill House after Charlotte’s death, followed by Patrick’s, and lived there for 45 years until 1906.With him, he carried priceless Brontë artefacts, including Charlotte’s wedding dress, first editions and a painting of his sisters by Branwell, eventually left to the National Portrait Gallery in London. Many of those “relics” are now in the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth.The Thornton addition to Brontë heritage is part cultural centre, part historic site, part “immersive experience” as it describes itself.A former butcher’s shop, it is in public ownership for the first time in more than 200 years. This birthplace is a significant site in the Brontë story and played a role in their literary evolution.While there, Patrick was writing and had novellas and other work published, and his children saw books by him on the shelves.He had considerably less ability – his work is uneven, heavy-handed in its religious and sometimes political allegory. However, writing was not only in the Brontë blood, through Patrick, but demonstrably an achievable goal.In 2012, the Brontë Birthplace Trust was established to buy the property, by now in poor condition. Crowdfunding has been important, along with support from quarters including Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, and a share offer which raised cash from 770 members.It was bought in April last year, brought into community ownership, and renovations began. Today, it is furnished to recreate the Brontës’ occupancy and visitors can stay overnight in rooms named after Charlotte, Emily and Anne.The Banagher Brontë Group and its members made several visits and donated to the project. Coincidentally, one of the key movers in the Thornton initiative has close Banagher associations. Arthur’s Offaly home, Hill House, belonged to ancestors of Nigel West, a Thornton committee member responsible for fundraisingNigel West’s father inherited Hill House in 1959 from his aunts, the Kerans, relatives of Mary and Arthur’s. The house was sold, but Nigel has an affection for it and is keen to foster links between Banagher and Thornton.He promises Irish visitors a special welcome to Thornton and said of the royal visit: “It’s a huge endorsement of the community’s hard work.”Charlotte called their love of writing “scribblemania” and Patrick had the bug too. A story by him was published while living in Thornton, promisingly called The Cottage in the Wood, or the Art of Becoming Rich and Happy; his recipe included God and education.From humble origins, he transformed his life via education, and it’s a theme in all seven novels published by his daughters.As for the Brontë Birthplace,Thornton – it’s an example of how a dedicated, determined team of volunteers can change outcomes. Self-made man Patrick would approve.
Pictures of the Brontë Birthplace appear in the latest issue of the Absolutely Yorkshire magazine.
The bond between sisters is a strong one, often yielding powerful emotions, fury, jealousy and of course, great love. As much as the great works that they created, it is the relationships between the extraordinary siblings, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, that are explored in a fascinating and beautifully written play by Polly Teale.Opening this week at Ilkley Playhouse’s Wildman Theatre, Brontë is presented as if it were a public rehearsal.The fourth wall is broken immediately as director, Chrissie Poulter welcomes in the audience and explains some of the conventions they will be using – the ringing of a bell for example, to signify the change of scene. And then we watch as the actors put on their costumes and rehearsal clothes and start the play.Central, of course, to this piece are the sisters. Charlotte is portrayed in a stunning performance by Lottie Kingsley who captures perfectly her determination, her perseverance, her longing for adventure and escape and also her common sense and reliability.Eliza Wilson is beautifully assured as Emily, as she strives to reveal her unconventionality and rebellious streak and also her mystery. Both these actors have moments of perfect stillness when they are able to convey simply with a flicker of their eyes an emotion or a thought. Anne Bronte, the sister least confident in her abilities, is played by Victoria Bandy who manages to play the least well known writer in a manner so compelling that one is newly encouraged to seek out her works.All of the sisters have to deal with the austerity of their father, Patrick (Patrick Hebbert) and the disreputable and chaotic nature of their brother Branwell (Reuben Baldwin). Hebbert manages to imbue the bereft patriarch with a slight tenderness to soften his harsh reputation whilst Baldwin’s Branwell is every inch the infuriating louche of his renown.That said, once set against the passions and successes of his sisters, it is easy to imagine how he became so disillusioned and frustrated with his own lot in life – so many expectations are heaped on the only son.Woven into the text of this biographical piece are extracts and scenes from the works of the sisters, and are brought to life in the roles of Cathy Earnshaw and Bertha by Vickie Wooller and Emma Towning.These character vignettes serve both as reminders of the novels whilst also revealing aspects of the writers’ characters which manifest through their writing. And this is the great skill of the playwright, Polly Teale, who has delved deeply into the histories of the women and has striven to understand both their staid sufferance and confinement as well as their expansive imaginations and burgeoning successes.Painfully and tragically and of course expectedly, there is a sequence of the family’s demise, brightened only briefly by the wittily written proposal scene between Charlotte and Arthur Bell Nicholls (Eoin Howe) – reminiscent of Jane Austen’s Mr Collins.The performances alone here are enough to elicit cheers from the audience, but coupled with the superb writing and well-crafted direction it is definitely not to be missed. Grab a ticket quickly – word will get about. (Rebecca Carter)
Cathy Marston’s Jane Eyre (2016) returned to Sadler’s Wells during Northern Ballet’s London tour. Set to compositions by Philip Feeney, the ballet explores Charlotte Bronte’s novel through Marston’s deeply honed signature movements and choreography. Jane Eyre retells the story through Jane’s retrospective reflection on her life; in Marston’s prologue, Jane is found by St John Rivers, after she has collapsed around the struggles that have led her to this point. Marston eloquently shapes the male corps de ballet that explores the metaphors of Jane’s conflict, a signature trait which emerges in later ballets, including San Francisco’s Snowblind (2018). Structured as a two-act ballet, the narrative unfolds as a reflection of Jane’s life as an orphan at Lowood Institution, her arrival at Thornfield, and the tragedy (a wedding that gets interrupted by Mr Rochester’s deranged wife, and the fire that destroyed Thornfield and left Rochester visually impaired).Marston is an outstanding storyteller. At the hands of this pioneering choreographer, nothing is left to chance. The dancers (as metaphors, the young women at Lowood, or guests at Thornfield) move through the choreography which is shaped with meticulous detail. Gestures have meaning, and are used to serve the narrative throughout the ballet. Props, including gravestones, miniature desks, a high-backed chair, also offer references to the context of the narrative, working around a sense of minimalist design. Patrick Kinmonth’s set and costume designs effectively capture the period and the Yorkshire hills. The combination of storytelling in the movements, together with the use of contemporary period costuming and stage design, successfully brings all the various components together. In true Marston style, the presence of an elevated platform at the back of the stage supported a spatial and framing device for the complexity of the narrative to unfold.Marston’s adaptation of the novel to the stage is easy to follow in part due to the effective collaboration between choreographer, composer and scenographer. Feeney’s compositions are an outstanding element of the collaboration – the motif of the first meeting between Jane and Rochester is truly sublime. In equal measure, the progression of the movement vocabulary as their relationship unfolds through the narrative is sublimely explored. As the relationship becomes closer, the choreography becomes more ambitious, and the composition ties up the ebb and flows of the performance. The unique gesture (hands crossed around Jane’s face) is visible in the first physical encounter and moves through their various duets until it culminates in Jane’s memories and instigates her return to Thornfield. Sarah Chun and Joseph Taylor’s performances on opening night eloquently narrated the transition between their first meeting, to the blossoming of their relationship, and finally the reunion after the tragic fire. As Jane walks into the light, Feeney’s final notes fade away and leave Jane owning her story. In our world, we have come full circle.Northern Ballet is a joy to watch; each dancer commits to their role in the storytelling that Marston has shaped. Julie Nunes as Adele, together with Harriet Marden (Aunt Reed), Gemma Coutts (Bertha), and Heather Lehan (Mrs Fairfax), have uniquely shaped vocabularies that mark out their characters and create a broad palette of steps to narrate Brontë’s story. They delivered a fine performance. Jane Eyre is a ballet which is quintessentially ‘northern’, and the company showcases its golden ‘Marston’ ballet with flair and mastery. (Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel)
There is very little dance in the book Wuthering Heights. At the Thornfield Hall, Jane observes people dancing, but she is not part of it. "There was the sound of the piano and the voice of singing; then a pause, and the stately measure of a dance." Dance is stately and performative, but neither emotional nor intelligent in Jane Eyre. Cathy Marston's ballet adaptation, therefore, is an interesting one. Brontë's book portrays a thinking and feeling woman and her inner consciousness expounded in hundreds of pages. It is no easy task to incarnate a fictional memoir so deeply pensive and extensive in words.Nonetheless, the piece has strength in storytelling. Marston great command of narrative and is clear on the direction. Young Jane, abused and overlooked growing up in an orphanage, meets Heathcliff, in whom she finds love. Through her journey, she gains strength and hope. There is certainly drama, passion and love, that is also musically persuasive. Phillip Feeney's score has both 19th-century romanticism as well as a modern, suspenseful tone, which the orchestra led by Daniel Parkinson executed near to perfection.The production enjoys some brilliant moments, especially from the corps. The pass by the orphans and D-men creates a suspenseful feeling and adds force to the narrative. Sarah Chun and Joseph Taylor were strong dancers in Jane and Heathcliffe. Some pas de deux are sweet and playful, and lifts and drags are slightly overdone. The push-and-pull chemistry is palpable. However, there could have been more character building of Jane, especially considering the ending where Jane insists on her reign on the narrative coming out of the dark stage after her reunion with Heathcliff. Throughout the work, Jane has little contemplation, time for herself, and development of her own corporeal language.The set and lighting fall flat and do little to imbue a gothic atmosphere in which the piece fails to beat the original. The overall visual design could have given more magic to the piece.There is nevertheless, a very solid attempt to recreate a convincing love story, perhaps not Jane's story as told in her narrative, but a timeless drama that is beautiful in motion. (Sam Lee)
A Book of Ryhmes was produced by Charlotte when she was just 13 years old.The original, handwritten work is smaller than a playing card, with a brown paper cover, and is dated December, 1829.It was the last Charlotte Brontë miniature manuscript book known to be in private hands before it was bought by the Friends of the National Libraries in 2022, at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair.The book was then donated to the Brontë Society’s parsonage museum at Haworth, where it was originally written when the building was the family home of the literary siblings.Now the work has been carefully transcribed and published as a hardback anthology of 10 poems, including The Beauty of Nature and On Seeing the Ruins of the Tower of Babel.It also features images of Charlotte’s original manuscript and essays by Barbara Heritage – associate director of the Rare Book School – and bookseller Henry Wessells, who worked on the acquisition in 2022.A foreword has been written by Patti Smith – a singer, songwriter, poet, painter, author and photographer.She says: "Though written nearly 200 years ago, the book has maintained the freshness of youth. It is not simply a handful of juvenile verses, but the manifestation of an ambitious dreamer."The Brontë Society partnered with independent Yorkshire publisher Tartarus Press on the project.Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, says: "When Charlotte created the original collection of these poems, she inscribed it as being ‘Sold by Nobody, and Printed by Herself’. How thrilled she would be – as we are – that so many years later, it has been published and is now available so anyone can have their own copy; it has been a very special way for us to mark the 209th anniversary of Charlotte’s birth." [...]The original A Book of Ryhmes is on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. (Alistair Shand)
She sits writing at the kitchen table as the surrounding countryside is assaulted with heavy wind and rain. Beyond her home, a bleak parsonage is the overcrowded village of Haworth, close neighbour of the industrial sprawl of Keighley. The unsanitary village is a place of suffering and disease, where life expectancy is low, and half the children die before the age of six.Yet on 26 October 1829, 13-year-old Charlotte Brontë wrote nothing of this. Nothing of the horrendous odours. Nothing of the empty cupboards, the endless chores. Nothing of the deaths of her elder sisters and mother. Nothing of the fear of losing her father, who had agonised for months with a lung ailment. Instead, on tiny, precious scraps of paper, she composed a contemplative hymn to beauty. Seeking to define it, despite cruel circumstances, she takes a mental stroll in a welcoming forest where the elements blossom in perfect harmony. Then as the revelation of nature’s beauty dissipates, she resorts to the burgeoning terrain of her own imagination.Charlotte channels the reflections of one of her own characters, striding through a Canadian forest. Through him, she portrays with mysterious accuracy, the majesty of the great trees that rise like the masts of tall ships. In late November she unpredictably re-imagines the time of Babel, expanding the Genesis tale. Wrestling with an unbridled passion for words she evokes the atmosphere and those doomed souls attempting to pierce the whereabouts of God with the construction of a forbidden tower.Her description, mixing the unexpected with the prosaic, suggests panels of the Babel tower painted by Bruegel. Suddenly she drops down to Earth and offers a quiet, lucid little piece, 14 lines that she identifies as a sonnet. She heralds the magnificence of nature yet reminds us of the jewels of the seemingly commonplace. “Lovely is the bright rainbow but lovelier still the swan’s neck of snow.” Simplicity so acutely articulated, it brought me to tears.I was privileged to personally view this tiny miracle, Charlotte’s chapbook, on her birthday. Though written nearly 200 years ago, it has maintained the freshness of youth. It is not simply a handful of juvenile verses, but the manifestation of an ambitious dreamer. The sight of it spun me into the realm of my own childhood.Like Charlotte, I was the oldest and could often be found scribbling little stories to amuse my younger siblings. I could access that feeling, when solitude surges into a thousand visions, coupled with the unspoken desire to one day create books read by others. Though I had neither her vocabulary nor precocious literary skills, I recognised the energy, the concentration, the power of invention that a young writer wields as a benevolent weapon.The Brontë siblings created worlds filled with heroes and produced strange maps of new lands known only to them. Collectively and feverishly the four sat at the wooden kitchen table, constructing their own Game of Thrones. But in 1829, from October to December, Charlotte was compelled to create her solitary effort.Again, I picture her sitting, the parsonage bleak, the night ominous, warmed by her own creative impulse. In the last precious scraps, she returns to the rich tapestry of her boundless imagination. In the centre of December, with frost obscuring the view, and the wild wind causing the heart to tremble she writes of dead winter mystically transformed. But Charlotte, as if rudely awakened from her own spell, produces her last words in “Autumn Song”, stunned by the reality of the harshness of decay, nature’s waning day.How amazing the scope of the mind of this adolescent girl who would later pen the classic Jane Eyre and the masterpiece Villette at that same wood kitchen table. She possessed the rare ability to open herself to the darker elements and transform them. For through all loss and hardship, she forever harboured the secret knowledge of her own powers, that at 13 she laboured to nourish and express in the tiny Book of Ryhmes, Charlotte’s young season.Today, almost two centuries after it was written by then 13-year-old Charlotte Brontë, ‘A Book of Ryhmes’ will be published for the first time. The hardback anthology of 10 poems has been carefully transcribed and is accompanied by a foreword by legendary singer, songwriter, poet, painter, author and photographer, Patti Smith. The original book is on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum and the new publication is available to buy from www.bronteshop.org.uk
The Brontës by Anita Rani: Sisters of Disruption will look at the influence of Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë on readers over the years - including Anita Rani herself.The programme is partly autobiographical, tracing Rani's relationship with the Brontës as she returns to her hometown of Bradford.She recalls her first encounter with the sisters at school and her experience of growing up with the landscape of Haworth and the moors on her doorstep.Rani also meets fellow Brontë fans and literary experts to discuss how and why these sisters became ground-breaking 'literary disruptors' (in the words of a spokesperson), whose work still feels relevant and influential today.Executive producer Mark Robinson said: "The legacy of the astounding work of Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë continues to reverberate around the world - they were challenging the patriarchy two hundred years ago."The worlds the sisters created have influenced culture across the centuries - from Kate Bush to Taylor Swift, Game of Thrones to Saltburn."As well as looking at how they inspired her, Anita will also discover just what made them so subversive – and very different to the timid image so frequently associated with them."Rani said: "These strong, unearthly sisters fed into my psyche and made me think anything was possible."I related to the darkness and tragedy in the Brontës’ lives...they had as much impact on me as Neneh Cherry, The Smiths, and Goldie."In this film I’m going to explore how these women - so full of rage - changed my life, and the world."Growing up, romance wasn’t on the cards."Bollywood felt distant."But Heathcliff...well, he could have been Indian - dark hair, dark features...why would he not be?"Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture and Sky Arts have announced a free screening of the programme on May 7 as part of the Creative Cities Convention.This will be followed by a panel discussion with Rani and Shanaz Gulzar, creative director of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.The programme will then be available to watch on Sky Arts, Freeview, and streaming platform NOW from May 20.Tickets for the free screening, which will take place at Pictureville Cinema, are available at https://my.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/0/413178The free screening event begins at 7pm, with a 6.30pm arrival time. (Will Abbott)
Performed by The CompanyWritten by Emily BrontëAdapted for the stage by Andrew SheridanDirected by Alice ChambersWith Haleema Nasir, Yokio Walker, Ibrahim Ibrahim, Gemma Griffiths, Jess Wood, Miles Dunkley, Zeina Archibald, Lia Gaynor, Muhibb Nazir, Tiarna Mullings, Khari, Scarlett Taylor.July 5, 6 at 7.30pmThe House, 6 Centenary Square, Birmingham, B1 2EPSet on the rambling moors, Cathy and Heathcliff embark on a love story that transcends decades and universes.After Heathcliff is rescued from the city by milk farmer Earnshaw and taken to live at Wuthering Heights, he finds solace in Cathy Earnshaw. Their idyllic, rural childhood is cut short by Earnshaw’s death, and the two are flung into responsibility. Expectations, family, and the temptation of money all strive to break these two apart.Re-contextualised to the black country in the 1990s, this classic story asks the universal question: can childhood love stand the test of time?
Saudi-backed developers World Wide Renewable Energy Global Ltd want to build the windfarm on more than 2,300 hectares at Walshaw Moor, between Hebden Bridge and the Brontë stronghold of Haworth. [...]However campaigners say it will impact endangered birds, like curlew, lapwing, skylark and merlin, and exacerbate already serious local flooding.The huge scheme would need 22 miles of access roads and 160 tonnes of reinforced concrete for each of the gigantic turbines.At 200m tall (655ft) the turbines would be 20m taller than London’s 41-storey The Gherkin. (Alexandra Wood)
The one-eyed prince responds to his brother and liege’s taunting in a bustling brothel by standing up buck naked and walking by as though completely unbothered. The young man seems to vibrate on a different frequency than his family does; like an evil Jane Eyre, he has a touch of the unearthly about him, conveyed skillfully by the actor Ewan Mitchell. (Sean T. Collins)
Look around at the pop-culture landscape of 2024, and you will see that the genre we call romance is ubiquitous. The self-aware love stories of Emily Henry and a romantasy boom that has filled best-seller lists with series by Rebecca Yarros and Sarah J. Maas are propping up a weakened publishing industry. Mediocre rom-coms like Anyone But You and frothy shows like Bridgerton have become formidable phenomena. And from heady courtships to bitter breakups, the songs of cultural monolith Taylor Swift comprise a catalog of love in all its many moods.What’s curious about this trend is that, for all its diversity of style and content, from realism to historical fiction to fairies and beyond, the reign of romance has come without a substantive revival of Romanticism—the artistic sensibility that suffused the foundational works of late-18th and early-19th century writers like Blake, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, and the Shelleys, and went on to inspire such Victorian masters as the Brontë sisters. Romantic literature isn’t all love stories; the cohort rejected the cold reason and empiricism of the Enlightenment in favor of the irrational, the supernatural, the emotional, and the deeply subjective. (Judy Berman)
Casting has been set for the workshop development process for a new Wuthering Heights musical.Based on the Brontë classic tale about tortured love on the Yorkshire Moors, the show is written by father and daughter duo Mick and Lizzie Lister, with book and lyrics by Lizzie Lister, and music by Mick Lister, Lizzie Lister and Clare Lonsdale.Set to appear in the workshops are, Cleve September (The Little Big Things, Hamilton) as Heathcliff, Lara Denning (Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Matilda) as Nelly Dean , Rhys Whitfield (The Phantom of the Opera, My Fair Lady) as Edgar Linton, Jasmine Hackett (Six) as Isabella Linton (Six), Luke Friend (American Idiot, Footloose) as Hindley Earnshaw and Lizzie Lister as Cathy Earnshaw.The ensemble includes Marco Venturini, Anna Van Der Wolf, Ashley-Jordon Packer and Grace Hope Charles.This new musical adaptation of the Brontë classic has a creative team led by director Racky Plews, producer Emily Obasohan and choreographer Jared Hageman. Composer and arranger Mick Lister is musical supervisor, and casting is by Matt Sheppard.Full production details are to be revealed at a later date. (Alex Wood)
Part of the answer lies in the way the gothic has always focused on a sense of place. It has a long tradition of depicting its physical locations as almost mystical and sentient. After all, what would Wuthering Heights be without the brooding moors, or Jane Eyre without Thornfield and all the secrets locked away in the attic? Dracula thrives off the terror of Carfax Abbey and Castle Dracula, and it’s virtually impossible to remember The Picture of Dorian Gray without his mansion and its hidden room and hidden portrait. These locales are filled with just as much nuance and complexity as the characters that dwell within them. They’re strange and dark and haunted, untold dangers lurking at every turn. (Gwendolyn Kiste)
'Wuthering Heights'Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is often categorized as a Gothic novel due to its remote and gloomy Yorkshire setting alongside themes of passion and revenge.The tempestuous relationship between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff unfolds in a narrative that spans generations.Bronte's complex characters operate within an atmosphere charged with emotional intensity that is emblematic of Gothic fiction. (Anujj Trehaan)
I can now see (a realisation I wish I’d had a decade or two earlier) that Cathy’s “he’s more myself than I am” in Wuthering Heights wasn’t romance, but crippling co-dependence, and as a therapy-educated recovering toxic-love-aholic, I recognise the same intermingling of selves, so easily done with our very own mini-mes, can doom maternal relationships, too. (Rebecca Cox)
Today, [Emily Dickinson's] work is held in extremely high regard not just in the literary world, but among anybody who can find common ground with this brilliant loner and her meditations on love, death and mental health from a perspective that up until that point hadn’t really received any popular consideration. In particular, her work resonates with women, who often struggle to find themselves represented in a largely male-dominated literary canon. It sits alongside that of writers like Sylvia Plath and Charlotte Bronte as an example of the defiant and enduring power of women’s voices over time, and helps remind modern readers of the universality of even the most private experiences. (Ryan Coogan)
The house where the Brontë sisters were born has been "saved for future generations" after receiving government funding, campaigners have said.Literary sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë were born in the terraced house in Thornton, near Bradford in West Yorkshire, between 1816 and 1820.The building is among dozens of historic and community buildings that will share a £25m "levelling up" fund.The £240,000 grant will mean it can be refurbished and opened to the public.The house had previously been in private hands but now will become a "community events space" that will "improve social cohesion and boost local tourism", the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) said.Steven Stanworth, vice chair of Brontë Birthplace Limited, said the funding was "fantastic news" and would mean it could open in time for Bradford's year as UK City of Culture in 2025."This has been a 20-year dream to save the birthplace, the missing piece of the jigsaw in the story of the Brontë sisters," he said."For the first time, the little terraced house will be in public ownership."Brontë Birthplace Limited, a not-for-profit community benefit society, had already raised £367,000, including a grant from the City of Culture, to buy and begin work on the property.Broadcaster Christa Ackroyd, a committee member, said they aimed to "use this little building to inspire the next generation" by welcoming children from every school in the district. (Ian Youngs)
The news is echoed in the Yorkshire Post, Västerbottens-Kuriren (Sweden), Folkebladet (Norway)...
Karen Powell’s Fifteen Wild Decembers, a bewitching reimagining of the life of Emily Brontë, was perhaps the biggest surprise of the year for me. I have a passing knowledge of the Brontës and this isn’t the sort of book I expected to engage with, but I was sucked into the living, breathing world that Powell had constructed for the family. It’s a bold, perilous move to mess with beloved literary figures but it paid off. Immaculate, compelling and full of seemingly effortless lyrical flourishes, it deservedly found itself on the fiction shortlist for the inaugural Nero Book Awards. (Helen Nugent)
Describe your ideal reading experience.Sitting on the porch of a cottage I’ve rented on Martha’s Vineyard for a few weeks every summer for 45 years, looking out over the Menemsha marsh and beach. I still remember, for example, how I felt reading there the manuscripts of Katharine Graham’s “Personal History” and Maggie O’Farrell’s “Hamnet.” I love it when a book grabs me, and, wherever I am, I can’t stop. That’s the good news and the bad news because the next thing you know it’s 5 a.m. Most wonderful experience: Just after rereading “Jane Eyre,” I was in England and visited the extraordinary Brontë parsonage, stood in the room where the Brontë sisters had written and read to each other and created worlds, and walked, as they had, up the path from their door into the moors. Being June, it was not as windswept as I had envisioned.
By focusing on painful childhood experiences, writers like Dickens and Charlotte Brontë (in the likes of Jane Eyre) helped shape the version of trauma we understand now. (Madeleine Wood)
One of those working on the project is Dr Viji Kuppan, a research associate at the Centre for Hate Studies. He told Eastern Eye: “This work has a personal and political dimension for me.“Some years ago, I visited the West Yorkshire village of Haworth for the first time. It is a place steeped in literary history, famed for its association with the Bronte sisters, who once lived in the village.“With its cobbled streets and characterful shops and cafes, it exudes an enchanting olde worlde charm. Nestled among the weathered hills and windswept moorlands of the southern Pennines, this rugged landscape conjures the atmosphere of classic texts, like The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Wuthering Heights. It may be hard to imagine then, that racism occurs in this most literary and English of places. But it happened to me.“On the threshold of a public house that my (white female) partner and I planned on eating in, a white man, brandishing a large knife, and barring our entrance, ferociously bawled, ‘You crippled P***. I’d like to kill and burn the lot of you’. Our swift withdrawal from the scene may very well have saved me from being physically injured or worse, but the traces of that shock and fear have stayed with me.“The next day, on the same cobbled streets, another white man shouted ‘P***’ followed by ‘Go back home’.” (Shelbin MS)
The Manor House Governess by C.A. Castle (Austen and Brontë)In The Manor House Governess by C.A. Castle, Brontë Ellis, an orphan raised in an all-boys boarding school, is denied the freedom to express his true gender identity. However, an opportunity arises when he becomes a live-in tutor at Greenwood Manor, an elegant country house. The Edwards family embraces Bron’s non-traditional masculine presentation, except for Darcy, the eldest son who appears uncomfortable. As Bron delves into the secrets of the manor, a tragic fire reveals hidden truths. Inspired by classic authors like Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen, The Manor House Governess weaves a captivating tale with elements of popular fiction, making it a timeless novel with a modern twist. (Kennie M)
Wuthering Heights 2011Director Andrea Arnold’s take on Emily Brontë’s masterpiece is a real thrill ride: raw, heady, strange, beautiful. A very different beast to previous adaptations, it divided critics upon its release, but it is now widely viewed as the gothic novel’s most electrifying reimagination. (Harry Fletcher, David Ellis and Elizabeth Gregory)
In the image of Coddington standing in the field, Christie was looking to tell a love story, inspired from the old black-and-white movies he watched often, such as an adaptation of the literary classic “Wuthering Heights.” The aesthetic he hoped to recreate with “The Moors and the hills, all desolate and alone,” Christie explained. “And you know, women are being rejected and men are being foul.” (Taylor Niccioli)
Wuthering Heights, Emily BrontëEmily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is a masterful exploration of love, revenge, class mobility, and greed. It is a gothic novel set in the bitterly cold Yorkshire moors, featuring the supernatural, and even a character’s imprisonment in a remote manor house. I will admit that it can be a difficult novel to get into because of its complex narrative style as well as its regional dialect. However, I found that through listening to it as an audio book, the dialogue came to life, and I could really understand the cruelty and treachery at play within the story. Wuthering Heights is a captivating novel that truly reflects on the brutality of human nature and tragedy of misaligned love. There’s a reason that Kate Bush wrote a song about this novel!My favourite character: Hareton Earnshaw. He is ill-treated by Heathcliff, and raised out of spite and revenge against the Linton’s. However, he does not succumb to the bitterness he is surrounded by, instead maintaining his compassion and a desire to better himself. My favourite quote: “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same […]” (Eliza Heidrich)
Cécile McLorin SalvantWuthering Heights (Kassa Overall Remix)The forty-fifth anniversary of the release of Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights,” on January 20, brought Kassa Overall remix of Cécile McLorin Salvant's critically lauded interpretation of the classic song, from her 2022 Grammy-nominated album, Ghost Song. Overall is a Grammy-nominated musician, emcee, singer, producer and drummer who melds avant-garde experimentation with hip-hop production techniques to tilt the nexus of jazz and rap.
“Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë: Emily Brontë’s gothic masterpiece, “Wuthering Heights,” is a tale of passion, revenge, and the enduring power of love. The novel’s dark and atmospheric setting, coupled with the unforgettable characters of Heathcliff and Catherine, contributes to its status as a classic of English literature. (Ahmed Raza)
Auf dem Programm des zweieinhalbstündigen Abends, der sikalisch mit Adventslieder begann und dann auf weihnachtliches Liedgut hinführte, stand auch eine neue vierstimmige Komposition. Goertz hat sie selbst verfasst, sie heißt „Winter in 40549“, was sich auf die Postleitzahl der Redaktion bezieht. Das sehr ruhige Stück auf einen Text von Emily Brontë mussten die Choristen mit einer besonderen Klangvorstellung singen: „Stellen Sie sich eine geschlossene Schneedecke vor!“, sagte Goertz. Am Ende sang der vierstimmige Leserchor (mit überraschend vielen Tenören) das Werk ohne jede Mühe. (Translation)
Mijn eerste Jane Eyre, van Charlotte Brontë, las ik als jong meisje in stripvorm. (Translation)
Casi 20 años después de aquel libro, Caso publica “Las desheredadas” (Lumen), una historia de mujeres creadoras de los siglos XVIII y XIX, un recorrido por una época crucial en la historia de Occidente. Un libro que recupera la vida de pintoras como Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun o Aldelaïde Labille-Guiard; de ilustradoras como lady Mary Montagu o la duquesa de Osuna; de científicas como la marquesa de Châtelet; las revolucionarias Olympe de Gouges y Mary Wollstonecraft, escritoras como Mary Shelley, las Brontë o Emilia Pardo Bazán o primeras feministas como Flora Tristán, Concepción Arenal o Rosario de Acuña. (Translation)
Jane Eyre (2011)Esta novela clásica de amor de 1847 está considerada precursora del feminismo y la psicología moderna. Cuenta la historia de Jane Eyre, una huérfana educada en un orfanato que aprovecha su inteligencia para encontrar un trabajo como institutriz. Ahí conoce a Edward Rochester, el padre de la niña a la que educa. Pero el amor de Jane se ve enturbiado al descubrir que la mujer de Rochester, víctima de la locura, vive encerrada en una habitación de la casa.Esta obra maestra de Charlotte Brontë tiene una adaptación al cine interpretada por Mia Wasikowska y Michael Fassbender que es maravillosa para disfrutar de esta historia de época en una tarde de Navidad. La encontrarás en Prime Video. (Miguel) (Translation)
Por alguna razón es una película que cada año, en invierno, siempre veo con mi madre. Es como una promesa que nos hemos hecho de que cuando llega el frío, llega la Navidad, la tenemos que ver. De hecho, sólo la vemos en Navidad, en ningún otro momento. Y para mí entonces ver ‘Jane Eyre’ significa que ha vuelto la Navidad y que he pasado otra navidad con mi madre. (Lucía Zamora) (Translation)
Advancements in the treatment of extreme morning sickness are discussed in The Huffington Post and Charlotte Brontë's death is mentioned. Chepstow Beacon quotes some poems celebrating forests and includes verses from Emily Brotnë. A quote by Charlotte Brontë in an exhibition in Zaragoza (Spain) as read in El Heraldo de Aragón (Spain). EyreBuds publishes an interview with Melody Edwards, author of Jane & Edward.
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