Belshazzar in the Tahrir Square

The Times presents the exhibition John Martin: Heaven & Hell at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle (March 5- June 5). A mention to the influence of his apocalyptic pieces on the Brontës is made:

In Belshazzar’s Feast , for instance — a print of which hung on the parlour wall of the Brontë vicarage in Haworth, where Charlotte and Branwell copied Martin’s works — he shows the moon three days old and in conjunction with the planet Astarte.

Newsweek carries a story right from the middle of the Egyptian Revolution, with a Brontë reference:

[A] girl named Nawal El Saadawi in Kafr Tahla, a village north of Cairo, had already taken up the torch. Jailed, menaced, and exiled throughout her life, Saadawi is now 79 and could be found protesting in the square every day. Saadawi’s father was a progressive man, an official who had taken part in the 1919 rebellion but followed the custom of having his daughter (one of nine children) married off at the age of 10. Or, rather, trying. Nawal had already fallen in love with literature. She’d read Jane Eyre and pretended to be mad when the suitors came around. (Elizabeth Rubin)

Will Gompertz analyses World Book Night for BBC News:

I talked to the writers Sarah Waters and Mark Billingham, both of whom thought the concept would increase book sales, not diminish them. I asked them what books they would choose to give away to their closest friends. They replied Jane Eyre and Sherlock Holmes respectively.

The Stamford Advocate begins an article about St Benedict's Church in Stamford as follows:

With a gloomy, gray sky hanging over Stamford last Monday, St. Benedict's Church, a large stone building, looked like the setting for a novel by one of the Brontë sisters. (Maggie Gordon)

The Vault of Mild Annoyance posts about Wuthering Heights; Stuff Crazy People Like (or, Don't Make Me Cut You) is not very happy with Twilightization of some editions of Jane Eyre; Stuff Edward Likes posts a poem about Catherine Earnshaw; Oak Park and River Forest High School Library talks about the Classical Comics adaptation of Jane Eyre and Book 'Em! The Adventures of a Wannabe Librarian reviews April Lindner's Jane.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights