Dateable vs terrifying

Claire Harman's biography of Charlotte Brontë is one of Helen Dunmore's books of 2015 selected for The Guardian.

Charlotte Brontë: A Life by Claire Harman (Viking) is a subtle, measured biography, full of insight into Brontë’s fiery intellect as well as the tragic intensity of her experience. Harman is especially good on the period Brontë spent as a pupil and teacher in Brussels and on her transformative relationship with Professor Constantin Héger. 

The Hindu wonders which literary characters readers would date.

I like the rugged Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre. But, he is too sensitive,” says Diana, who holds a master’s degree in Literature and reads every book in depth, analysing it as if she were still in that literature class. Remember that scene on that first evening in Mr. Rochester’s drawing room? He assumes all sorts of things about Jane, who holds her own. Would you be able to stand up to that? If you can, then Mr. Rochester might be the one for you; never mind the crazy laughter coming from somewhere upstairs. [...]
What about the irresistible “older hero,” with the “dark,” past? Sometimes, real life versions of these could be bearded professors too old for you or the handsome but married boss. Literature, however, presents the devilishly handsome Rhett Butler from Gone with The Wind, the wealthy and brooding Maxim de Winter from Rebecca and of course the secretive Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre.
They all are sophisticated with amazing social skills. They can also make you feel slightly stupid if you cannot hold their interest. For this, you need not be incredibly beautiful but you have to be innocent and inherently good. Being clever with enough traumatic experiences to give you some depth of character is also a bonus. [...]
Fabulous five: Darcy from Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen): A fabulously wealthy, handsome “proud,” aristocratic gentleman, who proves himself worthy by his actions
Edward Rochester from Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë): A passionate man with a tortured past and secrets to hide
Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë): A brooding, obsessed lover, revengeful and powerful, bordering on the villainous
Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell): A suave, strong, witty and sarcastic man, he is a little crude beneath his veneer of sophistication
Maxim de Winter from Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier): An enigmatic wealthy aristocrat with a tortured past (Vijeta S.N.)

Coincidentally, in The Guardian writer Becca Fitzpatrick admits to being in love with Heathcliff as a teenager. Not anymore though.

Which authors do you admire? (For me, I’m inspired by you, George Orwell, James Dawson, Harper Lee and Emily Brontë - coming from the Brontë area, there is a lot of inspiration from her.) Oh, the moors! Do you live near Yorkshire? I dreamed of the moors when I was a teen reading Wuthering Heights. I’m inspired by Victoria Holt, Sandra Brown, Nora Roberts, Karen Joy Fowler and Emily Brontë. [...]
What is your favourite classical book? (I love Animal Farm and To Kill A Mockingbird - pieces of classical gold). Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. As a teen, I was completely in love with Heathcliff. As an adult, he terrifies me. [...]
Brontë or Austen? Depends on my mood. Today? Austen. (Lottie is Dottie)

Lancaster Online reports that the Lancaster Literary Guild is closing its doors after 15 years.

The guild sponsored successful literary exhibits, including the current one dedicated to playwright Arthur Miller; others have focused on such writers as the Brontës, Sylvia Plath and Harriet Beecher Stowe. (Dan Nephin)

Brontë portraits are discussed on AnneBrontë.org. Le Monde de Laure... (in French) reviews Wuthering Heights.

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Modernist and Influent

A couple of recent dissertations around the Brontës:

A Modernist Among the Victorians: The Case of Emily Brontë
Sohana Manzoor, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Date of Award: 8-1-2015
Degree Name: Doctor of Philosophy
Department English
First Advisor Collins, Kenny

Critics from Virginia Woolf and David Cecil to Lyn Pykett and U. C. Knoepflmacher, among others, have been mesmerized by the eccentric but transcendent world of Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and the Gondal poems. Despite allusions and references to various modernist elements in Emily Brontë’s novel and poetry, there has not been extensive analysis of her work in connection to modern writers of the early twentieth century. I believe that a multi-themed analysis of such components is necessary to reassess her position in the canon and establish her as a precursor to the modernists. This dissertation examines Brontë’s deliberate invitation of, and simultaneous resistance to, interpretation—qualities that align her novel and verse more with Modernist literature than that of her contemporaries. I argue that Emily Brontë had an unusual and forward-looking focus that is revealed in her treatment of children, women, and the struggles of isolated beings in the dark, foreboding and often impressionistic world of Gondal and Wuthering Heights. Her elucidation of the gap between the mundane and the spiritual, the use of farcical elements against the sublime are also precursory to modernism. This dissertation assesses the various themes, angles and techniques that Brontë employs in presenting a strange atmosphere that is representative of a future world.

Brontë e Meyer sob a perspectiva da influência: Estudo do diálogo entre as narrativas canônica e trivial através do tempo e da tecnologia repercutindo no ensino de literatura
Ana Maria Reino Cavalieri, Universidade Estadual de Maringá, Brazil
Mestre em Letras
Advisor: Prof. Dr. Márcio Roberto do Prado

A ideia que norteou a pesquisa relatada nesta dissertação foi a busca por similaridades e diferenças existentes entre as estruturas profundas e as de superfície das narrativas canônica e trivial, focando o estudo na categoria personagem e tendo como fim a prática docente. Para buscar compreender o tema, concentramos o estudo em uma leitura comparativa entre os textos Crepúsculo de Stephenie Meyer e O morro dos ventos uivantes de Emily Brontë, tendo em vista as expectativas de afastamento que as obras apresentam entre si em vários aspectos, o que as tornou um objeto de estudo intrigante e que instigou a exploração. Com o texto trivial como referência seguimos o estudo por meio de um trajeto retroativo temporal buscando as ligações entre este e outros textos canônicos que nos permitisse encontrar no primeiro aspectos da influência dos últimos. Tendo, para tanto, entre outros, o aporte teórico de Flávio Kothe, sendo que este nos possibilitou a observação da posição limítrofe entre a trivialidade e o canônico em alguns aspectos nos textos estudados embasada nos “dez mandamentos” da trivialidade de seu livro A narrativa trivial. De Harold Bloom obtivemos o suporte para analisar a influência como diretriz para a produção dos textos em estudo, observando como esta se deu através do tempo por meios direto e indireto contribuindo para a ação de agência proporcionada aos fãs desses textos. Para o estudo desta ação contamos com o aporte de Murray, Iser e Jauss. Ao fim percebemos que a influência de um texto artisticamente elaborado pode se manifestar em textos posteriores distanciados deste pela classificação frente à crítica especializada e disseminados junto ao público por suportes variados. Constatamos também que o conhecimento de textos posteriores que permitem a percepção de seu predecessor auxilia a condução do leitor até o texto original, fato que colabora para uma abordagem pedagógica adequada àqueles que se iniciam no conhecimento literário, tornando-se elemento facilitador no estudo de literatura. 

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Thank you, Emily Brontë

The December 8th screening of the National Theatre production of Jane Eyre appears in Keighley News:

A prestigious stage adaptation of Jane Eyre will be screened by West Yorkshire cinemas during December.
The National Theatre has received critical praise for its production of Charlotte Brontë’s famous novel.
Sally Cookson’s celebrated production, originally performed at Bristol Old Vic, will be broadcast live to 600 cinemas across the UK from the National Theatre on December 8 at 7pm. (...)
Jane Eyre will be screened at cinemas including the National Media Museum, Cineworld and Odeon in Bradford; the Vue in Halifax; the Showcase, Everyman and Vue in Leeds; Hebden Bridge Picture House; and the Ace Centre in Nelson. (David Knights)

On Scottish Book Trust we read the #ThankBooks contribution by the writer Anne Donovan, author of Being Emily:

Thank you, Emily Brontë.
Wuthering Heights blew me away like the tempestuous winds of Emily Bronte’s beloved moors.
An avid reader, I had devoured Enid Blyton, loved Dickens and endlessly re-read Alice In Wonderland, but Wuthering Heights took me into a world which fascinated, confused and obsessed me. I was lucky to read it at the right time; at thirteen the romantic spirit was ready to be awakened, but this was no soppy, happy-ever-after relationship that ended in a white frock and a walk down the aisle.
Its love affair is dark and harsh, rooted in the down-to-earth reality of a working farm in an inhospitable landscape. Lockwood’s visit to Wuthering Heights sets the tone: Heathcliff receives him grudgingly and the dog bites him when he pets it. That night he dreams of Catherine and, in an attempt to stop her from getting in the window, draws her wrist across the glass till it bleeds. I could not stop reading. (Read more)

The Sunday Times talks with the actress Agyness Deyn about her work in the film Sunset Song:

Agyness Deyn, who was born in Greater Manchester, landed the lead role of Chris Guthrie in the new movie by Terence Davies based on the classic Scottish novel Sunset Song, although casting directors initially only wanted to see Scottish actresses.
“Christopher goes to me, 'Ags, this is Scots heritage. Don't f*** it up!'” said the 32-year-old, who has compared the novel favourably to Jane Eyre. (Jason Allardyce)

The director of the film, Terence Davies shares her opinion in Sentieri Selvaggi (Italy):

È un romanzo di formazione, come Jane Eyre, altro libro che ho amato moltissimo. Alla fine della storia Chris è passata per molti cambiamenti, e ha solo ventuno anni. Nel libro c’è un’umanità commovente, questo viaggio di crescita trasmette grande empatia. (Cecilia Chianesi) (Translation)

Paste Magazine reviews the film Miss You Already:

Things come to a head when Milly talks Jess into an impromptu road trip to the Moors, under the guise of reliving their favorite book, Wuthering Heights.  (Christine N. Ziemba)

Claire Lowdon includes Claire Harman's Charlotte Brontë: A Life on the 2015's most impressive
literature titles list published in The Sunday Times.

Sam Jordison has to decide new reading for his Guardian's Reading Group. The topic is books from the Caribbean:

I’d also be interested to look at Anglo-Caribbean books. Bernardine Evaristo’s funny and touching recent novel Mr Loverman springs to mind. And there are plenty of more established classics. Wide Sargasso Sea might have been written in Devon, but I’ll grab any excuse I can to read that again.

James Tully's Crimes of Charlotte Brontë has achieved the status of conspiracy theory according to 15min (Lithuania):

Oficialiai teigiama, kad romano „Džeinė Eir“ autorės Charlotte Bronte seserys mirė nuo choleros ir tuberkuliozės.
Tačiau kriminologas Jamesas Tylly yra iškėlęs dar vieną versiją – rašytoja pati nunuodijo savo seseris. Pasak eksperto, jam pavyko rasti archyve įrodymų, kad taip Charlotte Brontë padarė norėdama padidinti savo paveldimo turto dalį. (Translation)

Die Presse (Germany) reviews Vor hundert Jahren und einem Sommer by  Jürgen-Thomas Ernst:

Mit vier Jahren wird sie von der Mutter in ein Heim gegeben, weil diese selbst wieder arbeiten muss, um sich über Wasser zu halten. Anders als bei Jane Eyre, der Hauptfigur in Charlotte Brontës gleichnamigem Klassiker, oder den tragischen Helden in Charles Dickens Büchern ist dieses Waisenhaus aber keine reine Kinderverwahrungsstätte mit grausamem Personal. (Clementenine Skorpil) (Translation)

mas24 (Spain) writes against the Romantic (with a capital R) idea of love:

La ininteligibilidad de un afecto supone negar la premisa mayor de modo que, a partir de ahí, incluso el dolor podrá ser justificado. Ya el sufrimiento fue marca de legitimidad en el amor cortés y los Románticos decimonónicos expusieron a los protagonistas de sus novelas y relatos a un dolor tan acentuado que cortejaba la muerte. Para quienes como Heathcliff y Cathy aman totalmente no puede existir defensa alguna pues el otro está dentro de uno y es uno mismo. (Susana Carro Fernández) (Translation)

El País traces a profile of the writer Lucía Berlin (1936-2004):

A los 22 ya estaba casada de nuevo con un músico de jazz, Race Newton. Lucia le dejó por uno de sus amigos, el también músico Buddy Berlin, con quien marchó a México y que resultó estar enganchado —"en aquel momento yo no sabía qué significaba. Para mí heroína tenía una connotación agradable... Jane Eyre, Becky Sharp, Tess", escribe en uno de los relatos—. Buddy fue el padre de los otros dos niños de Berlin, y en 1968 se divorciaron. (Andrea Aguilar) (Translation)

The Book Kat reviews Jane, le renard et moi  by Isabelle Arsenault & Fanny Britt.

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The Secular Religion of Fandom

The Brontës in the same league that J.K. Rowling, Game of Thrones or Joy Division? Fandom analyzed from the academia world:

The Secular Religion of Fandom:
Pop Culture Pilgrim
Jennifer Otter Bickerdike
SAGE Publications Ltd
ISBN: 9781473907799
October 2015

Media pilgrimage has become a booming business in the 21st century. Fans of television shows, rock groups and books flock to places associated with their favorite series, artist or writer, trying to embody and perhaps understand what inspired the beloved piece of work, and, more importantly, to cobble together their own personal identity, seeking meaning in an ever-more divergent and fast-paced world.
At the same time, participation in organized group activities are dropping. One of the largest down turns in the US and the UK can be seen in the steep decline of attendance at traditional religious venues. This trend dovetails with the radical uptick in on-line sites dedicated to pop culture and celebrities, as well as an array of niche-focused real-time tours allowing fans to experience the spaces, places and scenery featured in their favorite entertainment medium.
The Secular Religion of Fandom: Pop Culture Pilgrim examines the function of fandom, specifically the visiting of spaces which have been recently deemed worthy of sanctification and a newly elevated status of importance. It examines how such pilgrimages are used as a means for forming and maintaining a common language of culture, creating a replacement apparatus based on more traditional frameworks of religious worship and salvation, while becoming an ever more dominant mechanism for constructing individuality and finding belonging in a commodified culture.
Looking at television shows such as The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, bands like The Stone Roses and Joy Division, and authors like J.K. Rowling and the Brontë sisters, The Secular Religion of Fandom: Pop Culture Pilgrim delves into these issues by examining spaces, fan communities and rituals, providing a unique and provocative investigation into how technology, media and humanistic need for guidance are forming novel ways of expressing value, forging self and finding significance in an uncertain world.

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Intoxicating read for revengeful child readers

The Yorkshire Post interviews Jolien Janzing, author of Charlotte Brontë's Secret Love:

Dutch journalist Jolien Janzing sat on the steps of the city’s cathedral to eat a sandwich and got into conversation with one of the priests. That chat turned out to be quite significant as it eventually led to the publication of her second novel.
“The priest told me that in the 19th century Charlotte Brontë had been to confession in the cathedral. She wasn’t a Catholic and I wondered why she would do that,” says Janzing who had long been a fan of the Brontës, having first read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights when she was 11. “So then I started to read everything I could about Charlotte Brontë. I began my research about seven years ago and the book was published in 2013.”
The novel, Charlotte Brontë’s Secret Love, which has now been translated into English by Paul Vincent, tells the story of a little-known chapter in Charlotte’s life when she persuaded her sister Emily to accompany her to Brussels to study French. (...)
“Sometimes people ask me if I think those novels would have existed without Monsieur Heger,” says Janzing. “I think not those novels – she would have written other novels, but he was such a huge influence on her and the experience made her more mature. She must have learned so much in so little time and seen the world through other eyes.And she was so heartbroken when she returned home; that makes a writer write better – you have to have some experience in life.”  (Yvette Huddleston)

Via Bookseller we have found this one hundred list of best novels of the last 200 years by Hatchard's. Including a couple of Brontës:

Jane Eyre (1847). Charlotte Brontë
Suicide, madness, passion and morality form a heady mix in this story of an orphan who rises above adversity to the position of governess in a gloomy and mysterious manor house. There she meets the enigmatic Mr. Rochester, sparks begin to fly and events take a further turn toward the gothic.
Wuthering Heights (1847). Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights is a blustery, tempestuous exploration of love and revenge. Heathcliff and Catherine are doomed from the start, as are the younger Catherine and Linton, a generation later. That this should be Emily’s only novel is as much a tragedy as it is a triumph.

Natasha Carthew in The Guardian lists a top ten of revenge reads in... children's books? Wuthering Heights?

Wuthering Heights may be more usually thought of as a romantic novel but it revenge that leads the protagonists to their dismal fate that captivates. Brontë shows there is no peace in eternal vengeance and that, in the end, the self-injury involved in serving revenge’s purposes will be more damaging than the original wrong. Genius.

Entrepreneur utilizes the Brontë myth as examples of isolated creators:

When I heard this, I couldn’t help but think of Hemingway’s move to Paris in the 1920s, and how it changed the course of his life forever. But for every Hemingway in Paris, there’s a Brontë in Haworth. In spite of what we’ve been told, creative success rarely happens in isolation. It is often the result of complex systems and networks. There are no lone geniuses -- only collaborative communities that seemingly produce extraordinary individuals.
But what network did the Brontë sisters, living in rural England in the 1850s, have? Certainly not the host of influential artists and authors Hemingway was privy to in 1920s Paris. What team of mentors led to their inarguable contribution to the world of literature? Well, for one, they had each other. (Jeff Goins)

Big Issue North talks about the latest winners of the 2015 ACoRP Community Rail Awards:

Other northern winners include Ellesmere Port, named the “most enhanced station building”, Grange-over-Sands, which won the best station garden and the large floral displays award with the Brontë Garden at Sowerby Bridge, named after Branwell Brontë – brother of Emily, Charlotte and Anne – who worked as a railway clerk at the station winning second place. Orrell Park Regeneration Group came third with its traditional planting and wildlife garden around the station and banking areas.

Marie Claire recommends winter reads

Wuthering Heights isn't a perfect love story - far from it - and that's what still continues to captivate its readers. Cathy and Heathcliff's relationship isn't remotely pretty: their love is as weathered and ragged as the remote Yorkshire moor it plays out on - and just as wild and destructive. As their relationship frays, it crescendoes just like a howling storm. Emily Brontë's tale of all-consuming love is an intoxicating read.

The Australian reviews Alexandra Harris's Weatherland: Writers & Artists Under English Skies:

Woolf was undoubtedly weather-smart, as were so many of the artists and writers Harris looks at, from Charlotte Brontë, who couldn’t abide Jane Austen’s novels for their lack of fresh air (though Harris, rightly, disagrees), to James Thomson, whose now little known poem The Seasons had an enormous influence in the 18th and 19th centuries. (Gregory Day)

El País's Babelia (Spain) reviews Ángeles Caso's Todo ese Fuego:

Ángeles Caso elige un día del año 1846. “¡La plancha está caliente!”, dice Emily Brontë gritando para que la oiga Charlotte. Dominan la escena los ruidos producidos por el trajín de todos los días. (...)
Sentimos todo eso con plenitud, el espacio de la rectoral, el cementerio, el paisaje, y el carácter turbulento de las Brontë porque la narración es viva y variada. Todo por obra y gracia de un narrador, muy cercano a la propia autora, que deja sus marcas en el texto y convida al lector a identificarse con él. El narrador ordena el caos, explica lo inaccesible, nos emociona y nos hace reflexionar, establece diferencias de estilo y carácter entre las hermanas, convierte a esos seres míticos en seres de carne y hueso, establece categorías (los dóciles y los rebeldes, los unitarios y los divididos); en definitiva, nos hace sentir “el peso inmenso de la rectoral de Haworth”. (Lluís Satorras) (Translation)

Festive walks in Brontë Country. As read in Keighley News:

The first of three guided walks for the festive season will take place on December 12 in Brontëland.
Candlemass Eve, being held on December 12, is a circular five-mile walk setting off at 10.30am from the Visitor Information Centre at the top of Main Street in Haworth.
David Anderson will lead a slightly undulating stroll to Oxenhope and back in time for carols around the tree.
Mince Pies Walk No 6 is a five-mile circular walk on December 16, led by Gillian Dale and and David Anderson, who will meet walkers at Eaves car park, Hawkesworth Road, just outside Baildon, at 10.30am for a walk via Sconce.
The final walk is to Brontë Falls on December 26, a circular five-mile walk trek with Phil Hatton, which begins at 11am outside Haworth Parish Church and will involve "punch, mince pies and general revelry". (David Knights)

BlogHer lists 'romantic places to visit in the UK for literature lovers':

Haworth. Think sweeping moorland teeming with restless lovelorn spirits, quaint cobbled, village streets and rolling, rocky hillside. It was here where the Brontë sisters lived and wrote, inspired by the intense Yorkshire landscape and frustrations of village life. Poet Sylvia Plath, who is buried close by, was known to have loved Haworth and it has become something of an unofficial pilgrimage for misunderstood writers worldwide. Make sure to pack a sturdy pair of walking boots and head up to Top Withens, a site with truly astounding views that inspired Emily Brontë’s turbulent novel Wuthering Heights.          

Origo (Hungary) mentions Crimson Peak:

Gondolja azt, hogy a Jane Eyre rémálomszerű verziójára váltott jegyet, és hagyja, hogy a túláradó érzelmek által keltett gyilkos örvény, illetve és a hihetetlen látványvilág elragadja. (Varga Dénes) (Translation)

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Winifred Gérin. Biographer of the Brontës

One of the highlights of the Brontë year is this much expected biography of Winifred Gérin by Helen Ma

cEwan:

Winifred Gérin
Biographer of the Brontës
Helen MacEwan
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-84519-743-8
Sussex Academic Press
November 2015

The biographer Winifred Gérin (1901–81), who wrote the lives of all four Brontë siblings, stumbled on her literary vocation on a visit to Haworth, after a difficult decade following the death of her first husband. On the same visit she met her second husband, a Brontë enthusiast twenty years her junior. Together they turned their backs on London to live within sight of the Parsonage, Gérin believing that full understanding of the Brontës required total immersion in their environment.

Gérin’s childhood and youth, like the Brontës’, was characterised by a cultured home and an intense imaginative life shared with her sister and two brothers, and by family tragedies (the loss of two siblings in early life). Strong cultural influences formed the children’s imagination: polyglot parents, French history, the Crystal Palace, Old Vic productions. Winifred’s years at Newnham College, Cambridge were enlivened by such eccentric characters as the legendary lecturer Arthur Quiller-Couch (‘Q’), Lytton Strachey’s sister Pernel, and Bloomsbury’s favourite philosopher, G.E. Moore.

Her happy life in Paris with her Belgian cellist husband, Eugène Gérin, was brought to an abrupt end by the Second World War, during which the couple had many adventures: fleeing occupied Belgium, saving Jews in Vichy France, and escaping through Spain and Portugal to England, where they did secret war work for the Political Intelligence Department near Bletchley Park. After Eugène’s death in 1945 Winifred coped with bereavement by writing poetry and plays until discovering her true literary metier on her visit to Haworth. She also wrote about Elizabeth Gaskell, Anne Thackeray Ritchie and Fanny Burney. This book is based on her letters and on her unpublished memoir.

Reviews:

"In an original and revealing biography ... Helen MacEwan presents not just a fascinating study of Gérin’s long and at times very personal preoccupation with the Brontës, but the story of a highly individual character ... Using much previously unknown and unpublished material, MacEwan has painstakingly put together a portrait of one woman and her times that adds significantly to Brontë studies and literary biography, while her deftly-told narrative brings Gérin’s private, feeling, thoughtful character to life with unerring sympathy.”
Claire Harman, biographer and critic, author of the major new biography Charlotte Brontë: A Life and of Jane’s Fame.

“In this beautifully written and carefully researched biography of a biographer, Helen MacEwan shows us something of the European dimension of Gérin’s experience and understanding, as well as revealing the deeply emotional character of her subject, in her joys, passions and losses ... Helen MacEwan shines a fascinating light, not only on a remarkable woman of letters, but on a reader and writer of exceptional integrity.”
Stevie Davies, critic and novelist, author of Emily Brontë: Heretic and Four Dreamers and Emily.

“For anyone, like me, who knows Winifred Gérin only as the biographer of the Brontës, this book will come as a revelation. Not only did Gérin have an astonishingly adventurous life, but Helen MacEwan has brought it before us in vivid and enthralling detail ... MacEwan’s book draws on extensive original research into unpublished papers and records, but she wears her erudition lightly and always gives a sense of the lived moment rather than the dry facts. She achieves, in fact, that balance between sense and sensibility which friends appreciated in Gérin’s own work. This is a thrilling book to read, a page-turner, offering through specific vignettes important glimpses into the social history of the twentieth century. It will appeal to an audience well beyond Brontë devotees.”
Patsy Stoneman is Emeritus Reader in English, University of Hull, and Acting President of the Brontë Society. She is the author of Charlotte Brontë in the Writers and their Work series, Northcote House Publishers.

“This lovingly researched biography of a biographer is a fitting tribute to Winifred Gerin’s passionate commitment to the Brontës and offers a slice of twentieth century history through the prism of one remarkable woman’s experiences.” Lucasta Miller, author of The Brontë Myth

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'I defy anybody to read the death-bed scenes of Emily and Anne with a dry eye'

Claire Harman's biography of Charlotte Brontë is one of the 'best biographies of 2015' according to The Independent.

Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë was a landmark in modern biography, drawing on letters, interviews and gossip to create a vivid portrait of the author which attracted much controversy when it was published in 1857. Among its fiercest critics was Charlotte's father Patrick, who objected most vociferously.
Claire Harman brings a fresh eye to many of the same papers studied by Gaskell to compile her Charlotte Brontë: A Life (Viking, £25). The Gothic atmosphere and heartbreaking details remain, but Harman achieves a great feat by making the story seem new again. She is particularly good on Charlotte's unrequited love for Monsieur Héger (an area much censored by Gaskell), and I defy anybody to read the death-bed scenes of Emily and Anne with a dry eye. (Marcus Field)

The Guardian features the library of Pierre Bergé, collector and former partner of Yves Saint Laurent.

In addition, la Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé boasts super-rare early copies of classics by Cervantes, Joyce, Brontë, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and more. They were acquired by Bergé himself and “his agents”, to a strict formula that only books by authors he admired were admitted. (Stephen Smith)

The library is going under the hammer in Paris on December 11, though we have been unable to find what the Brontë-related item(s) actually is/are.

La jornada (Mexico) discusses manuscripts and brings up the recently-discovered Brontë papers inside a book that once belonged to Maria Brontë.

Suelen encontrarse de repente manuscritos extraviados: reaparecen como los indicios reveladores de un crimen en las novelas de misterio. Es el caso de dos inéditos de Charlotte Brontë, encontrados hace apenas unas semanas; vienen a agregarse a la obra de quien escribió la muy famosa Jane Eyre, la hermana de Emily y Anne Brontë, también poetas y escritoras (sobre todo Emily, autora de la extraordinaria Cumbres borrascosas que para Georges Bataille simbolizaba La literatura y el mal, título de unos de sus textos más importantes). (Margo Glantz) (Translation)

The Telegraph discusses religion and how it should be taught in schools.

The very fact of treating religion as an academic subject, no more or less sacred than English Literature, encouraged scepticism. The Old Testament was just another text to be analysed and considered within its historical context – no more likely to contain any definitive truth than, say, Wuthering Heights. (Jemima Lewis)

Keighley News shows some of the entries of a local photography competition. One of the pictures shows the area around the Brontë Bridge in autumn. Patheos' Eidos features the song Brave Enough for Love from Jane Eyre the Musical. The Newtown Review of Books reviews The Women's Pages. Life, reflections and green things does the same with Jane Eyre.

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Reflections on the life of Elizabeth Gaskell

Tomorrow, November 28, will bt the last chance to visit the exhibition Reflections on the life of Elizabeth Gaskell in Knutsford, Cheshire:

Reflections on the life of Elizabeth Gaskell
Knutsford Heritage Centre, 90A King Street, Knutsford, Cheshire, WA16 6ED
October 6 - November 28

Exhibition by The Gaskell Society marking 150 years since the death of Elizabeth Gaskell, Knutsford’s famous 19th century writer (1810 – 1865).
Entry to the exhibitions is free of charge, but donations for the upkeep and development of the Heritage Centre are welcome.

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Wedding (re-enactment) invitation

Keighley News reminds locals that they are invited to the re-enactment of Charlotte Brontë's wedding on December 11.

Haworth residents are being invited to join Charlotte Brontë for her marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls.
They are being asked to line Church Street when the famous daughter of the village clergyman, the Rev Patrick Brontë, ties the knot next month.
The BBC has issued the invitation to all local people as part of a recreation of the wedding from the mid-1800s. [...]
BBC Bristol are re-enacting the ceremony as part of a TV series due to be shown in 2016 to mark the 200th anniversary of Charlotte’s birth.
Living Like A Brontë will also be part of a year-long BBC season focusing on classic literature in a bid to get more people in the UK reading.
The filming is being carried out with support from staff at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth.
Museum spokesman said Rebecca Yorke said: “Haworth and the Parsonage are great locations for film and TV and with Charlotte’s bicentenary year just around the corner, we are receiving even more media enquiries than usual.
“We are very excited to be working with BBC Bristol on their documentary Living Like A Brontë and are looking forward to welcoming them to the parsonage next month.
“The BBC would like residents of Haworth and the surrounding area to line Church Street and celebrate as Charlotte leaves the church on her wedding day.”
Filming will take place outside the museum on December 11 and anyone interested should contact rebecca.yorke@bronte.org.uk in order to receive further information.
Living Like a Brontë will be screened next spring as two 60-minute episodes. [...]
A BBC spokesman said: “With help from a range of experts, each presenter will explore one of the Brontës in detail.
“By re-living the sisters’ daily routines, visiting the key places in their world and immersing themselves in their letters and diaries, and through the sisters’ interactions with each other, they’ll discover what it was that served as their sources of inspiration.” (David Knights)

Natasha Tripney from The Stage continues recommending Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre:

Sally Cookson’s inventive, joyous take on Jane Eyre was, for me, one of the high points of the year: genuinely magical theatremaking.

The Blackpool Gazette reviews a stage production of Beauty and the Beast in Lancaster:

Add a dash of Jane Eyre, maybe even a suggestion of Cinderella, and you have this beguiling take on the traditional French fairy tale.
Young Lancaster-based writer Eddie Robson is not the first to notice Ms Brontë owes more than a little to Madame de Beaumont’s story, and with just a little Christmas seasoning turns it all into entrancing entertainment. (David Upton)

Ely Standard reviews Marina and the Diamonds’ opening show of UK Neon Nature tour in which

Boosted by a show-stopping sparkling blue ensemble with matching headdress, ‘Im A Ruin’ sees her glide across the stage a la ‘Wuthering Heights’ while ‘Everybody Dies’ puts Marina in Lana Del Rey mode. (Ben Jolley)

Entretanto magazine (Spain) has an article on Paris and mentions briefly the time Jean Rhys spent there.

Jean Rhys vagaba por París y en “Ancho mar de los Sargazos” nos contó quien era la mujer metida en el desván por su marido en “Jane Eyre”, por qué esa mujer que representaba la vibración y la sensualidad del Caribe acabó loca a causa de la frialdad de su marido. (Antonio Costa) (Translation)

The Aquarian Weekly recommends the film House of Long Shadows:

a tongue-in-cheek chiller from 1983 in which a cocky bestselling author (Desi Arnaz Jr.) bets his publisher that he can write a novel worthy of Wuthering Heights acclaim while staying overnight in a spooky old house. (Bryan Reesman)

A novel worthy of Wuthering Heights acclaim actually means unsuccessful with reviewers.

A columnist from Network Norwich thinks that,

People who have become Christians are people who've found out that what at first seemed like an ersatz replacement to the real truth is, in fact, the real Truth with a capital "T". They are in some way analogous to people who've discovered The Beatles and Bob Dylan after ditching manufactured pop; or who've discovered Charlotte Brontë and Fyodor Dostoyevsky after ditching Mills & Boon (James Knight)

Today is festive late night opening at the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Museum and shop open until 8pm
November 26th 2015 10:00am - 08:00pm
Our museum shop is bursting with gifts for literature lovers everywhere!  Join us for a glass of sherry, a spot of Christmas shopping and the chance to explore the museum after hours.
The Brontë family quilt, rarely displayed, will be on view and the Parsonage will be dressed for Christmas. Come along and treat yourself!
Usual admission charges apply for the museum. Entry to the shop is free.

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As Janes, Catherines and Helens

The Brontës is a relatively recent new Brazilian provider of contents which consciously uses the name of the sisters:

Elas rejeitavam a palavra “não”. Eram criativas, audaciosas e desafiaram a ordem social vigente para conseguir transformar suas ideias em um legado. Escritoras, construíram personagens feministas antes da palavra feminismo chegar ao dicionário e histórias de amor tortuosas como a da sua melhor amiga.

As irmãs Charlotte, Emily e Anne Brontë foram as mulheres da Geração Y em plena Era Vitoriana. Por isso se tornaram a nossa inspiração. Compartilhamos com as Brontës os ideais de independência e liberdade combinadas a sensibilidade.

Queremos entregar um conteúdo capaz de dialogar com as Janes, as Catherines e as Helens. Usaremos este espaço para debater cultura, carreira, relacionamentos e todas as questões que rondam a sua mente – elas são nossas questões também. We’re the brontes – be our guest and welcome!

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In the Brontës' footsteps at Great Ouseburn

The Telegraph and Argus takes a walk around the village of Great Ouseburn specifically looking for connections to Anne and Branwell Brontë.

The Brontë Trail is one of a series of ‘Ure Walks Through Time’, neatly presented in a number of leaflets available at the Tourist Information Point.
We set off on a fine morning, to the village of Great Ouseburn, a settlement village mentioned in the Domesday Book.
The walk begins at St Mary’s Church, where, in the churchyard, a railed obelisk brings the first link to the Brontës, being erected in memory of Dr John Crosby, a good friend of Branwell Brontë.
Dr Crosby was physician to the Robinson family, of nearby Thorp Green Hall where, between 1840 and 1845, Anne worked as governess to the Robinson children. In 1843 she obtained a post for Branwell to tutor the young Edmund Robinson, who had outgrown Anne’s care.
From the church we followed a stretch of road, passing a field of Belted Galloway cows with their woolly heads and distinctive white bands, before turning across a meadow to Mill Lane.
This rural track leads to Long Plantation, where, in 1846, Anne Brontë wrote her three-verse poem ‘Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day’, which was published in 1846 under her pen-name of Acton Bell.
In the distance buildings that once belonged to Kirby Hall can be seen. Demolished in the 1920s, the hall was a Palladian-style mansion which Anne referenced for Ashby Hall in her 1847 novel Agnes Grey. (Helen Mead) (Read more)

Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden) has a short piece on the original take on Wuthering Heights currently on stage in Sockholm.

En skrubb med snett tak under en trappa kan också fungera som teater: med knapp plats för två som spelar och för fyra som tittar på. Plus ett myller av viktoriansk rekvisita: av bahytter, ljuva korkskruvslockar och Heathcliffs skägg.
Scenen Moment: pyttelilla är invigd. Den är egentligen ett minimalt förråd men nu omskapad till intim konfrontationsyta. Idén kom från scenografen Åsa Berglund Cowburn som först såg det som att absurt skämt att gestalta Emily Brontës ”Svindlande höjder” från 1847 på en två kvadratmeter stor yta, med begränsad takhöjd.
Det blev premiär trots allt. Avståndet mellan scen och salong är utraderat. Skådespelarna talar med oss via våra förnamn. Här brottas Catherine Earnshaw med Catherine Earnshaw. Alltså huvudrollen, hon som älskar Heathcliff, men gifter sig med Edgar. Här tampas över- och underjag. Drift mot dekorum.
Allt inramas av Kate Bush-låten ”Wuthering heights” medan Sofia Rönnegård och Lotta Östlin Stenshäll förevisar passioner och instängda kvinnorum. När vi efter 13 minuter kommer ut ur garderoben är vi fyllda av närkontakt. Det hela är inget för klaustrofobiker, men en energikick för alla andra. (Lars Ring) (Translation)

According to Radio Times, Jane Eyre is one of '7 Christmas gifts every bookworm will love' (and are all Folio Society publications, we should add).

One of the Gothic novels that will never be forgotten, Brontë's bold story of an orphan who overcomes a harsh life has led her to be considered one of the feminist icons of 19th-century literature. For anyone serious about reading, this simply must be amongst their collection...

Dublin Inquirer mentions several novels based on classics in an article about Jonathan Franzen's novel Purity.

Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea gives voice to the Victorian figure of the madwoman in the attic, telling the story of Mr Rochester’s first wife, a white Creole heiress called Antoinette Cosway, the unspoken other half of Jane Eyre. (Elske Rahill)

Actualidad Literatura (Spain) picks Cathy and Heathcliff as one of literature's greatest loves. Too bad the Spanish title of the novel is spelt as 'Cumbres borroscosas' (it's 'borrascosas', actually).

Los hermanastros Catherine y Heathcliff en “Cumbres borroscosas”
Catherine, una mujer inestable y llena de complejos, a pesar de estar enamoradísima de Heathcliff, un hombre tosco y con ganas de venganza, se casa con Edgar, bien por despecho, bien por soledad, o por conveniencia. Es uno de los libros que mejor relatan la concidión violenta de las pasiones humanas, tan viscerales, tan dañinas en ocasiones cuando hay amor de por medio.
“Cumbres borroscosas” fue la única novela de la escritora Emily Brontë, la cuál murió a la edad de 30 años por tuberculosis. Esta novela fue llevada también a la gran pantalla. (Carmen Guillén) (Translation)

Soundcheck comments briefly on Public Memory's new album:

The album is called Wuthering Drum, a title you would not normally expect to find outside the land of Emily Bronte. (John Schaefer)

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Wuthering Heights in Uppingham

A new Wuthering Heights student production opens tomorrow, November 26, in Uppingham, UK:

Uppingham Theatre
Thurs 26th to Sat 28th November 2015, 7.30pm
Wuthering Heights
is a passionate and spellbinding tale of forbidden love and revenge.
Set on the wild, windswept Yorkshire moors, Wuthering Heights is the tempestuous story of free-spirited Catherine and dark, brooding Heathcliff. As children running wild and free on the moors, Cathy and Heathcliff are inseparable, but as they grow up, Cathy lets her head rule her heart as she chooses to marry wealthy Edgar Linton. Heathcliff flees, only to return seeking terrible vengeance on those he holds responsible, with epic and tragic results!

Performed by pupils from Uppingham School.

Directed by Clare Rayner, Director of Drama.

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International Brontës

The Stage reports that,

Leading playwrights including Timberlake Wertenbaker and Jessica Swale have criticised the under-representation of women writers in set texts planned for GSCE and A-level drama. [...]
Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good, Churchill's Cloud 9 and Polly Teale's Brontë are the only female-written plays on a list of 13 texts chosen by AQA for its A-level specification. (Georgia Snow)

Pakistan Observer features a recent Islamabad literary event in in which

The local literati including Ghazanfar Mehdi, Sarfaraz Shahid, Manzar Naqvi, Anjum Khaleeq, Nayyer Sarhadi, Jamil Asghar Bhatti, Sibtain Raza Lodhi and others spoke about the content and style of the prose written in the book “Jane Eyre aur mein” and the collection of poetic verses “Andaaz-e-Biyaan Aur”.
Ghazanfar Mehdi said Shahnaz Bano ‘s journey to discover her inner woman is very intensive, there may some structural issues to construct the traditional Urdu rhymes but we cannot over look the purity of feelings. They might be repeated ones; nevertheless, they have their own taste and flavour of expression. “We need to promote every voice of Urdu literature without classification of calibre and maturity. One day ever voice will be strong enough to recognise it identity”, Said Dr Mehdi.
Manzar Naqvi pointed out some structural issues with the construction of poetry. He said, some poetry falls in the category of black-verse but poetess has presented them as ghazals while most of the ghazals have remarkable phrases, she only needs to rearrange them to make some wonderful couplets. Speaking about the prose, Naqvi said, “Jane Eyre aur mein” is a continuous writing. It would have better impact if divided into different small chapters.
Anjum Khaleeq said women writers and poetesses bring their own world to the forefront and help the society to understand what their reflection about the society is. What they want the world to be like of, and what shall be the social face of life around. “We see same feminine approach in Shahnaz’s poetry and prose. Though, we think the western women are more liberal in their ideas of life and practices, but Jane and Shahnaz look like of the same womanhood. (Munir Ahmed)

In Australia Mercury announces that,

Hobart's historic Theatre Royal hopes to hit new heights with its 2016 season.
The theatre’s 180th season will feature a total of 33 shows, ranging from much-loved classics to exciting brand new works from Australia’s finest theatre, opera, dance and circus companies — including Queensland’s shake & stir theatre, who will mount an ambitious production of Emily Brontë’s classic Wuthering Heights in May. (Kane Young)

Bustle has selected the '11 funniest science fiction books', one of which is

4. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Thursday Next is a literary detective with a pet dodo and a time-traveling father, and it's up to her to find the kidnapper who's snatched Jane Eyre right out of Jane Eyre. Of course, she'll have to jump into the book and crack this case from the inside. The Eyre Affair is the first in a brilliant series that straddles the line between sci-fi, fantasy, and classical literature; it's a book for people who love books. And no one does cross-genre absurdist adventure comedy better than Jasper Fforde. (Charlotte Ahlin)

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Original Jane Eyre Tea

Via Onirik he have discovered this new tea mixing inspired by Jane Eyre:

THÉ BOX SO BRITISH !
Pour cette édition exceptionnelle, La Thé Box s’associe à Farrow & Ball et célèbre le Bristish Tea Time. Thés aux saveurs légèrement corsées et florales, une échappée volée aux tourbillons des jours.

Including:

Jane Eyre
La Thé Box

Le cœur libre et léger, découvrez Jane Eyre, une création de Tamia & Julia imaginée autour d’une héroïne de la littérature anglaise romantique et déterminée. Un mélange floral aux saveurs champêtres, en hommage à Charlotte Brontë et aux heures douces à flâner dans la campagne anglaise… Nostalgie des jeunes filles en fleurs.
INGRÉDIENTS
Le thé Jane Eyre a été imaginé comme une douce éclosion de saveurs évoquant la jeunesse. Mélange léger et vaporeux de thé blanc et de thé vert Sencha de Chine, la mandarine se mêle au magnolia.

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Imagination, emotion and desire

A Younger Theatre reviews DramaSoc's take on Wuthering Heights.

Of course, the book has a way of capturing this rich, shifting atmosphere, but does Gough’s adaptation? Yes! And this production executes her re-juggling of the events in the book very nicely, and evokes the book’s atmosphere in a new way through the fast scene transitions. Lighting and music all play a large part in doing this, and keep things running smoothly throughout. There are times, however, when I felt that music and sound could be used further to enhance the atmosphere and mood of each scene and transition – the first time music is used is when Cathy and Heathcliff run out onto the moors together, and it marks a very poignant moment within the play. If music were used to effect throughout, including in scene transitions, then the atmosphere would have been much stronger. Having said that, Hughes’s decision to bullet-point certain moments with music does work effectively, and creates emotional peaks and troughs throughout to further enhance those of the characters.
Speaking of which, characterisation here is pretty strong. Cooke and Telfer portray their roles very well, tapping into nuances of age and experience as the play moves forward. It’s all about detail when it comes to crafting well-rounded characters, and it’s very clear that this has been a crucial part this production’s creation. From the change in accents to the shift in physicality, Cooke and Telfer – and indeed most of the cast – do an excellent job of breathing life into the characters of Brontë’s classic novel.
A simplistic set also enables us to focus on the characters and their emotions, which underpin the entirety of the action within the play. Empty frames and rustic wooden furniture bind us into Heathcliff’s cyclical struggle, and the never-ending cycle of love that continues to haunt the family for generations. These characters have survived well into the present day and Hughes emphasises this fact perfectly.
This is a brilliant, well-considered and enjoyable production of Wuthering Heights. Driven by imagination, emotion and desire, it’s well worth a watch. (Adam Bruce)

As reported by The Week, Wuthering Heights is actually one of writer Kevin Barry's 6 favourite books.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (Dover, $4.50). I was home sick from school, aged 10, and this was lying around the house. I remember being lifted from my skin by it. I was taken from an Irish suburb in the early 1980s and set down on a wind-blasted, 19th-century Yorkshire moor, and into the maelstrom of one of literature's great doomed romances. It taught me that a book could truly be a vehicle.

And Daily Telegraph (Australia) uses the novel to date a library (although truth be told the library is 'only' 70 years old).

Mosman Library has such a long and proud history that Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights was once the most borrowed and popular book. (Kate Crawford)

Times Leader has some 'Gift ideas for the women in your life' such as

A real page turner
For the woman who has everything, put a new book on her shelf. Books appreciated by women include everything from inspirational offerings such as Liz Curtis Higgs’ “The Women of Christmas: Experience the Season Afresh,” to cookbooks like Ree Drummond’s “The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from My Frontier,” to historical books such as Eric Metaxas’ “Seven Women: And the Secret of Their Greatness,” Don’t forget to think outside the box and consider classic titles such as Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” or D.J. Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers.” (Geri Gibbons)

While The Debrief recommends '5 Autobiographies To Ask For At Christmas That Are Actually Good'. Strangely, Claire Harman's Biography of Charlotte Brontë is among them and obviously not an AUTObiography.

3. Charlotte Brontë: A Life - Claire Harman (Penguin Viking)
This formal, traditional biography looks like the sort of thing you might get out of the library when you’ve got to write an essay but reads like the sort of thing only your wackiest friend might make up. Brontë really had quite the life, from her grim boarding school (the inspiration for Jane Eyre’s totally traumatising Lowood), to trying opium (via over the counter laudanum) to fuel her writing fantasies and falling in love married men. Then there’s the iconic feminist writer bit too, which is particularly fascinating when she’s basically writing Byronic fan fic with her sisters and calling it Scribblemania.  (Alexandra Heminsley)

The Brontë death jewellery is discussed on AnneBrontë.org. About Me! reviews the Northern Ballet's performances of Wuthering Heights.The Most Romantic Heroes posts about Heathcliff. Alban and Lyme reviews the National Theatre's performances of Jane Eyre.

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Italian Shirley

 A new Italian translation of Shirley has just been published:

Shirley
Charlotte Brontë
Translator: Fedora Dei
Collana: Le strade, 272
Fazi Editore,  19-11-2015
ISBN: 9788876257957

Yorkshire, inizio Ottocento. Shirley, giovane donna ricca e caparbia, si trasferisce nel villaggio in cui ha ereditato un vasto terreno, una casa e la comproprietà di una fabbrica. Presto fa amicizia con Caroline, orfana e nullatenente, praticamente il suo opposto. Caroline è innamorata di Robert Moore, imprenditore sommerso dai debiti, spietato con i dipendenti e determinato a ristabilire l’onore e la ricchezza della sua famiglia, minati da anni di cattiva gestione. Pur invaghito a sua volta della dolce Caroline, Robert è conscio di non poterla prendere in moglie: la ragazza è povera, e lui non può permettersi di sposarsi solo per amore. Così, mentre da una parte Caroline cerca di reprimere i suoi sentimenti per Robert – convinta che non sarà mai ricambiata –, dall’altra Shirley e il suo terreno allettano tutti gli scapoli della zona. Ma l’ereditiera prova attrazione per un insospettabile…
Shirley si inserisce nel grande filone del romanzo sociale inglese di inizio Ottocento: i suoi personaggi vivono gli avvenimenti storici dell’epoca – le guerre napoleoniche e le lotte luddiste –, facendo i conti con le contraddizioni del progresso industriale e offrendo spunti di riflessione sul lavoro, sul matrimonio e sulla condizione della donna.
Dopo la riproposta di Villette, continuiamo la pubblicazione dell’opera di Charlotte Brontë con Shirley, capolavoro meno noto. Secondo romanzo dell’autrice dopo Jane Eyre, questo libro ha decretato il definitivo passaggio di Shirley da nome maschile a nome tipicamente femminile.

Il Post reviews the present edition.

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A Wedding Re-Enactment in ... Sheffield?

Nouse reviews the University of York's performances of  Lucy Gough's Wuthering Heights:

So something has to give when you compress a long, nuanced novel into a stage play, and unfortunately, Gough’s adaptation didn’t just condense but mercilessly stabbed, hacked and butchered Brontë’s novel. Particularly in the first half, scenes were disjointed with sporadic explosions of melodrama, which was not at all aided by the strained non-naturalistic tableau sequences that further disrupted the play’s already non-existent progression. The structural disorderliness did nothing to provide the sense of character development so critical to the story.
That said, despite the difficulty such a compressed play poses, there managed to be exceptional performances by some of the cast members.  (...)
At times, some scenes were so overly dramatic that they felt like caricatures of Brontë’s: it isn’t a good sign when the audience laughs when there is supposed to be great tension. (...)
Taking on Wuthering Heights is a highly ambitious endeavour worth commending on the Herculean (and maybe, with Gough’s adaptation, Sisyphean) effort alone, but perhaps more should be done to subsidise the script’s weaknesses and limitations. Either way, the play promises to be thought-provoking and is worth watching. (Deborah Lam)

The Telegraph & Argus reports the display of the Brontës' quilt at the Parsonage and other things going on at the Museum:

In addition, visitors who come between now and December 6 are in for a special treat as the hand-sewn patchwork quilt worked on by the Brontë sisters will be on display for the first time since the 1980s.
The quilt measures 187cm by 214cm and consists of silks, taffetas, velvets and cotton which may have been taken from old Brontë dresses. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see it.
Christmas is fast approaching and our museum shop is bursting with gifts for literature lovers everywhere.
On Thursday, November 26 the shop will be open until 8pm. The rooms of the parsonage will be decorated for Christmas and we encourage visitors to explore the museum and then join us for a glass of sherry and a spot of festive shopping.
Entry to the shop is free, but usual admission prices apply to the museum.
On Saturday December 5 we are holding a Christmas craft workshop for all the family. Come and join artist Rachel Lee and make a tree decoration from recycled fabric, blankets or maybe an old jumper!
The workshop will run between 11am and 4pm and is free with entrance to the museum.
Finally some exciting news. Haworth and the Parsonage are great locations for film and TV and with Charlotte’s bicentenary year just around the corner, we are receiving even more media enquiries than usual.
We are very excited to be working with BBC Bristol on their documentary Living Like A Brontë and are looking forward to welcoming them to the Parsonage next month.
The one-hour programme will be presented by Martha Kearney, Lucy Mangan and Helen Oyeyemi and will air on BBC2 in the spring.
Filming will culminate with a re-enactment of Charlotte’s marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls and everyone is invited.
The BBC would like residents of Haworth and the surrounding area to line Church Street and celebrate as Charlotte leaves the church on her wedding day.
We think this will be a lovely way in which to end the year and hope that you would like to join us.
Filming will take place outside the museum on Friday, December 11 and anyone interested should contact rebecca.yorke@bronte.org.uk in order to receive further information as details become available.

The Sunday Times analyses Emily Brontë's poem Long Neglect Has Worn Away:

This is an account of neglect with a sting in the tail: that the elegant hand  that made the image promised to be ever true, yet has obviously failed to be  so. We might wonder whether it is a painting or a person that is being  talked about, because a smile might fade just as easily on a real face. In  the second verse are we being asked to imagine how beautiful the picture  once was, or to consider how the (...)

We wonder whose house was visited by the actress Zoe Rainey as she is interviewed in the Belfast Telegraph:

"I do have an appreciation of feminism, I went to Brontë sisters' home in Sheffield and it was incredible to see where they wrote back then. And I saw where Beatrix Potter lived, she was the first to come up with merchandising. To think she and the Brontës were able to do all that in the man's world they inhabited then is wonderful."

Why Sheffield?

The Guardian explores the 'rise of present tense' in modern fiction and quotes Hilary Mantel saying:

“In fact, it’s nothing new to anybody. There are bits of Jane Eyre and Villette that jump into the present tense, where the focus is rapidly narrowed – there’s a tracking shot. We use the language of the cinema to describe it, but the technique predates cinema. Charlotte Brontë’s technique puts the reader and the writer in the same space, as well as in the same moment; you cannot separate them.” (Richard Lea)

The Sacramento Bee lists some of most expected 2016 novels, among them:

In “Jane Steele,” Edgar Award nominee Lyndsay Faye takes readers on a grimly seductive odyssey in the shadows of Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë (Putnam, $27, 432 pages; March 22). Jane conceals her murderous past and true identity to move into Highgate House, which she stands to inherit. There, she survives the intrigue to find the love she’s been seeking – but it comes at a dear price. (Allen Pierleoni)

The Daily Mail asks Gaby Roslin for her favourite(s):

The first classic I ever read was Wuthering Heights. My mother handed it to me and I absolutely dissolved into it. 

The Wanderer describes a wedding in a library (with Jane Eyre readings and all);  Les Soeurs Brontë posts an interesting 'update' on the Richmond portrait of Charlotte Brontë adding some of the details probably softened by the artist.

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Keith Michell. In Memoriam

Several newspapers publish the sad news of the death of the actor Keith Michell (1926-2015). Australian by birth, he was mainly known for his portrayals of  King Henry VIII in several films and series.

Keith Michell, the actor famous for his many performances as King Henry VIII, has died at the age of 88.
The Australian-born star became a household name in Britain in 1970 due to his acclaimed performance as the Tudor king in the BBC series The Six Wives Of Henry VIII.
The six-part drama, which co-starred Annette Crosbie as Catherine of Aragon and Dorothy Tutin as Anne Boleyn, devoted an episode to each of the King’s marriages.
The series was a ratings smash and Michell won both Bafta and Emmy awards for his performance.
In 1972 the father-of-two played the king again in a big-screen spin off called Henry VIII And His Six Wives.

He was also occasional illustrator and even singer.

And, of course, he was also Heathcliff in the 1962 adaptation of Wuthering Heights penned by Nigel Kneale.

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Finding Gondal Update

(Via Les Soeurs Brontë)

Some months ago we already presented the French documentary Finding Gondal, written and directed by Morgan Rauscent. The film is now touring the festival circuit, but a DVD release is expected for Autumn 2016.

Finding Gondal
52 min Documentary Film, HD, 2015
Written and Directed by Morgan Rauscent
Glass Town Films
CAST

Bernie Collins ... Voice Over
Clara Kundin ... Additional voice and poems reading

With
Sally Shuttleworth, Professor of English Literature  St Anne's College, University of Oxford.
Author of Charlotte Brontë and Victorian Psychology  (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
Sophie GIlmartin, Reader in Nineteenth-Century Literature Royal Holloway, University of London
Josephine McDonagh, Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature, King's College London
Shahidha Bari, Lecturer in Romanticism Queen Mary, University of London
Diane Purkiss, Professor of English Literature Keble College, University of Oxford
Author (with C. Larrington) of Magical Tales: Myth, Legend and Enchantment in Children's Books(Bodleian Library, 2013)

Ben GM ... Cinematographer
Alexandre Benéte ... Original Score
Conie-Co (Coralie Nagel) ... Original Artwork (like the one on the left. More Brontë-related artwork by the artist, included and not included in the film, can be seen on her blog.

The film has been presented in several festivals where has been awarded:

Ciné O'Clock 2015, Lyon, FRANCE (Official Sélection)
Grace Film Festival 2015, San Fransico, USA (Official Selection)
Middle Coast Film Festival 2015, USA (Official Selection)
Muestra Internacional de Cine con Perspectiva de Género (MICGénero) 2015, México
6 Awards at the International Independent Film Awards 2015, Los Angeles, USA
Best Directing (Platinium Award)
Best Documentary Feature (Platinium Award)
Best Voice-Over (Platinium Award)
Best Animated Visuals (Gold Award)
Best Cinematography (Gold Award)
Best Original Score (Gold Award)

L'Envolée Culturelle talks about the Lyon screening of the film:

Le petit plus du film ? La lecture de quelques poèmes par une actrice à la voix particulièrement forte et émouvante. Ces lectures imposent certes une pause dans le récit, mais ont aussi une autre fonction : celle de donner d’avantage encore envie de lire les poèmes des sœurs, moins connus que leurs romans. Et, visiblement à tort. Les extraits choisis, murmurés sur la toile de fond de landes anglaises pluvieuses, nous emportent immédiatement. (Marie-Lou Monnot) (Translation)

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Cathy and Heathcliff are the best couple in the best weather event

Marie Claire has selected '8 Of The Best Couples In Literature' and two of them were created by the Brontë sisters:

Cathy and Heathcliff – Wuthering Heights
A dark and secluded spot on the Yorkshire moors is the setting for this tumultuous love story where the hot-headed Cathy and vindictive Heathcliff wreak havoc amongst their families as they indulge in a relationship of dark, twisted passion that eventually ends in tragedy. There’s also some casual racism, supernatural elements and a touch of grave-hopping which all makes for a gripping love story that broke boundaries in Brontë’s time in more ways than one.
Best lines: ‘Nelly I am Heathcliff…He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’ [...]
Jane and Mr. Rochester - Jane Eyre
In Charlotte  Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre is the possibly-telepathic orphan who has a tough time at boarding school before becoming a governess herself. Looking after the ward of the formidable Mr. Rochester, the two become close and he proposes to Jane.  However after a dream she flees when she discovers he’s already married (although his wife is insane) and Jane refuses to be the mistress. After sleeping rough and finding some long-lost family and fortune, Jane returns to Rochester after another vision and discovers a fire has killed Rochester’s mad ex-wife and left him blind. The ending picks up a bit thought: Jane has a son, they adopt the girl Jane looked after and Rochester regains sight in one eye. Hurrah.
Best line: The happy ending could melt any heart ’To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character—perfect concord is the result.’ (Georgina Lawton)

The New Statesman lists the books of the year so far:

Jonathan Bate’s Ted Hughes (William Collins) elegantly retells the myth and, occasionally, violence of the “Ted and Sylvia” story and gives it new flesh – not least in its evocative portrait of Hughes as part Heathcliff, part Teddy boy. Bate’s book, along with Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks (Hamish Hamilton), made it a tough call for this year’s Samuel Johnson Prize judges. (Philip Hoare)

While The New Yorker opts for a more original selection and picks 'the ten best weather events in fiction'.

7. The storm in Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.”
About midnight, while we still sat up, the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury. There was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building: a huge bough fell across the roof, and knocked down a portion of the east chimney-stack, sending a clatter of stones and soot into the kitchen-fire.
Which storm in “Wuthering Heights,” you might reasonably ask? The novel is full of wild weather; the word “wuthering” itself is, Brontë tells us, “descriptive of the atmospheric tumult” on the Yorkshire moors. In the above passage, a particularly frightful storm strikes on the night that the young Heathcliff runs away from the home he shares with Catherine Earnshaw—a severing so drastic that it breaks the very building. But, of course, nothing ever truly severs their relationship, which is the “atmospheric tumult” in Yorkshire: part romance, part ghost story, entirely elemental, and, after Lear on the heath, the single greatest instance of psycho-meteorology in Western literature. (Kathryn Schulz)

We would add the storm after the first proposal in Jane Eyre which ends up severing the chestnut tree.

The Times Education Supplement's Glitter and Progress mentions an original way of teaching Jane Eyre:

 One of my lasting memories of teaching English in my homeland was a lesson where the students made paper glasses with red lenses to support our learning of the red room from Jane Eyre.  When I moved to England and started teaching English, a teaching moment like that was few and far between.  Maybe it was me?  Maybe it was the curriculum?  Gradually, I found my creative feet again and was able to establish myself as someone who was creative and carried the label of being creative. (Maureen McDevitt)

The Guardian also mentions Jane Eyre in a terrible story about sexual harassment.

My 13-year-old daughter and I went to see Jane Eyre at the National Theatre on the South Bank, a few weeks ago. It was a clear night and we walked across the bridge to catch the tube, talking about the play as we went. Jane Eyre’s strong sense of justice comes across early in this exciting production, along with her independent will and ability to make clear choices in a world where women were expected to behave in particular, passive, conformist ways. [...]
In the end, then, I look to one of my own heroines, Jane Eyre, who probably had it about right in her response to Mr Rochester when he tries to tame and control her, and mould her into what he thinks he wants her to be.
“I am no bird and no net ensnares me,” she says. “I am a free human being with an independent will.” (Liz Goodman)

The Times's Historic Houses talks about the rectory houses, including the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth
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Also in The Guardian an article of the art of the British Empire:

It is a respectable but still surprisingly thin body of work: the odd truth is that the empire is notable in its absence from British poems, plays or novels of the colonial period. There is The Tempest; the plantations in the background of Mansfield Park, and Indian and other colonial characters who flit across the pages of Vanity Fair, Jane Eyre and The Moonstone; yet there is almost no mention of south Asia in the works of, say, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy or DH Lawrence. Whatever the economic and political importance of India to Britain, the attention of British writers, like that of the British public, was usually much more insular and inward-looking. (William Dalrymple)

This columnist from The Hindu has travelled around England in the steps of her favourite authors.

I saved the best for last — The Brontës. The Brontë Parsonage was no mean little stone house by the windy moors that I was expecting. The airy house with its well-preserved furniture and personal effects of the Brontë siblings gave one the impression that it had been a good home. It was with a heart almost as heavy as Heathcliff’s that I left that beloved place. (Vijetha S.N.)

The Scarborough News shares some tips for a perfect day out in Scarborough.

Leaving the castle, turn right to view Anne Brontë’s grave beyond the car park wall, and visit St Mary’s Church just ahead. A church may have occupied this position even before the first castle was erected, with the first single-aisled structure of around 1150 being extended and restored later.

Star Daily Standard recommends books for teenagers:

“Jane Eyre,” Charlotte Brontë: This literary classic from 1847 follows its title character as she grows into adulthood, becomes a governess and falls in love with her Byronic boss. “I love giving ‘Jane Eyre’ to older, passionate readers and not only because it’s my favorite book in the whole world,” says [Shosana] Smith. “The story is so beautifully written, rich with detail and real depth of feeling. Not to mention early feminist themes, scandalous for its time!”

YourTango talks about the origin of the Mrs. title:

According to Mental Floss, the original meaning for "Mrs." was Mistress. But it's not what you think. If you're an avid reader of the classics (i.e. Shakespeare, Dickens, the Brontë sisters), you know that the definition doesn't have the same meaning it does now. (Caithlin Pena)

Refinery29 reviews the latest album by Adele:

Title: “Hello”
Best Line: “But it don’t matter, it clearly doesn’t tear you apart anymore”
Thoughts/Feelings: If you were to stand at the edge of a cliff, à la the characters of Wuthering Heights, this would be the song to soundtrack your emotional moment. (See also: appropriate for lamenting over lost loves in gale-force winds.) (Anne T. Donahue)

Le Soir (Belgium) visits the house of the architect Maryam Mahdavi:

Elle l’a ainsi simplement habillée de “ ses ” couleurs : le bleu, le vert, le rose poudré, comme une boîte de cosmétiques. Maryam Mahdavi a tenté d’y faire dialoguer toute une série de meubles et d’objets fantasques et hétéroclites. Le résultat est magique, entre “ Les Hauts de Hurlevent ” et “ Les Mille et Une Nuits ”. (Estelle Toscanucci) (Translation)

Chicago Now's Not the Fastest Girl in Town tells about her love for Wuthering Heights. AnneBrontë.org posts about Haworth Sanitation And The Babbage Report. Les Soeurs Brontë (in French) makes a point for returning the Parsonage to the way it was the the Brontës were alive.

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