Vote for Branwell (even if he DIDN'T write Wuthering Heights)

Source

Keighley News reports that the land art depicting Branwell Brontë on a bicycle created for the Tour de Yorkshire has been shortlisted for an award.

A piece of Worth Valley land art produced to celebrate this year's Tour de Yorkshire is in the running for a top accolade.
The work – depicting Branwell Brontë riding a bicycle – by Worth Valley Young Farmers Club and Haworth Primary School, is among 12 pieces across the region shortlisted for a public vote to select people's favourite.
To vote, visit letouryorkshire.com/landart. The winner will receive a trophy from Sir Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire.
"We were blown away by the sheer number, range and quality of land art which featured on this year's race route and it was extremely difficult to select just 12 pieces," he said.
Voting is open until midnight on June 13. (Alistair Shand)

Eryk Ostrowski's new book Tajemnice wichrowych wzgórz - claiming that Branwell wrote Wuthering Heights - is featured on Radio Poland.

In his new book entitled “The Secrets of Wuthering Heights”, Ostrowski said that Branwell Brontë (1817-1848) was not the black sheep of the Bronte family as history had made him out to be, and that even during the siblings’ lifetimes claims were made that only one author was behind all the Brontës’ works.
Branwell Brontë’s three sisters are all known for their contributions to 19th-century British literature.
The eldest sister, Charlotte Brontë (1916-1855) is famous for “Jane Eyre” and wrote three other books. Emily (1918-1948) is credited with writing the most famous of the Brontë works, “Wuthering Heights”, which was written under the alias of “Ellis Bell”, while Anne (1820-1849) penned two less-known books.
But Ostrowski claimed Branwell Brontë, who is often portrayed to have been an alcoholic and morphine addict, was also a talented painter and author.
According to Ostrowski, letters, poems, prose and stories written by Branwell Brontë are similar to the work of Ellis Bell.
“Branwell Brontë’s prose and poems show many scenes and dialogues which are repeated in ‘Wuthering Heights’,” Ostrowski said.
“We can even see prototypes of the main characters of ‘Wuthering Heights’ in some of his early works,” he added.
Ostrowski also said that a letter, written by the brother at about the same time as “Wuthering Heights” was being completed, includes a description of “a secret novel”. The description fitted “Wuthering Heights” to a tee, the Polish author said.
“We are probably dealing with the biggest hoax in modern literature. Everything that we know about the Brontë sisters comes from the oldest, Charlotte,” Ostrowski said.
“She corresponded with and talked to publishers. The manuscripts of Emily and Anne Bronte do not exist, and the first publisher to see them said they were written in the same handwriting.” 

Two more Polish sites - albeit in Polish, not English - feature it too: Super Stacja and Gazeta Prawna.

The Times of India has a 'micro review' of the book The Little Teashop of Lost and Found by Trisha Ashley, which takes place in Brontë country.

Alice Rose is a foundling brought up by a kindly, adoring father but an uncaring adoptive mother. When her father dies, her mother casts her out and Alice is left to fend for herself with the assistance of a few old friends. Just as she starts running a hikers' cafe belonging to Dan, her fiance, a second blow comes in the news of Dan's death in a climbing accident. When Alice further finds that Dan was a married man and his scheming ex-wife turns up to claim Dan's property, it is about all she can take before she succumbs to a breakdown. Still reeling from her travails, Alice rushes into purchasing a run-down cafe which she spots online, tempted by the fact that it is in Haworth, the Yorkshire town in which she was found as a new-born baby, stuffed under a rock on the moors and presumably left to die. The cafe is in an appalling state and Alice finds too that the antique shop across the road belongs to Nile Giddings, a handsome but haughty Yorkshireman, somewhat reminiscent of Heathcliff (this is Brontë country, after all). (Jaishree Mishra)

Herald.net has an article on the 5th Avenue high school awards and mentions one of the nominees:

Edmonds Heights, “Jane Eyre”: Honorable mentions for music direction, chorus, supporting actress Darian Conn as Mrs. Fairfax, featured ensemble actress Olivia Elliott as Helen, and special student achievement award to Sophie Burnett. (Gale Fiege)

The Des Moines Register tells about Archibald Coolidge, a university professor who

said the most romantic line in all literature was when Catherine in "Wuthering Heights" said, “I am Heathcliff.” (Look it up. It didn’t end well for Catherine and Heathcliff.) (Callista Gould)

Beating the Bounds shares a walk that starts at what used to be in part still is Cowan Bridge (with pictures).

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May Half-Term Activities at the Parsonage

The Brontë Parsonage Museum is in the middle of a the May Half-Term Activities for School Holidays:

The Museum is bustling during the school holidays and visitors can enjoy a range of events for all the family. Join us for short guided walks, museum trails and ‘hands on history’ sessions.

Informal drop-in talks or walksTuesday, Wed, Thurs, Fri at 11am and 2pm
Join us for a walk around the environs of the Parsonage and find out a little about the Brontës and their lives in Haworth. If the weather's really bad, there will be a talk in our Learning area instead.

Meet John BrownMon 29th, 12pm - 3pm
Branwell’s friend John Brown is in and out of the Parsonage today looking for him. He’s supposed to be taking Branwell to Liverpool for a few days of ‘recuperation’, but he’s nowhere to be seen.  John’s in a chatty mood though, so if you come across him today, he’s sure to share a few Branwell anecdotes…

Hands on HistoryTues 30th, Thurs 1st, 1pm - 4pm
Get your hands on some domestic artefacts from the Brontës time and see if you can work out some intriguing puzzles… You can even try your hand at a bit of cross stitch!

Wild Wednesday workshop – Stitching StoriesWed 31st, 11am- 4pm
The Brontës couldn’t afford lots of paper, so they would cut out blank scraps and stitch them together to make amazing tiny versions of their favourite magazine. Sew your own miniature comics, books or magazines with artist Julia Ogden, and who knows what strange and fantastical stories you might fill them with…

Meet Ellen Nussey Wed 31st, 11am- 2pm
Charlotte's friend Ellen Nussey has come to visit her in the Parsonage. Ellen is in a chatty mood and will be happy to share some Brontë related anecdotes with you. 

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Writing and friendship were dangerous acts for a woman

The Pool features the new book A Secret Sisterhood: The Hidden Friendships of Austen, Brontë, Eliot and Woolf by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney.

Strange but, sadly, not surprising that history should choose to hide the friendships between these remarkable female writers. Sweeney and Midorikawa believe that during the lifetimes of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf, both writing and friendship were dangerous acts for a woman. Female writers were a threat to a very male pursuit and as such they were always depicted as mad spinsters, lonely hermits or social outcasts. It was only because Sweeney and Midorikawa have enjoyed their friendship as writers so much that they even thought to look into the friendships of literary legends. (Kate Leaver)

According to Cultura Colectiva, Wuthering Heights is one of '5 Books Of Why You Never Recover From A Broken Heart'.

Heathcliff and Catherine were the best of friends during their childhood. They literally spent all their time together and, when they were apart, anxiously waited to see the other. However, as it always happens, this changes when they grow up. She becomes a lady and marries Edgar Linton, even though she’s in love with Heathcliff. One day, Catherine decides to confess her love for Heathcliff to the housekeeper, explaining how she didn’t marry him because he wasn’t good for her. Heathcliff, who was listening to it all the time, is hurt all over again. He plots vengeance against all those who saw him as an inferior being, but his love for Catherine never fades away. (María Isabel Carrasco Cara Chards)

#AmReading also refers to Wuthering Heights on its list of '5 Peculiar Book Adaptations':

4. Sparkhouse (2002)
The gender-swapped, BBC mini-series based on Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. In this case, the female version of Heathcliff (named Carol) is the fiery, rebellious daughter of an abusive farmer, while the male version of Catherine (named Andrew) belongs to a posh family and is on his way to a bright, successful future in Manchester University. Both parental figures disapprove of their children’s choice in romantic partners.
A few moments seem forced, there is the unfair death of a dog involved (which was pretty messed up), and a few overall slightly, “What the heck?” sort of moments. But the actress playing Carol is fantastic, even if the character is slightly unstable in every way. (Luz Moreno)

Also on #AmReading, Jane Eyre is one of '45 Fiction Books To Read In A Lifetime'. Faith, Fiction, Friends reviews The Brontë Plot by Katherine Reay.

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On Wuthering Heights in Barbastro

A new Brontë-inspired photography exhibition opens today, April 30, in Barbastro (Spain):

On Wuthering Heights
Photographs by Helena Aguilar Mayans
May 30 - June 21
Ibor Librería, Barbastro (Spain)

A free interpretation of the novel Wuthering Heights, written by Emily Brontë in 1847.
Work in Progress, 2016-2017
Hand painted gelatin silver prints, vicstorian album frame and hand stitched quote with human hair.

Further information on Ronda Somontano.

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Lyrics by Anne Brontë

The Yorkshire Post features the new book A Secret Sisterhood: The Hidden Friendships of Austen, Brontë, Eliot and Woolf by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney.

Charlotte Brontë is perhaps the most famous of all of Yorkshire’s daughters. But how well do we really know her? The recent BBC drama, To Walk Invisible, presented her as a prim, rather joyless young woman, cooped up in her father’s Haworth parsonage with fellow author sisters, Anne and Emily, and their unstable brother Branwell.
Growing up in York – with a mother who loved the Brontës so much that she named me after one – I had been raised on just this kind of image of Charlotte: the eldest of a trio of isolated sisters, so dependent on each other artistically that they had little need to seek the friendship of other writers beyond the confines of their home.
My own journey to authorship led me into a close collaboration with fellow writer Emma Claire Sweeney. We were fortunate to meet back when we were each just beginning to put pen to paper, and have helped each other ever since. Our friendship led us to question stories of the Brontë sisters’ literary isolation. Researching the friendships between female authors for our new book, A Secret Sisterhood, we were intrigued to find that, for most of her life, Charlotte shared a close bond with fellow Yorkshire woman Mary Taylor, the late-life author of the protofeminist novel Miss Miles. The two met in 1831, as adolescent boarders at Roe Head School in Mirfield. The pair’s relationship got off to a rocky start when Mary, a strikingly pretty girl, bluntly told Charlotte she was ‘very ugly’. Charlotte was mortified. But in time they bonded over a shared love of literature and their fondness for a good political argument. [...]
After Charlotte’s death in 1855 at the age of just 38, a bereft Mary received a request by post from another of the novelist’s literary friends. Elizabeth Gaskell, the author of Cranford, had met Charlotte in the later years of her life. She was now writing the first biography of Charlotte, and was looking for contributions from those who had known her best. Mary sent Elizabeth pages of recollections, hoping that The Life of Charlotte Brontë would vent her anger at the social restrictions she felt had held Charlotte back. But Elizabeth, mindful of Victorian notions of propriety, instead portrayed Charlotte as a compliant woman who suffered her many hardships with acceptance. Many readers came to regard Charlotte as a saintly figure, never troubling themselves to question whether – as Mary put it – a woman of such talents should have been forced to live her life in a ‘walking nightmare of “poverty and self-suppression”’. Stung by the experience, Mary often refused to cooperate with the requests of future biographers. This reticence allowed a less fully-rounded image of Charlotte to emerge and the importance of Mary’s influence on Charlotte’s writing slipped away. Our research shows this is not unusual. Unlike the famous partnerships of Coleridge and Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley, or Fitzgerald and Hemingway, the important literary friendships of England’s most famous female authors tend to have been overlooked, distorted or even actively suppressed.

iDiva (India) lists several Indian TV shows with Western origins.

Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi 2014 from Wuthering Heights
We kid you not! The basic plotline for this Ekta Kapoor production is indeed inspired by Emily Brontë's classic literary work, Wuthering Heights. We can assure you that amidst all the time jumps, they lost the plot. (Debiparna C)

Froggy's Delight (France) features Inüit's EP Always Kévin, which includes

l'éclatant "Anne" qui reprend les paroles d'Anne Brontë, on est touché directement au cœur par la puissance de ce groupe. (Jean-Louis Zuccolini) (Translation)

   

Nick Holland has written a post on The Death and Funeral of Anne Brontë on AnneBrontë.org.

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I put you down next to Jane

Jane Eyre is a song recently digitally released by Daniel Zaitchik. Not really about Charlotte Brontë's heroine but it's a nice reference anyway:



Written in 2006.

The author says on his blog:

I wrote this song over a decade ago, but only got around to recording and releasing it now.  It's on iTunes and the like today.  It features violin by Ariana Rosen and cello by Lauren Riley Rigby.  We also made a little music video for the tune, shot and edited by Marjorie LeWit.  Most things I wrote this long ago make me cringe, but I still feel a connection with this one, so I figured I'd throw it out there.  Thanks for taking a look and listen.  

Lyrics:

I tried to read Jane Eyre but I couldn’t get through it

after several pages my eyes were elsewhere and I blew it

I’ll never read Jane Eyre, I know I’ll never get through it

and though i’d like to kiss you, I’m sitting on my fingers

cuz i know that I lost the right to do it when I put you down

next to Jane (Read more)

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Posh Soap Operas

The Sunday Express reviews the performances of Winter Hill in Bolton:

When Beth (Louise Jameson) founds an all-women’s reading group, she anticipates that the heroines under discussion will be Jane Eyre and Anna Karenina. (Michael Arditi)

WPSU reviews The Heirs by Susan Reiger:

Love and sex and money and betrayal make for excellent storytelling. And The Heirs has all of that in excess. As an exploration of the hidden lives of Rupert and Eleanor Falkes, it is a posh soap opera written by Fitzgerald and the Brontës. As a window on a family shaken by death, it is The Royal Tenenbaums, polished up and moved across town. (Jason Sheehan)

The Yorkshire Post mentions the Historic Hoses Association:

More than 40 of the association’s houses linked to writers or their works are taking part in the trail, including Norton Conyers near Ripon, which reputedly inspired Charlotte Brontë to create Mrs Rochester, the “mad woman in the attic” in Jane Eyre. (Stephen McClarence)

Diario Sur (Spain) has a reminder of Anne Brontë on the anniversary of her death:

Cincuenta y nueve años antes del nacimiento londinense de Ian Fleming, moría en Scarborough la pequeña de los Brontë, ocho meses después de que lo hiciera Branwell, cinco tras Emily, y seis años antes que Charlotte – la más longeva de la saga, que murió a la provectísima edad de treinta y nueve años y estando embarazada –; todos ellos absorbidos y regurgitados inanes por el aliento insaciable del Bacilo de Koch más familiar y entusiasta. Originarios de Thornton, en Yorkshire, desde donde se mudaron a Haworth cuando el padre fue nombrado rector de aquel pueblo de los páramos que Emily inmortalizaría en sus Wuthering Heights antes de ser ella a su vez inmortalizada por ambos y por el entrañable y familiar bacilo, los cuatro hermanos Brontë – el cariñoso bicho de Koch ya se había llevado a dos de los seis descendientes iniciales, Maria y Elizabeth, además de a la matriarca–, crecieron en universos inventados que ellos mismos iban escribiendo; preludios de aquéllos que su escasa permanencia en la edad adulta por culpa del convidado, no de piedra sino de pared celular, les permitirían crear. En el caso de Anne sus veintinueve años de vida le alcanzaron para escribir “Agnes Grey”, novela basada en sus, breves pero no por ello menos impactantes, experiencias como institutriz, y “La inquilina de Wilfred Hall”, texto en el que resulta patente y queda latente que las tendencias alcohólicas y opiómanas descritas en el libro son las del mismísimo hermano Branwell, a quien le gustaba el whisky y el opio más que al bacilo de Koch la familia Brontë. Oh, girl. (María Teresa Lezcano) (Translation)

Ultima Voce (Italy) is eager to see the second season of Top of the Lake:

Già nel 2013 Jane Campion aveva fatto la sua ultima incursione nel mondo televisivo con la prima stagione di Top of the lake, serie ricolma di grandi personaggi femminili, magnifici paesaggi, mistica new age e guerra dei sessi. L’ambientazione, che agli amanti di Emily Brontë e di Twin Peaks sarebbe piaciuta moltissimo, era quella della sua natia Nuova Zelanda, tenebrosa ed ammaliante, rinvigorita nella sua bellezza dalle luci del direttore della fotografia Adam Arkapaw. (Antonio Canzoniere) (Translation)

Público (Portugal) interviews the writer Rachel Cusk:

Há uma referência a Emily Bronté e a O Monte dos Vendavais para falar da visão subjectiva. Heathcliff e Cathy olham pela janela e vêem coisas diferentes, “Heathcliff aquilo que teme e detesta, Cathy aquilo por que anseia e do qual se sente privada”. A perspectiva, no romance, é crucial. É o modo, mais uma vez, onde cada um – também autor e leitor – se situa. O livro é muito sobre isso? (Isabel Lucas)
Completamente. A janela permite construir a nossa própria ideia sobre o que se vê. Ela não está a dizer o que devemos ver. O que é terrível e é maravilhoso. Isso pode-nos tornar-nos inseguros. Por vezes queremos que nos digam o que ver. (Translation)

Some boars named after Heathcliff mentioned in The Mercury. Does my Forehead Offend You? posts some Jane Eyre humour in the form of 'incorrect'' quotes.

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The same old secrets of Wuthering Heights

A conspicuous member of the BBC (Big Brontë Conspiracy) is Eryk Ostrowski who some years ago enlightened us with his Charlotte wrote-it-all hardly original theories. Now, he comes with another classic of the BBC people: maybe, after all, Charlotte didn't write all the novels. Wuthering Heights was written by Branwell, of course. The mother of all Brontë conspiracies since Grundy until Ostrowski, by way of Mr Meyerburg in Cold Comfort Farm:

Tajemnice wichrowych wzgórz
Eryk Ostrowski
Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN
28.04.2017

Według świadków miał być prawdziwym autorem powieści Wichrowe Wzgórza. Na słynnym autoportrecie z siostrami pozostała po nim smuga cienia. Jego imię stało się symbolem przekleństwa. Miał zmarnować swój talent, jak twierdziła jego starsza siostra. Tymczasem fakty były inne.
Branwell Brontë, legendarny brat trzech słynnych pisarek, Charlotte, Emily i Anne, pozostaje jedną z największych zagadek literatury nowożytnej. Jako prekursor gatunku fantasy i twórca poematu psychologicznego wyprzedzał swoją epokę niemal o całe stulecie.
Tajemnice wichrowych wzgórz to pierwsza wspólna biografia Branwella i Charlotte. Eryk Ostrowski tworzy fascynujący portret psychologiczny genialnego rodzeństwa, które przez lata łączyły wspólne doświadczenia – dzieciństwo w cieniu śmierci, pasja pisania, marzenia o literackiej sławie, pierwsze uczuciowe rozczarowania, pozamałżeńskie miłości.
Co sprawiło, że siostrzana miłość zmieniła się w nienawiść?
Dlaczego Branwella należało wymazać?
Autor bestsellerowej książki Charlotte Brontë i jej siostry śpiące odsłania nieznane fakty z dziejów rodziny Brontë. Charlotte poczyniła wiele starań, by pewne informacje nigdy nie wyszły na jaw. Odnalezione w ostatnich latach dokumenty każą na nowo spojrzeć na tę historię i oddzielić prawdę od mitu, a zapomniana twórczość oraz korespondencja dają klucz do poznania tajemnicy dzikich wrzosowisk zachodniego Yorkshire.
Książka zawiera nigdy dotąd nietłumaczone na język polski listy Branwella i Charlotte Brontë oraz fragmenty ich nieznanych utworów.

If you feel like it, you can listen to the man on Polskie Radio.

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Tempestuous Extrovert

The week of the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles we have found a Brontë-Beatle connection in a Washington Post article:

Girls may have created Beatlemania, but male writers have always dominated journalism and scholarship about the Beatles. I know of no full-length book written by a woman that offers a serious treatment of Beatles songs. No female authors appear on any of the top-10 listings of essential books about the Beatles, except one perverse listing that includes “Daddy Come Home,” by Pauline Lennon, the (very young) second wife of John’s father, Freddy. This makes about as much sense as listing Jewelle St. James’s “John Lennon and the Brontë Connection,” a book that argues Lennon is the reincarnation of Branwell Bronte, the troubled brother of Emily and Charlotte. If any book by a wife belongs on these lists, it’s Cynthia Lennon’s “John,” a heartfelt but bittersweet account about loving a musical icon. (Sibbie O'Sullivan)

The Herald interviews the historian, author and television presenter, Lucy Worsley:

Talking to her is not a monologue. It’s a conversation. “What’s your opinion of Jane Austen?” she asks me almost as soon as we sit down. “Honestly? I’d be on team Brontë,” I tell her. “Ah, you’re a wild, tempestuous extrovert,” she says. In my dreams, Lucy. (Teddy Jamieson)

More Austen things. 9colonne presents a new Austen book, Alla ricerca di Mr Darcy by Giovanna Pezzuoli:

Giovanna Pezzuoli, con penna lieve e divertita, si interroga anche sul perché sia proprio Mr Darcy il personaggio maschile di Jane Austen di gran lunga preferito, mettendolo a confronto con gli altri usciti dalla penna della scrittrice – e con l’altro modello che ha spopolato dall’Ottocento in poi: il romantico, problematico, iroso, imperfetto Mr Rochester di Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë), capostipite della tradizione “io ti salverò”, vale a dire di quella “trappola” sentimentale per cui generazioni di donne si sono immolate sull’altare dell’amore. (Translation) 

Extra Newsfeed takes a look at Generation X in the Trump age:

To be Gen X in the Trumpian age means to look at the canon of literature and music we used to brandish, and to realise just how racist and sexist and homophobic it is, and always was. Our collections of paperback Penguin Classics, including the work of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Emily Brontë and William Shakespeare now look less like a recipe for edification and more like a jukebox playing only White People’s Greatest Hits. (Christopher May)

The Times on Jose Mourinho's season:

Now, we know Southampton were robbed in the League Cup via the sort of non-offside goal that would have had Mourinho in full conspiracy mode. And yes, the team finished lower in the league than last year, worse even than Arsenal who, Arsenal fans will tell you, are far worse than last year. On the other hand, they lost the same amount of games as Chelsea, had a better defence and beat both Chelsea and Spurs. People have bemoaned the style but Mourinho was never a stylist and remains more likely to write a Haynes manual than, say, Jane Eyre.  (Rick Broadbent)

Medium reviews Anne with an E:

It’s clear that L.M. Montgomery’s equal-parts whimsy and humor point of view is being deliberately cast aside and replaced with the darker, more brooding lens of Charlotte’s Brontë’s gothic romance. (Rachel Darnall)

El Ciudadano (Chile) interviews the writer Mariana Enríquez:

En ese mismo sentido, la literatura escrita por mujeres siempre suele estar asociada al lugar común de “la mirada femenina”. (...) ¿Cómo convivís con ese esteriotipo que se le implanta a la literatura hecha por autoras mujeres? (Gustavo Yuste)
 No convivo. Me malhumora y me irrita. No creo que exista un ente que pueda ser llamado mirada femenina. Además tradicionalmente las mujeres escribieron horror y gótico: Mary Shelley, Alejandra Pizarnik, Daphne Du Maurier, Flannery O’ Conjor, Shirley Jackson, Emily Brönte (sic)… Y Emily Brönte, por ejemplo, escribió a uno de los “héroes” hombres más importantes de la literatura, Heathcliff. Me parece además una especie de insulto a la imaginación. ¿Acaso los hombres no tienen una mirada femenina? ¿Cómo hacen para escribir mujeres, si no? Es como si fuera exclusivo de un sexo. Un escritor, hombre o mujer, puede escribir sobre cualquier cosa y desde cualquier mirada. (Translation)

L'Ape Musicale reviews the recently-released recording of the Pietro Mascagni opera, Guglielmo Ratcliffe:

Un allucinato intreccio di destini e deliri, amori impossibili e distruttivi, matrimoni rassicuranti e infelici che si tramandano e rispecchiano dai padri ai figli, come sarà, un quarto di secolo dopo il dramma di Heine, in Cime tempestose, che sviluppa, però, ben altro respiro evocativo nell’articolare personaggi, rapporti e strutture narrative. (Roberta Pedrotti) (Translation)

Broadway World and Kent News present the June performances of the Jane Eyre UK National Tour in Canterbury and South Wales Argus the Cardiff ones. The Wrap announces that on June 16, Jane Eyre 2011 is leaving Netflix.

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Brontë Society Gazette. Issue 72

The latest issue of The Brontë Society Gazette is now out (Issue 72. April  2017. ISSN 1344-5940).

ARTICLES

Letter from the Editor by Belinda Hakes
Letter from the Chairman by John Thirlwell, Chairman of the Brontë Society
Meet the Trustee: Michelle Waterworth, Vice Chair, Brontë Society Council, interviewed by Rebecca Yorke
A Mystery Solved by Lesley Woodall
Behind The Scenes At The Museum: Bringing the Brontës to the World: meet one of our Outreach and Events Officers by Diane Fare, Outreach and Events Officer, BPM
Charlotte's Garden. A new range for the Brontë Society by designer Hannah Nunn
An Interview with Simon Armitage by Helen Meller
Self Portrait by Simon Armitage
Membership News:    Summer Festival/AGM Weekend / Keep your details up to date/ Brontë200 area of the website / Membership survey by Linda Ling, Membership Officer / Annual Literary Lunch / Brontë Studies by Amber M. Adams, Editor, Brontë Studies
Results and Responses. Brontë Society Membership Survey 2016 by Rebecca Yorke, Head of Communications and Marketing
Four Poets and Me
Growing up in Haworth by Barry Butterfield
Branwell Brontë - A Birthday CelebrationTo Walk Invisible - A Review by Irene Truman

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Wild winds sweeping over the moors

The Student Newspaper reviews Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre.

This small cast is utilised again in the play’s bold approach to gender. Instead of hiding the fact that many of the actors play a gender different to their own, this play acknowledges and ultimately celebrates it. We see bearded school girls, and St. John (a stock figure of the patriarchy) played by the same actor who had just depicted Bessie (Jane’s childhood nanny and only maternal figure).
The seamlessness with which this is executed is testament to the skill of the production’s actors. Nadia Clifford’s Jane and Evelyn Miller’s multiple roles, from a voice of Jane’s inner conscience to the missionary St. John, stand out as exceptional performances. However, each member of the cast plays an integral part in forming the dynamic on stage which creates the play’s incredible focus on human suffering, emotion and relationships.
The staging throughout the play serves to magnify this. It is a simple wooden structure, but the company transforms it to easily convince us of a young girls’ institution, or, moments later, a stately home. This focus on humanity is what really captures the essence of the Bronte novel. It is the human spirit rather than material wealth or embellishment that is having attention drawn to it, and we see this enacted on stage in the set as well as the acting.
Though described as ‘mad’ by other characters, Melanie Marshall’s Bertha Mason is full of subtlety and sympathy; her sporadic interjections of song highlight Jane’s distress and her own repression. Particularly unexpected, yet hauntingly and astoundingly fitting, was her mournful rendition of Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ as Thornfield hall burns down at her hands. It is through the characterisation of Bertha Mason, Sally Cookson’s directing achieves a sympathy that is both emotionally haunting and politically significant.
It is not only through this character that music is employed creatively and carefully. A group of three musicians join the cast on stage at all times, denoting through both lyrics and music the passage of time as Jane travels from one home to the next. This device feels natural; though initially surprising to see instruments on the stage, they quickly became a crucial part of the play’s landscape. Like the other unconventional aspects of this play, it was not hidden, but celebrated.
This production is a stunning achievement. Detail and skill may be at its core, but what marks it as outstanding is its raw empathy and understanding of human suffering. (Rosie Hilton)

The Fountain reviews it too:

Nadia Clifford as Jane runs the whole range from ten-year-old girl through to stubborn, self-realised adult. The other characters are also pretty good: Tim Delap’s Edward Fairfax Rochester falls right next to the crotchety older man of the original text, and all the more believable for it, even if the result is that Jane Eyre strikes further than usual adaptations from straight romance.
Melanie Marshall’s voice as Bertha is undeniably stunning, and a highlight of the play, but the character seems, if not underdeveloped, then misdeveloped: her moments in the spotlight seeming to be focused more on Jane than herself. And sure, Jane is the main character, but add to that the fact that one or two of the dramatic high points seemed like they were cut slightly short so as to fit everything in, it’s a shame that such an important secondary character seemed to have her punches pulled.
Jane Eyre also falls prey to one of my pet theatrical peeves, which seems to be rearing its head in the last few years – the use of one or two contemporary songs in a way that is an unwelcome jolt out of the story. For something so atmospheric, and otherwise with such beautiful composed music throughout, it’s a confusing narrative choice that pulled me out of the story. It’s a rare bum note in a production that is well thought out, emotionally engaging, and a visual effect appreciator’s particular delight. (Fiona Barnett)

Flora Halfhide reviews one of the Edinburgh performances.

Vanity Fair recommends watching Jane Eyre 2011 before it leaves Netflix in June.

Jane Eyre
There are practically as many variations on Jane Eyre as there are wild winds sweeping over the moors in Charlotte Brontë’s indelible classic. But Cary Fukunaga’s 2011 adaptation is a particularly stylish and smoldering entry in the canon, thanks both to the filmmaker’s exquisite eye and the perfect casting of his leading pair, mousy but fierce Mia Wasikowska as governess Jane and Michael Fassbender as her passionate, brooding, Byronic Rochester. (The only real complaint one can make about him is that he’s a little too handsome to play a character Brontë herself described as “very grim” to look at.) Their chemistry alone is worth the price of admission. (Hillary Busis & Joanna Robinson)

Hyperallergic features the work of photographer Deborah Turbeville:

“It is the psychological tone and mood that I work for,” she says in Gross’s book. This began with her game-changing “Bathhouse” series for American Vogue in 1975, in which thin, wan women lean moodily against the spare, cracked walls of an abandoned bathhouse. This series established the ideal Turbeville woman to be mysterious yet romantically isolated, almost like a Brontë heroine, walking with a vulnerable power across decayed, derelict settings. There is a sullen glamour, a weightiness and sadness to these subjects that purposely counters Newton’s or Bourdin’s fantasies. Turbeville showed herself to be a woman who sees women as they are — and often in their darkest moments — not as others dream or desire them to be. (Elyssa Goodman)

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Playing House Detectives and Jane Eyre in Fayetteville

An alert for today, May 26, in the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

Parsonage Unwrapped: Playing House Detectives
May 26,7:30 PM

Are you familiar with the Brontë family, but know little about the home they occupied for 40 years? Join a member of our museum team for an intimate tour of the Parsonage which focuses on the architecture of the building, offering a glimpse into how the building would have appeared in the Brontës’ time.

And a premiere in Fayetteville, NC:

Jane Eyre
Honey Series
By Charlotte Bronte; new adaptation by Jessica Osnoe
April 26-29 and May 3-6 at 7:30pm
1897 Poe House at the Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex
What You Will Preshow 45 minutes prior to curtain

Based on the groundbreaking classic novel by Charlotte Brontë, this premiere adaptation “Shakes” up this haunting, lush, gothic romance. Jane comes of age in a world where she must keep secrets to herself. When she falls in love with Edward Rochester, secrets become heartbreak as she and Edward journey through love, loss, unrelenting hope, and undying passion.
*Jane Eyre is a Honey Series event. Honey is the Sweet Tea Shakespeare series celebrating women.

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Wutheringly Gothic in 50 words

The York Press reviews Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre giving it 5 stars.

You will not see a better theatre show in York this year, and you won't have seen a better theatre show in York since The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time. [...]
Your reviewer cannot urge you enough to see Sally Cookson's remarkable interpretation of Charlotte Brontë's no less remarkable novel. Yes, the ticket prices are on a Premier League scale, and you wish they could be cheaper, but this is Premier League theatre. What's more, Jane Eyre is a Yorkshire story, back on home turf after Cookson's premiere at the Bristol Old Vic and subsequent transfer to the South Bank.
Rather than being adapted for the stage with a plodding narrator, this is a devised production of vivid, vital imagination. Michael Vale's set is rough hewn, gutted to the minimum, with wooden flooring and walkways, a proliferation of ladders, a sofa, and yet it evokes everything of Brontë's harsh world.
Cookson's cast is multi role-playing, aside from Nadia Clifford's Jane Eyre, who never once leaves the stage in three hours (interval aside), changing costumes in full view with the assistance of fellow cast members. The story hurtles along so fast, the ensemble company runs on the spot between scenes to the accompaniment of thunderous drums, and they even take a mock piddle at one point in the rush to crack on: one of the comic elements to counter the grimness up north.
Energy, energy, energy! And that applies not only to Clifford's feisty, fiery Jane Eyre, whose accent may curve towards her native North West, but that in no way lessens her performance. The cast as a whole is magnificent, be it Tim Delap's troubled Rochester, Evelyn Miller's triptych of Bessie, Blanche Ingram and St John; Paul Mundell's austere Mr Brocklehurst and tail-wagging Pilot the dog; Lynda Rooke's chalk and cheese Mrs Reed and Mrs Fairfax or surely-too-good-to-be-an understudy Francesca Tomlinson's five-hand of roles.
There is so much more that makes Cookson's production so startling,movingly brilliant: the sound design of Dominic Bilkey, the inexhaustible movement direction of Dan Canham; the beautiful, haunting compositions of Benji Bower for the on-stage band of David Ridley, Alex Heane and Matthew Churcher, who join in ensemble scenes too and never take their gaze off the action.
Last but very definitely not least is Melanie Marshall, the diva voice of Bertha Mason, a one-woman Greek chorus whose versions of Mad About The Boy and Gnarls Barkley's Crazy will linger like Jane Eyre in the memory. (Charles Hutchinson)

York Mix is enthusiastic about it too:

The entire cast (of what seem like dozens) are standouts: from the wagging tail and leg stumping glee of dog Pilot, played by Paul Mundell, who also gives us an imperious Brocklehurst and shifty Mason; to the brittle hatreds of Mrs Reed, and warm generosities of Mrs Fairfax, both played by Lynda Rooke.
We do not doubt we see nearly 20 characters before us. When Evelyn Miller (Bessie, Blanche Ingram, a solicitor, St John) is on stage, we are unable to look away: she brings grace to even Blanche, and is part of the chorus of Jane’s conscience, her own past peopling her thoughts.
Hannah Bristow is saintly Helen Burns, rascally child Adele, mysterious Grace Poole, and Diana Rivers, moving easily among characters perhaps five decades apart in age. [...]
The only mild failing is the robust sound which at one or two instances obscures an actor’s words: but at these times, the powerful cacophony illustrates the uproar on stage. I only minded because I want to catch every nuanced phrase!
This is an athletic production, a feminist reading of a feminist book, one that returns to the ‘coming of age’ aspect of a book originally subtitled ‘An Autobiography’.
The love story is just one part: Brontë, and director Sally Cookson, remind us that women had (have?) less power over their choices than men; imagination, bravery and education can save us; and that Jane speaks for us all when she states “I am a free human being!”
At the show I saw, Nadia Clifford wiped away a few tears as the cast gathered to bow. The story of finding one’s power, and maintaining this self-belief, is potent.
Please catch one of this week’s shows of Jane Eyre. The music is amazing: the production company could sell the soundtrack (hint, hint, Sally Cookson!). And the tale, inspiring. (Rose Drew)

British Theatre Guide reviews it as well:

Cookson’s ensemble—seven actors and three musicians—are superb. Nadia Clifford excels in the leading role, powerfully capturing the character’s defiance (she refuses to be belittled by her social superiors) and her overwhelming love for Rochester. Also terrific is Tim Delap, who delivers all the Byronic qualities you could hope for while also capturing Rochester's playfulness and sly sense of humour.
Most of the performers demonstrate their versatility in multiple roles. Having chilled us to the bone as Mr Brocklehurst, the villainous supervisor of Lowood School, Paul Mundell delivers a brilliant comic performance as Rochester’s canine companion, Pilot. Lynda Rooke skilfully captures the icy disdain of Mrs Reed and the genial warmth of Mrs Fairfax, Rochester’s housekeeper. Evelyn Miller captures the haughtiness of Jane Eyre’s love rival Blanche Ingram and the cold idealism of St John Rivers, and Francesca Tomlinson is particularly moving as Jane’s ill-fated childhood friend Helen Burns.
As with her recent staging of La Strada, Cookson makes music an integral part of Jane Eyre by placing the band (Matthew Churcher, Alex Heane and David Ridley) centre stage. Throughout the production, their excellent musicianship is crucial to the creation of atmosphere and pathos.
Music and drama come together most powerfully in the figure of Bertha Mason, Rochester’s first wife, played by the opera singer Melanie Marshall. Since the publication of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966, we have seen more sympathetic portrayals of the first Mrs Rochester which acknowledge the harsh treatment she has been forced to endure as a result of her insanity. Far from being a frenzied wildcat, Marshall—dressed in a floor-length red dress—is a still and sinister presence on stage, who haunts Jane throughout her life. Her beautiful renditions of anachronistic pop songs—Noël Coward’s “Mad About the Boy” and Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”—add another dimension to the production.
Katie Sykes’s lovely costumes evoke the period without fetishizing the past. Aideen Malone’s lighting and Dominic Bilkey’s sound add texture to the production, particularly during its more gothic moments.
Since it was first staged at the Bristol Old Vic in 2014 before moving to the National in 2015, Jane Eyre has received widespread critical acclaim. I can’t argue with their verdict. Jane Eyre is a thrillingly inventive, fabulously entertaining piece of theatrical storytelling. (James Ballands)

Your Local Guardian is giving away a pair of tickets to see Jane Eyre at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff.

Lincolnshire Live reports that,

Writers of all ages are being invited to pen their own ultra-short Gothic stories in a new 'flash fiction' competition for Lincoln Book Festival this year, open for entries now.
The Gothic genre is broad in nature and can include romance, thriller and mystery. Whether drawing on the intrigue of a Wilkie Collins thriller, the drama of a Brontë epic, or the menace of an Edgar Allen Poe parable, each writer's challenge is to produce a compelling short story in precisely 50 words - no more and no less!
Lincoln Book Festival 2017 takes place from September 25 to 30 at venues across the city and will be encouraging literature lovers and history enthusiasts of all ages to "Go Gothic" with a series of Gothic-themed events and activities.
Lincoln Book Festival Trust chairman Phil Hamlyn Williams said: "Gothic fiction has given us some of the finest literature in the English language, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, so even within the confines of those 50 words we hope to see writers of all ages and experience let their imaginations run wild. We'd particularly like to see entries from local schools, book clubs and community groups and hope writers will have great fun planning, plotting and penning their short stories." (Dawn Hinsley)

Spectator has an article on 'Finding literary inspiration in the garden' and recalls the fact that,

Literature is full of gardens. [...] The love between Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester blossoms in the gardens of Charlotte Brontë’s novel. (Alice Dunn)

J Stor Daily has an article on depression and how it's perceived.

American author Ernest Hemingway famously said, “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” Hemingway died by taking his own life at the age of 61, a life plagued by alcoholism.
Hemingway’s claim reflects a widespread association of depression with intelligence (and vice versa, of happiness with stupidity or naïveté), an association that is at once deeply tragic and actively harmful for depressed people. It suggests that there is some hidden romantic upside to being depressed: Aren’t artists usually moody and melancholy? Aren’t romantic heroes, like Emily Brontë’s Heathcliff, given to “darkness” and brooding? Isn’t depression a sign of sensitivity, self-awareness, and passion?
In this way, depression is often linked to an abundance of romantic imagery—the gothic, the bohemian, the melancholy, the icon of the loner-rebel, etc. This misconception convinces some people that depression is just part of their personality, such that seeking treatment would mean being somehow less themselves, less thoughtful, less creative. In reality, the experience of depression couldn’t be further from the creative, the romantic, the passionate. For clinical depression, unlike the emotion of sadness, works only to devalue and destroy the self. (K.C. Mead-Brewer)

Ebony points out that not everyone in classic novels is white:

On the other hand, instead of racebending every costume drama character, it would be great if studios didn’t whitewash the characters of color who are in these classic stories. Take Wuthering Heights for instance. The character of Heathcliff isn’t White like he’s been portrayed in the movies. Instead, he’s described as a lascar, which is an antiquated term referring to Indian sailors. Also, further description provided by Emily Brontë—which includes a now-offensive term—could also mean Heathcliff is of the Roma people, who did originate from India and went on to migrate to other parts of the world. In any event, he’s not White. However, he’s routinely played by White actors, at least until the 2011 indie adaptation of Wuthering Heights, which starred then-unknown actor James Howson as Heathcliff. (Monique Jones)

The Express Tribune's The Good Life (Pakistan) reviews the book Aadhay Adhooray Khawab by Shahid Siddiqui in which

we find the character of Agha reading Emily Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ and the character of Heathcliff intrigues her. Rai, a man loved by so many, would become Heathcliff to her Catherine and this parallel makes the novel a beautiful composition of light and pure romance. (Sonia Irum Farooq)

Ed Westwick was once named as a possible Heathcliff so it's quite funny to see him described by Radio Times as

all gold jewellery and chest hair, with the broodiness of a Home Counties Heathcliff, the tattoos of a rocker and the abrasive language of a docker. (Craig McLean)

 Out and About … writes briefly about a trek to Top Withins.

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Paula Rego's Jane Eyre engravings and lithographies

A new exhibition with engravings and lithographies by Paula Rego (including her 2001-2002 series on Jane Eyre) opens today, May 25, in Lisboa, Portugal:

Gravuras e Litografias. Paula Rego
May 25 - June 17
Centro Português de Serigrafia (CPS), Sede
Inauguração com Atelier Aberto: 25 de Maio, 18:30

Uma importante exposição de gravuras e de litografias da consagrada artista portuguesa Paula Rego inaugura a 25 de Maio pelas 18:30 na Sede do Centro Português de Serigrafia (Rua dos Industriais, nº 6 em Lisboa Tel. 213 933 260), ficando patente até 17 de Junho.
Durante a inauguração, o Atelier CPS de Serigrafia, Gravura e Litografia estará aberto ao público visitante.
Na mostra estão representadas obras das conhecidas séries Pendle Witches (1996), After Hogarth (2000) e Jane Eyre (2001-2002). O eminente crítico e historiador de arte inglês Tomas Gabriel Rosenthal (1935-2014), realça a importância das séries na sua gravura e acentua o lado narrativo, quer da pintura, quer da gravura da artista, o seu forte conteúdo erótico, o sentido de humor e a provocação que são a sua imagem de marca.

More information on Diário de Notícias.

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What Jane Eyre taught us

Keighley News reports that there was a major power cut yesterday in the Haworth area and the Brontë Parsonage Museum, among others, was affected by it:

Brontë Parsonage Museum this morning tweeted that they had been forced to close temporarily due to the lack of electricity in the village’s tourist heartland. (David Knights)

As seen on its Twitter and Facebook timelines, the museum was back open again a few hours later after 'essential system checks'.

One and Other reviews Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre.

Nadia Clifford is stunning in the role of Jane, transformed from a child to the adult Jane when she is helped into her corset and dress on stage by other cast members. The production is an ensemble piece performed seamlessly by seven actors and three musicians. Except for Jane, all play more than one part and are all on stage most of the time.
The stripped down, minimal set designed by Michael Vale is comprised of an enormous wooden structure, almost like a child’s play park climbing frame with various ramps and ladders. The actors move all over it with a choreographed, dancelike grace, as the director puts it, "perform[ing] and illustrat[ing] the physical and emotional struggle Jane encounters as she develops from a child into an independent woman." The set is surrounded by white curtains, used to great effect by changing colour and film projection. Dramatic use of real fire is stunning.
At the centre of the stage underneath the towering wooden platform are the musicians, making the band a central and intrinsic part of the production. Composer Benji Bower uses many genres including folk, Jazz, sacred, orchestral and pop to create Jane’s World.
Bertha Mason (Melanie Marshall) is dressed in bright red, contrasting with the muted colours worn by the rest of the ensemble. She is always alone, gliding around the set and illustrating with song the life of Jane, very much part of the story but running parallel to it as opposed to with it. Hidden in plain sight as in the book, Melanie Marshall as Bertha is subtly imposing: she doesn’t speak but uses her remarkable singing voice to outstanding effect.
This touring production was originally shown over two nights, then stripped back to three hours (including an interval). Sometimes the telling of Jane’s story jumps a little clumsily from one event to another, probably because of the necessary edits to get the majority of the book in: a small point as the overall pace and enjoyment is very much there.
The whole cast are phenomenal, their energy breathtaking. To climb ladders for three hours is no mean feat, everyone moving with perceived effortlessness with such smoothness and elegance. A truly remarkable performance and production. (Julia Parry)

It all boils down to one thing for Cosmopolitan as it lists 'The 16 Biggest F*ckboys of Literature', including

2. Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre. Yeah, yeah, Jane and Rochester have a beautiful love story, if you ignore the part where he lies about being previously married and hiding his wife in the attic of his house. His solution when she *shocker* finds out? Asking her to live in France with him even though they can’t get married. Jane, girl. You deserve better. [...]
12. Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. Sure, he’s gone through some stuff re: the whole not being able to marry the woman he loves because of his status thing, but marrying a woman and then forcing their son to marry Cathy’s daughter purely for the sake of revenge is a very elaborate fuckboy move. (Julia Pugachevsky)

There was a time when we thought that talking about books was always a good thing. Now we're not so sure.

Elle (India) takes a better approach by listing their favourite fictional heroines (as opposed to Disney princesses).

While there’s still a long way to go before Disney princesses can be appointed the face of feminism in mainstream culture, there have been several fictional characters who are perfect for the role. From Harry Potter’s Hermione Granger to Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth Bennet, here are some of our favourites. [...]
Jane, Jane Eyre
‘Ahead of her time’ is a common compliment for any Victorian heroine with even a hint of a spine, but it’s perfectly apt for Jane Eyre. To understand the brilliance of Jane’s character, you need to put it in the context of the era she was created in. This was a time when women rarely had agency over their own lives. To rebel against societal conventions and assert her independence despite the hardships she endured makes Jane one of the strongest literary characters ever created.
What she taught us: Never let anyone else take control of your life. (Salva Mubarak)

A review of the play Can You Forgive Her? by Gina Gionfriddo in The New York Times begins as follows:

Feisty women trying to jump class are so 19th century; I’m looking at you, Jane Eyre. And so 20th century, too: Have you met Sister Carrie?
For the playwright Gina Gionfriddo, such characters are all too 21st century as well. Many of her plays, including the Pulitzer Prize finalists “Becky Shaw” and “Rapture, Blister, Burn,” feature heroines trying to escape the social immobility that locks them into dreary lives. (Jesse Green)

Deadline reviews it too but mentions another Brontë heroine:

The coincidences beggar the imagination, and it’s important to remember that while unlikely plot twists and turns may have been the forte of Anthony Trollope (whose novel gives the play its name) and Charles Dickens, the women novelists of that time were more inclined to weave romance from ordinary yarns. It was, after all, Charlotte Brontë’s near-forgotten heroine Shirley Keeldar who begins her ur-feminist tale with the memorable promise of “something unromantic as Monday morning.” (Jeremy Gerard)

Saga interviews writer Julian Fellowes, whose musical based on The Wind in the Willows opens in London in June.

Which books wouldn’t work as a musical? I don’t know. I could say Wuthering Heights, or something. Not because I think it’s depressing. It’s my favourite book. But I think it’s complete, if you know what I mean. It doesn’t need to become a film, although they’ve tried it many times. It doesn’t need to become a TV series or a musical. It is what it is. A complete experience.
However, I can give you all that guff and next year someone might do a musical about it called The Yorkshire Moors, or something, and we’ll all go and it’ll be fabulous.
I don’t think there are absolutes. Always remember the old quotation: nobody knows anything. Every year someone does something that everyone swore could never be done, and away we go. How many times have we been told the film musical is dead and here we are bouncing down the aisles to La La Land. (Simon Hemelryk)

Another fan of Wuthering Heights is children’s author Tom Palmer. From the Yorkshire Evening Post:

Tom Palmer’s latest book - Killing Ground - is set in Halifax and concerns a haunting at The Shay Stadium, which leads to an Anglo-Saxon Viking conflict. “I wanted to write about history, and a haunting with ghosts. I researched Anglo-Saxon settlements, visited The Shay and visited a settlement they recreated in Norfolk. Plus I wanted to set it in Halifax. When I read Wuthering Heights when I was 19 it amazed me that a classic like that was set around where I grew up - books about your home town make them more interesting.

Newsday features a Bellport house for sale:

Splashes of Tinseltown — including a statue from the 1939 film adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” — were incorporated into the renovation of this circa-1920 Bellport Village Colonial listed for $1.695 million. (Danny Schrafel)

Here's how SyFyWire describes the 1985 film The Bride:

The Bride is a deeply bizarre film. It's as if a dark wave fan in the '80s watched Dune and the "Wuthering Heights" music video too fast while suffering a fever. (Clare McBride)

The daughter of one of the first dad bloggers writes on Romper about how it has affected her.

For the most part, I liked reading about myself, or at least the version of myself my father chose to portray — an unpaid, unscripted character in our family's domestic drama. My persona changed from column to column: sometimes I was a pint-size spitfire showing up the adults with my clever quips, other times I was a gracious yet endlessly put-upon player in events beyond my control. I was half Stephanie Tanner, half Jane Eyre. (Claire Shefchik)

Entertainment Weekly and others alert to the fact that Jane Eyre is leaving Netflix on June 16. The Brussels Brontë Blog reports that the Brontë plaque on 'Bozar' has been thoroughly cleaned and is much more visible and readable now.

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The fourth Brontë

Today on France Inter radio:

La Marche de l'Histoire
Le quatrième BrontëWednesday May 24, 13.30 h (and online)

Avec Dominique Jean,  Universitaire et traducteur

Branwell ? Le frère ! L’unique, l’aimé, celui autour duquel le père, le Révérend Brontë, avait organisé les investissements d’éducation de la famille. Il avait tous les dons.

L'équipe
Jean Lebrun ... Producteur
Valérie Ayestaray ... Réalisatrice
Frédéric Martin ... Attaché de production
Ilinca Negulesco ,,, Attachée de production
Franck Olivar  ... Attaché de production

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Medical mishaps and maladies in the Brontës’ lives and novels

An alert for today, May 24, in Rockdale, Australia:

Medical mishaps and maladies in the Brontës’ lives and novelsby Dr Vasudha Chandra
Wed. 24 May 2017
6:00 pm – 7:00 pm AEST
Rockdale Library, Level 3 Meeting Room
444-446 Princes Hwy
Rockdale, NSW 2216
Australia

The novels of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë are full of illnesses, injuries and untimely deaths, as were their own lives. This illustrated lecture explores the health of the Brontës, speculates on the diseases and disorders of the fictional characters the sisters created, and discusses treatments used at the time.

More information in the St George & Sutherland Shire Leader.

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A bit of a Brontë obsessive

Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre is now on stage at the Grand Opera House, York, and The York Press has attended one of the rehearsals and asked some questions to Nadia Clifford and Tim Delap, who play Jane Eyre and Rochester.

"I've visited The Parsonage in Haworth many times: I'm a bit of a Brontë obsessive," says Nadia, who grew up on the other side of the Pennines before training at the Bristol Old Vic.
"When Jane Eyre was on at the National I was in another play there, Pomona, at the same time, which I now feel is a bit of a blessing, as I'm now doing Jane Eyre and working with Sally Cookson is such a treat.
"When I auditioned, Sally works in such a daring way in her auditions. Often directors will see you for 15 minutes, but with Sally she really mines the text and works with you and allows you to feel you can trust the room and perform better."
Nadia made such an impression when performing as Jane Eyre aged ten in the audition that the role was hers. "There are days in rehearsals where the magnitude of the show has hit me. It's exciting; I'm relishing the challenging but it's physically and emotionally demanding, so I have to pace myself," she says.
"It's three hours; I don't leave the stage; I'm the only person on there all the time; all my costume changes are on stage, so it's been a little like an athlete in training."
Working with a movement director and fight director help Nadia prepare for the role, and looking after the voice will be important too. So will the Yorkshire accent. "Because I'm a northerner, I'm aware of the responsibility to get the accent right. For so many people in Yorkshire, they are so proud of Jane Eyre and the Brontës and their legacy," she says.
"It's a very specific way of looking at the world; they were very isolated; London was this distant metropolis and that does have an effect on the authorial voice, which is why the stories have lasted."
Tim Delap, who was last seen on a York stage in Regeneration at the Theatre Royal, now returns to the city in a production with an even more stellar reputation. "I'd heard of Sally's production but not been able to see it, but I'd heard amazing things about it, so when I was asked to audition in front of Sally, I was delighted," he says.
"It was the most intensive audition process I've ever done, with an awful lot of physical work, so it was more like a rehearsal than an audition. It's a very physical show and Rochester is a physical character so she wanted to put me through my paces at several auditions, followed by several pairings and finally with Nadia."
Fitness is vital. "It's like a workout doing this show. I've cycled to and from rehearsals and doing that and the rehearsals is more than enough for keeping in shape," says Tim.
Working on the play has been an eye-opener. "Some people think of Jane Eyre as a girlie book, and I have to admit I hadn't read it until the auditions, but then you realise Jane is not meek and mild; she's fiery and powerful; it's a wonderfully written novel that's thrilling to read and the show reflects all that energy," he says. (Charles Hutchinson)

The Culture Trip is looking forward to the staging of Jane Eyre as a promenade play on June 20-22 at Haddon Hall.

Haddon Hall, the spectacular ancient seat of the Duke of Rutland in England's Peak District, is hosting its own theatre adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë classic—a unique and immersive experience inside one of the most celebrated Victorian novels. [...]
One can see why Haddon Hall, a country house in the Peak District built between the 11th and 16th centuries, has so often been used to depict it: the manor is as gray-dark and formidable from the outside, and mysterious and rich on the inside, as the novel’s own Thornfield. No less than three productions of Jane Eyre—a 1996 film, a 2006 BBC mini series, and another film in 2011—were shot in Haddon for those very reasons. Readers may also remember the manor for its appearance in The Princess Bride (1987), or in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the Hall is hosting a series of performances sure to delight any Jane Eyre fan—or fans of immersive theatre in general. The Lord and Lady Edward Manners commissioned local writer and former Haddon guide Gillian Shimwell to adapt the novel for the manor itself. The result is an experience quite unlike any other, a journey back in time and inside one of the most influential novels ever written in English.
Add to that the wider delights of the picturesque locale, whether of the Haddon Hall estate (which extends to The Peacock at Rowsley hotel) or the Peak District in general, and you also have an uncommon opportunity to revel in the charms of the English countryside. The next performances will take place on June 20—22, with each ticket including a post-show, three-course meal at the Haddon restaurant. More information here. [...]
The peculiarities of adapting and playing Jane Eyre at Haddon Hall—that is, roaming around an ancient house with the audience immediately around you—presented some novel challenges to the troupe of actors, as well as for writer/director Gillian Shimwell. We spoke with the professionals involved about how these conditions shaped their work, and to what extent the unusual proximity affects the audience. (Simon Leser)

There are also a couple of interesting videos, so don't miss them!

The British Film Institute recommends 10 essential films starring Laurence Olivier. And there's of course

Wuthering Heights (1939)
Director William Wyler

Aghast at how little the 23-year-old Olivier read, Noël Coward gave him Emily Brontë’s gothic masterpiece after casting him on stage in Private Lives (1930). But Olivier had a miserable time playing Heathcliff, as he loathed Merle Oberon and resented director William Wyler refining his stage mannerisms. Ordered to forget boyhood heroes Douglas Fairbanks and John Barrymore, Olivier learned how to work with the camera and channel both his moody arrogance and the knack for switching from charm to fury that he had inherited from his vicar father. He was rewarded with an Oscar nomination and the heartthrob role of Darcy in MGM’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1940). (David Parkinson)

Darling magazine lists '8 Reclusive Female Authors Any Literature Lover Should Read'. Emily Brontë is one of them.

6. Emily Brontë
Despite being born into a remarkable literary family, Emily Brontë carved out a voice and vision entirely her own. Far less interested in fame than alcoholic brother Branwell or ambitious elder sister Charlotte, she spent her time writing poetry, baking and taking long walks across the moors that surrounded the family parsonage. Solitary and intense, Emily’s work reveals a greater sense of kinship with God and nature than with other human beings.
Recommended Work: Wuthering Heights is Brontë’s only novel and if you haven’t read it, you should — really. But if you have, we recommend checking out her poetry. Equal the intensity; half the time. (Kathryn Bradford Heidelberger & Nancy Ritter)

Sydsvenskan (Sweden) features Jean Rhys and, among her other works, Wide Sargasso Sea. Daniel Agnew posts about Wuthering Heights. Twitter user @8bitnortherner has managed to recreate the Pillar Portrait in cross-stitch and it's lovely. 'The Brontë Hair Bracelets and Mourning Jewellery' on AnneBrontë.org

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12-minute Wuthering Heights in Sweden

The Scenkonstbiennalen 2017, The Swedish Biennial for Performing Arts, includes a (12 minute) production of Wuthering Heights:

moment:teater presents
Svindlande Höjder
23-28 May at Östgötateatern in Norrköping.

Original: Emily Brontë
Idea, concept and script: Åsa Berglund Cowburn
Costume: Kim Halle
Set Design: Åsa Berglund Cowburn
Music: Kate Bush and Simon Steensland
Producer: Daniel Szpigler
Participants: Lotta Östlin Stenhäll and Sofia Rönnegård

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The future of the Red House is still uncertain

We don't think anyone will be much surprised by the latest developments in what used to be the Red House Museum. Reported by The Telegraph and Argus:

Kirklees Council, which owns the Grade II listed 17th-century Red House building, had invited expressions of interest from local groups wanting to take over the site in a community asset transfer. [...]
But after considering three bids, the Council has now determined that none can progress and the historic building will be offered for sale instead.
Ward councillor Lisa Holmes, who was part of one of the bids, said she had been left “angry and frustrated” over the decision and hoped to appeal it.
She told the Telegraph & Argus that the newly-formed Gomersal Community Group had hoped to take over both Red House and the neighbouring Gomersal Public Hall.
But their bid for Red House alone had been turned down in part because it was too commercial.
“Our idea was that Red House would be more commercial, and that the public hall would be wholly for the community.
“If we could take on both buildings, the plan was for the main Red House building to be a nursery offering some heavily subsidised places to disadvantaged families, the barn would be a community unit, and the cart shed turned into a cafe and deli.
“This way the Public Hall could be completely for community use, with ideas for activities for older children and socially isolated older men.
“But as Gomersal Public Hall isn’t ready to go out for expressions of interest, the Council has considered the scheme for Red House on its own, and this is thought to be too commercial.”
Information given to interested groups states Red House cost the Council £30,000 a year to run and that groups could negotiate a percentage of commercial use of the building, up to 30 per cent.
A Council spokesman said: “The expressions of interest in an asset transfer received for Red House have been assessed and none of them were felt to be suitable for progressing to a full business case. Therefore in line with the dec
ision made by the Council’s cabinet on 3 October 2016 a brief is being prepared to allow the property to be offered to the market.”
Charlotte Brontë was a frequent visitor to Red House in the 1830s when it was home to the Taylor family and her friend Mary. The building also featured in her novel Shirley. (Jo Winrow)

Taste of Cinema looks at 'Great Cinematographers Overshadowed by the Iconic Directors They Worked With' including Gregg Toland who

was truly one of the most innovative and influential cinematographers to ever live. He was nominated five times for best cinematography and won an Oscar for “Wuthering Heights”, released in 1939. (Rashawn Prince)

A mention to Wuthering Heights in the latest episode of The Durrells (S02E05, May 21, 2017) 

Mark Gorman reviews Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre. Nick Holland posts about Patrick Brontë on AnneBrontë.org.

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Brilliant and Bizarre in Lansing

An alert for today, May 22 in Lansing, M

Monday, May 22, 2017  11:00am   Lansing, MI
The Brilliant and Bizarre Brontë Sisters
Talk by Elliot Engel

Lansing Town Hall Series - Luncheon

Lansing Town Hall was organized by a group of women in 1953 to raise funds for the Lansing Symphony Orchestra. Since then, Lansing audiences have enjoyed some of the finest programs available on the lecture circuit today. Hour-long lectures begin promptly at 11:00 a.m. at Causeway Bay Lansing Hotel and Convention Center (formerly Best Western Plus); lunch with the celebrity speaker to follow. 

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Exhilarating Trek

The Sunday Times asked readers about their favourite British days out:

I love to explore Britain, and one of my most memorable days out was just my daughter, Natalie, and me. Natalie has always adored the writing of the Brontë sisters — her favourite novel is Wuthering Heights. She had never been to Haworth, in West Yorkshire (pictured), so we took a day exploring the lovely village: the Brontë Parsonage Museum, which is bursting with history, followed by an exhilarating trek up to the ruined farmhouse of Top Withens, picnic in tow. We paddled in the brook and took wonderful photos of the day. I cherish these memories I have with my children, and I feel blessed to have so many experiences available in these islands. I have always had to work on a strict budget and most of the wonderful experiences I’ve had were free or great value for money. (Amanda Pearce, Grimsby)

A Brontë mention in the Commencement Address by Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF at the  Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland on May the 20th:

Two-thirds of today’s children will have jobs which have not been invented yet. [2] Studying Aeschylus, not to mention a little Sappho, Brontë, and Dylan – while cultivating an interest in design – is what allowed Steve Jobs to see the Walkman and dream of the iPod. This renaissance education is your comparative advantage in the years ahead. (...)
This morning I have referenced the Greek poet Sappho, Charlotte Brontë, Abigail Adams, and Clara Barton.
Having informally surveyed other commencement addresses, I realized that far too many quotes come from famous men, and not nearly enough come from famous women. So, we are beginning to shift the balance today!

Darling Magazine lists reclusive female authors not to be missed:

6. Emily Brontë
Despite being born into a remarkable literary family, Emily Brontë carved out a voice and vision entirely her own. Far less interested in fame than alcoholic brother Branwell or ambitious elder sister Charlotte, she spent her time writing poetry, baking and taking long walks across the moors that surrounded the family parsonage. Solitary and intense, Emily’s work reveals a greater sense of kinship with God and nature than with other human beings.
Recommended Work: Wuthering Heights is Brontë’s only novel and if you haven’t read it, you should — really. But if you have, we recommend checking out her poetry. Equal the intensity; half the time. (Kathryn Bradford Heidelberger & Nancy Ritter)

The Sunday Times' real estate section lists Brearley Hall:

The former home of Patrick Branwell Brontë, the ill-fated brother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne, is for sale for £1.5m. Overlooking the Calder Valley, nine-bedroom Brearley Hall is just outside Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. Brontë had lodgings there in the 1840s, when he was clerk of Luddendenfoot station, before he descended into drug and alcohol addiction. (Audrey Ward)

The Guardian (Nigeria) reviews the novel  Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun by Sarah Ladipo Manyika:

Toussaint’s brief appearance leaves a certain wistful pathos in the reader; and Morayo responds by idealising his absence, imagining him on a mythical return to the motherland. Like her protagonist – who places Wide Sargasso Sea above Jane Eyre on her bookshelf in order “to redress the old colonial imbalance” – Manyika is in the business of ‘moving the centre’. (Molara Wood)

Business Standard on Byronic archetypes:

Then the Bronte sisters seemed particularly fond of the archetype. Eldest Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" had Rochester, a heroic version, middle sister Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" had the genuinely dangerous Heathcliff, who spares no effort in seeking to destroy both the Lintons and the Earnshaws for revenge, while the youngest, Anne Brontë's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" has a rare female example in the titular tenant Helen Graham.

A new bookstore with the name Brontë has opened in Irun, Spain. El Diario Vasco covers the story:

El viernes inauguró el local en un acto que, en sus propias palabras, resultó toda una «declaración de intenciones». A medida que su proyecto iba tomando cuerpo, «en estos últimos meses mucha gente me ha preguntado por qué la librería se llamaba Brontë». No había mejor manera de explicarlo que leer algunos pasajes de Jane Eyre, la primera novela de Charlotte Brontë, una de las tres hermanas escritoras que dan nombre a la nueva librería irundarra. La actriz local Ana Pérez puso voz a estos textos del siglo XIX que aún remueven mente y alma, más cuando se pronuncian con tanta exquisitez, tanto sentimiento como les aportó ella en su lectura dramatizada de apenas cinco minutos que dejó a todos los presentes con ganas de más.
Precisamente es ése uno de los valores con los que Brontë se presenta en sociedad. (Iñigo Morondo)  (Translation)

La Opinión de Murcia (Spain) interviews the writer Alberto Chessa who is not really very well-informed when he says:

El primero es la mera curiosidad de saber qué es lo que realmente se estaba leyendo en la Inglaterra del siglo XIX. No era lo que el canon ha sancionado: ni a Dickens, ni a las hermanas Brontë? A esos los leían las clases ilustradas: cuatro gatos. Las clases obreras –y estamos en el cogollo de la revolución industrial– leían esto: penny dreadfuls, que costaban un penique y que cada semana les dejaban grandes aventuras, amores tachonados por lo imposible y lo catastrófico y, por supuesto, todo lo que tuviera que ver con lo tétrico, lúgubre, luctuoso y demás. (Daniel J. Rodríguez) (Translation)

Ignorance is bold but... circulating libraries, anyone?

The problem with La Tribuna (Honduras) is not ignorance, it is inventing things:

Emily Brontë: la novelista, que también fue una de las poetas más reconocidas del siglo XIX, sufría de insomnio. Por eso antes de dormir caminaba muchas veces alrededor de su mesa de centro, hasta que se sintiera lo suficientemente cansada y pudiera caer rendida. (Translation)

El Cotidiano (Spain) reviews the film Lady Macbeth:

Ambientación perfecta, exquisita fotografía, dirección artística impecable, paisajes desolados barridos por el viento, que nos remiten a los ambientes de Cumbres borrascosas, y un elenco de actores tan desconocidos como eficaces en una película que tiene algunos fallos en cuanto a la verosimilitud del relato, sobre todo cuando este adquiere los tintes más sangrientos. (José Luis Muñoz) (Translation)

A personal reading history including the Brontës in El País (Costa Rica); El Mundo (Venezuela) lists Wuthering Heights, we don't know which version, among the best romantic movies; La Poesia e lo Spirito (in Italian) reviews Reader, I Married Him.

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