The Brontë Street Map

On Yorkshire Day, we have still some Emily Brontë bicentenary celebrations:

A press release from Royal Mail with all the details of the Brontë-inspired addresses in the UK:

As the bicentenary of Emily Brontë’s birth approaches, new research from Royal Mail unveils that almost 8,000 UK addresses have been inspired in some way by the iconic author and her sisters, their lives and their collective works.
Two per cent (over 5,500) of the nation’s house names have a link to the family and their work in some way, ranging from ‘Wuthering Heights’ in the West Midlands to ‘Eyre Court’ in North London.
The austere Edgar Linton, brooding Heathcliff and pragmatic Jane Eyre are the most cited characters within Brontë-related addresses, with well over 3,000 delivery points looking to classic figures within the sisters’ novels as muses for the nation’s street and house names.
The BD postcode area - which contains the birthplace for the Brontë children - has the largest number of linked addresses. However, many smaller market towns, including St. Albans, Wallington and Borehamwood, contain a particularly large proportion of addresses related to the family, in relation to their size.
There are over 700 British streets and houses that directly use the family moniker, ranging from ‘Brontë House’ in Kent to ‘Brontë Walk’ in Bridlington, Yorkshire.
Over 700 British streets and houses directly use the Brontë family name, including ‘Brontë Gardens’ in Exeter and ‘Charlotte Brontë Drive’ in Droitwich.
The eternal love rivalry between Edgar Linton and Heathcliff prevails in the nation’s addresses, as the two are the most popular characters from the sisters’ novels to feature in British addresses.
Jane Eyre is a similarly popular figure, with over 200 ‘Eyre’ Roads, Mews and Streets spanning the country.
Some of the sisters’ less well-known works, including ‘Agnes Grey’ and ‘Villette’, have served as inspiration for house names. Ten ‘Villette’ houses span the nation, along with the ‘Agnes Grey House’ estate in Scarborough, Yorkshire.

Check out the complete list here.

The Telegraph & Argus makes a summary of the weekend events at the Parsonage, highlighting the screening of Lily Cole's Balls:

Lily Cole rendered her audience speechless during the Haworth premiere of her latest film.
The awestruck reaction to the screening was a highlight of a weekend of events devoted to Emily Bronte’s 200th birthday.
Social activist and model Cole created the eight-minute film in her role as the Brontë Society’s creative partner during Emily’s bicentennial year.
Filming in Liverpool, she focused on Wuthering Heights anti-hero Heathcliff, a foundling, to explore links between London’s Foundling Hospital and Emily’s novel.
Brontë Parsonage Museum head of communications Rebecca Yorke said the film prompted an excellent discussion afterwards involving both Cole and Foundling Museum director Caro Howell.
Rebecca said: “Balls is a very moving film, short and hard-hitting. While it was playing you couldn’t hear a pin drop.”
Rebecca described the weekend of events, which lasted from Friday to Monday, had been a success.
She added: “It’s been a really brilliant weekend with lots of visitors and new audiences from across the world and our own doorstep.
“There have been younger visitors too, and it’s been really exciting to work with so many different
artists.” (...)
The Brontë Parsonage Museum will celebrate its own 90th birthday on Saturday, August 4, when local people are invited to join staff for a celebration.
Organisers want to recreate a photograph taken when the museum first opened in August 4, 1928, when crowds packed the cobbled street outside the Parsonage.
The first 90 visitors through the door on Saturday from 10am will pay what they would have paid in 1928, just 6p. (David Knights)

The London Post and FAD Magazine also talk about Lily Cole's film.

The Yorkshire Post:

 This week I have been on a pilgrimage. It’s one I often make in honour of the greatest women to come from my home city of Bradford and indeed the whole of Yorkshire, the Brontë sisters. No? Well name me three others who have had more influence over generations of young women in their home county and beyond.
Rather than head to Haworth, as thousands do every year, I chose this week to tread less familiar cobbles on another Main Street just a few miles away, leading to a tiny terraced house in Thornton, where 200 years ago this week the most talented of them all, and certainly the most enigmatic, Emily Jane Brontë, was born.
It was once an unloved, uninviting warren of bedsits, its tarnished plaque proclaiming it to be the birthplace of all three famous sisters and their infamous brother virtually unnoticed for years. It is now a bustling coffee shop named after the woman whose bicentenary we celebrate this week and where this column was written in front of the same fireplace beside which Emily entered the world on July 30, 1818. For me walking in their footsteps is always a thrill. But hers in particular. (Christa Ackroyd)

The newspaper also celebrates Yorkshire Day and mentions the Brontës as one of the things to be proud of in Yorkshire.

Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph:

Emily Brontë remembered on her 200th birthday
It’s difficult to imagine the rugged beauty of the Yorkshire moors without thinking of Heathcliff and his beloved Cathy in Emily Brontë’s only novel, Wuthering Heights. (Lori Pierce)

The Telegraph (India):

 Emily's 200th birth anniversary observed
One of the greatest books in English literature - Wuthering Heights - was discussed on Monday at literary events in Britain and many other parts of the world to mark the 200th birth anniversary of its author, Emily Brontë.
This tale of dark passion set against the background of the windswept Yorkshire moors has been adapted into film on many occasions but never more memorably than in the 1939 version, with Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as his Cathy.
One admirer, Swati Sharma, quoted a remark made by Cathy in the novel: "He shall never know I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same." (Amit Roy)

 ABC (Spain) joins together two quite different authors, Emily and Jane Austen:

Tal día como ayer, el 30 de julio de 1818, vino al mundo Emily Brontë, la autora de Cumbres borrascosas, una prodigiosa novela que narra el amor imposible entre el salvaje Heathcliff y la bella Katherine (sic). El libro ha inspirado trece versiones cinematográficas, entre las que destacan las de William Wyler y Luis Buñuel.

Also Clarín (Argentina), Blogger by the Sea, Echoes from the Vault...

Echo (Germany) mentions a recent event in Wiesbaden (Germany):

Mit Grüßen nach Haworth – Caliban Literaturwerkstatt erinnert an Emily Jane Brontë zu deren 200. Geburtstag
Drei Schwestern, Pfarrerstöchter, im frühen 19. Jahrhundert aufgewachsen in einer abgelegenen Moorlandschaft bei Yorkshire, werden zu erfolgreichen, 200 Jahre später noch viel gelesenen, dutzendfach verfilmten Autorinnen, sterben jung, zwei von ihnen unverheiratet mit tragischen Liebesbeziehungen, die dritte schwanger, kurz nach der Hochzeit. Die Biografien der Schwestern Brontë meint man eher als viktorianischen Roman selbst, denn als Teil der
Dass sie jedoch genau so der Realität nacherzählt sind, zeigte Rita Rosen in einem informativen wie anregenden Abend anlässlich des 200. Geburtstags von Emily Jane Brontë. Gemeinsam mit den „Literaturfreunden im Dichterviertel“, Heidrun Hirsch, Hiltrud Hauschke und Reinhard Wedekind, versetzt sie das Publikum aus der Caliban Literaturwerkstatt nach Haworth am 30. Juli 1848: Es ist Emily Janes 30. Geburtstag. Zu Wort kommen die Jubilarin und ihre Schwestern Anne und Charlotte, sowie deren späterer Ehemann Arthur Bell Nicholls. Was wie Tagebuchaufzeichnungen, von kurzen Dialogen unterbrochen, klingt, erweist sich als geschickt montierte Fiktion. Da wird erzählt vom Leben und Schreiben, vom familiären Zusammenhalt, von gemeinschaftlich verfassten Fantasiegeschichten und ihrem ersten Gedichtband, veröffentlicht unter „Currer, Ellis und Acton Bells“. Selbst Jahre später will der Londoner Verleger Smith kaum glauben, dass Frauen, und gleich mehrere, so schreiben und rät vorsorglich zum Beibehalten der männlichen Pseudonyme. War den Gedichten noch wenig Popularität beschieden, erreichten sie bereits zu Lebzeiten mit ihren Romanen beachtliche Erfolge.(Bärbel Schwitzgebel) (Translation)

El Universal (México):

De Emily Brontë a J.K Rowling
En 1970 tenía 12 años cuando vi con mi madre la película Cumbres borrascosas, basada en la novela de Emily Brontë. Me impresionó Timothy Dalton, que interpretaba a Heatcliff, un espíritu extremo; y con Anna Calder Marshall, Catherine en la cinta, descubrí la locura, el gozo y el sufrimiento de la pasión amorosa. Luego leí el libro, que me dio mi padre, con fascinación. Y hoy, que se conmemora el bicentenario de la escritora inglesa, me uno al aplauso. (Adriana Malvido) (Translation)

A French radio programme. France Culture's La Grande Table d'Été:

Emily Brontë a 200 ans
Table ronde autour d'Emily Brontë à l'occasion du bi-centenaire de sa naissance, auteure à qui on doit un unique roman, "Les hauts de Hurlevent", un des livres les plus connus de la littérature anglo-saxonne.
Avec Christine Jordis, écrivaine, journaliste, critique littéraire, éditrice française, spécialiste de la littérature anglaise  et Catherine Lanone, professeure à l’Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3, spécialiste de littérature britannique du XIXème siècle
Emily Brontë est née le 30 juillet 1818 et décédée le 19 décembre 1848.  De sa très courte existence, elle laisse derrière elle un roman adulé, Les hauts de Hurlevent, qu’elle fait publier en 1847 soit la même année que Jane Eyre écrit par sa sœur Charlotte, qui l’éclipsa quelque temps.
Les hauts de Hurlevent, roman tragique et passionné, a inspiré de nombreuses adaptations au cinéma, télé, musique….  Mais de son auteure, on sait peu. On peut également lire ses poèmes et quelques lettres, mais le mystère demeure…

Livres Hebdo (France) is more concerned with the Brontë Stones project

Quatre poèmes gravés dans la pierre en l’honneur des auteures des Hauts de Hurlevent et de Jane Eyre ont été inaugurés en juillet à l’occasion du Bradford literature festival, qui s’est déroulé du 30 juin au 9 juillet en Angleterre.
En juillet, le Bradford literature festival a inauguré quatre poèmes gravés sur pierre en hommage aux sœurs Brontë. A cette occasion, et pour commémorer le bicentenaire de la naissance d’Emily Brontë, auteure des Hauts de Hurlevent, le festival a commandé l’un des poèmes à la chanteuse britannique Kate Bush qui s’était fait connaître grâce au succès populaire de sa chanson Wuthering Heights, inspirée par le roman. Quarante ans plus tard, elle réalise un nouvel hommage à l’écrivaine dont elle partage la même date d’anniversaire du 30 juillet. (Translation)

The Independent, and many other newspapers tell us that a poll has been made to choose the greatest Yorkshire men and women:

Funnyman Michael Palin has been named the greatest ever Yorkshireman, according to a poll.
A poll of 2,000 Brits saw nearly three in 10 select the Monty Python legend as the best export from the northern region. (...)
The poll was conducted by the energy supplier npower to celebrate Yorkshire Day on 1 August.
Commercial director at npower and proud Yorkshireman Andy Wiggans said: “Yorkshire Day is a reason to celebrate everything brilliant about the UK’s biggest county, and there is no shortage of legendary Yorkshire folk to pick from with a list like this.

The Brontë sisters came fourth on the Yorkshirewomen list.

Writers choose favourite romantic literary characters in Clarín (Argentina):

Florencia Bonelli se inclinó por la obra de Jane Austen, sobre todo Persuasión y Orgullo y Prejuicio, aunque dice que el libro que le cambió la vida fue El árabe, de Edith Hull. Pero no eligió a Mr. Darcy como su favorito, sino a Edward Rochester de Jane Eyre, la novela de Charlotte Brontë. (...)
Gabriela Margall también apuesta  por las novelas del siglo XIX: Persuasión, de Austen, y Jane Eyre, de Brontë. Pero también le hace lugar a la nueva expresión del género: Irresistible, de Lisa Kleypas. Como personaje, sin dudarlo apuesta por el señor Darcy, de Orgullo y Prejuicio. (Susana Reinoso) (Translation)

Paste Magazine lists YA novels in need of a TV adaptation:

Bruiser by Neal Shusterman
As for why Jeff Davis would be the best guy in Hollywood to take on Brewster, Tennyson, Brontë, and Cody’s utterly wolf-free story in Bruiser, well, anyone who watched Teen Wolf closely knows just how central masculine tenderness was to the whole show, and just how skilled Davis is at portraying tough dudes whose high emotional acuity only makes their strength the greater. It’s hard to imagine anyone better than Davis to make Brewster’s story matter. (Alexis Gunderson)

BBC Culture lists books to read this August:

Nell Stevens, The Victorian and the RomanticNell Stevens begins her PhD studies at Kings College London in 2013. Her thesis, on the Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, probes questions of women’s choices and social limitations. In 1857 Gaskell left her minister husband in Manchester upon publication of her controversial biography of Charlotte Brontë and took off for Rome with her two daughters. During her months-long sojourn in an artistic circle there, which she called “the tip-top point” of her life, she became enamoured of Charles Eliot Norton, a US critic 17 years her younger. While researching and writing about Gaskell, Stevens juggles an on-again, off-again love affair with Max, a former Boston University classmate now living in Paris. As she explores Gaskell’s life and questions her own future, Stevens creates a delectable literary conversation. (Jane Ciabattari)

The Times in praise of the anticlimax:

That the film was none the worse for its low-key ending, and arguably made more famous by it, suggests that other films and books might have been improved by less melodrama and more ambiguity. As Sherlock Holmes never said at the end of any of his adventures, “You can’t solve them all, Watson.” So think what we might have been spared, for example, if the Death Star had merely been put out of commission for a fortnight. Or contemplate the possible sequel had Jane Eyre concluded, “Reader, we had a cosy supper and then I went back to my hotel.”

Bonnie Greer talks about William Wyler in The New European:

Known as ‘40 Takes Wyler’, he was, quite simply, a perfectionist. Laurence Olivier, who in the 1930s did not see the value of film at all, was outraged when Wyler told him to do the same thing more than 20 times. Olivier, one of the titans of the stage, asked “why?” Wyler calmly replied: “Because what he was doing was wrong.”
Wyler was right and the film, Wuthering Heights, helped make Olivier a movie star. I can still remember the first time I saw it and him as I sat with my late mother, a vintage movie fanatic, watching it on afternoon television all those decades ago.

Suffolk Libraries interviews the author Jo Jakeman:

Brandon King: Where did your inspiration for Sticks and Stones come from? I took a creative writing course with Curtis Brown Creative. I was re-reading Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre at the time and was talking to my course tutor about the type of men women fall for in classic novels, and that’s when the characters started to come to life.
It’s no accident that the antagonist in Sticks and Stones is called Rochester – the name of the man who Jane fell in love with and who locked his ‘mad’ wife in the attic. I turned that classic on its head so the wife, Imogen, locks her husband in the cellar. From there I wondered what Phillip Rochester would have to do to make a woman like Imogen do something so against her nature, and the picture of Phillip as an abusive man took shape.

The daily reading of Wuthering Heights in El Punt Avui (in Catalan); Mummy is Reading posts about Alexa Donne's Brightly Burning;