Career-sinking Brontës

The New York Times reviews the book Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy. The Story of “Little Women” and Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux. We don't quite agree with this:

Like Charlotte Brontë, Alcott was obliged to support a household. Her father, Bronson Alcott, a friend of Emerson and Thoreau and the founder of Fruitlands, a short-lived utopian community, was so focused on leading “a spotless spiritual life” that he’d forget he had a family. (Francine Prose)

Patrick Brontë earned his modest salary until the end of his life and stretched it to support his family to the best of his ability. While, before becoming a published author, Charlotte did work and earned her own money, there were also periods (1845 onwards mainly) when none of the siblings worked at all outside the parsonage and all depended on Patrick's income and their aunt's inheritance.

Lancashire Evening Post recommends several new children's books, including

She is Fierce: Brave, Bold and Beautiful Poems by Women by Ana Sampson
In the year that celebrates the centenary of women’s suffrage, anthologist Ana Sampson brings us a breathtaking collection of poetry which is guaranteed to inspire a new generation of budding feminists. Cleverly collated and brimming with the resonant voices of women poets from the past and present, and from all corners of the globe, these 150 powerful and impressively diverse poems are yet more proof that female poets speak loudly and eloquently, and are at the heart of literary life. At a time when women’s equality is by no means done and dusted, Sampson highlights not just the beauty of women’s poetry but the fierce, brave and bold flame that burns brightly in their words as they take their rightful place in what for too long was regarded as the ‘male’ arena of literature. Over the centuries, many women have written poems but didn’t dare publish them, and others, like George Eliot and the Brontë sisters, published their work under male pseudonyms. It was also felt that women should stick to certain subjects like family, friendship, dutiful religion, and the prettier corners of nature but in the poems gathered here by Sampson, we find meditations on every possible subject, including science, the universe, politics, protest, body image, myths, mental health, war and displacement. From classic, well-loved poets like Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker and Maya Angelou to innovative and the bold modern voices of poets like Hollie McNish, Jackie Kay and Emergency Poet Deborah Alma, this stunning gift book is packed full of women who deserve to be heard time and time again. Immerse yourself in poems from British-Indian writer Nikita Gill, Wendy Cope, Ysra Daley-Ward, Emily Brontë, Carol Ann Duffy, Fleur Adcock, Liz Berry, Imtiaz Dharker, Helen Dunmore, Mary Oliver, Christina Rossetti and Margaret Atwood, and hear the words of suffragettes, schoolgirls, superstars, civil rights activists, aristocratic ladies and kitchen maids. (Pam Norfolk)

Apparently teaching the Brontës can sink your political career. As seen on USA Today:

How did a former undercover CIA operative who spent more than eight years fighting terrorism get branded as a teacher at “Terror High?"
The strange ordeal for Abigail Spanberger, now a Democratic House candidate, began when U.S. Postal Service employees wrongly delivered her confidential personnel file to Republican operatives.
Those operatives seized on Spanberger’s stint teaching Brontë and Shakespeare as one way to sink her campaign against GOP Rep. Dave Brat in Virginia. (Nicole Gaudiano)

You can read the full article to see that the Brontës don't have much to do with it.

The Daily Athenaeum reviews a local production of The Moors.

The School of Theatre and Dance is putting on a production of “The Moors” at the Gladys G. Davis Theatre through the end of September.
The play is set in 1840 on the barren moors of England.
“'The Moors' is about two spinster sisters,” said Leland Blair, associate professor of acting and theatre and director of the show. “They have hired a governess to come to take care of a child, and there’s some mystery about the child. Over the course of the play, we learn what the family history is.”
Blair described the story as “melodramatic and macabre.”
Although set in the 1800s, the show gives the era of “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights” a contemporary twist.
“It takes that world, but it has sort of an anachronistic aspect to it that really shows most problems are universal,” Blair said.
Additionally, the dark tale keeps the familiar vocabulary and dialect of modern times rather than using the foreign language of the era. Blair feels that this, too, enforces the theme of contemporary struggles represented in a different time period. (Olivia Gianettino)

The Eyre Guide reviews Jane Stubbs's Thornfield Hall. Brontë Babe Blog has a post on The Duke of Zamorna.