Mrs Gaskell's anxiety

Bustle recommends '11 Novels Inspired By 'Jane Eyre' To Pick Up Instead Of Re-Reading Charlotte Bronte's Classic For The Tenth Time' (why not?).

Perhaps it's because I was named after Charlotte Brontë, or because I was particularly plain and morose as a teen, but I have always loved Jane Eyre. I love the melodrama and the gothic sense of impending doom. I love Jane and her stubborn independence. I love the deeply problematic romance with moody, unhelpful Mr. Rochester. I think it's vitally important to discuss the book's toxic British imperialism (and, to a lesser degree, its violently anti-French sentiments). And I think that it's a story worth revisiting today. Here are a few novels for Jane Eyre fans to read, from retellings to deconstructions to brilliant fanfictions.
These books look at Jane through both a lens of nostalgia and a lens of critique. Because yes, on the one hand, Jane is the forebearer to many of our well-written female protagonists today. She gets to be romantic and smart, average-looking and cynical, and she doesn't get married off to the rich asshole until she proves that she can be perfectly happy on her own. But on the other hand... Mr. Rochester and Jane don't exactly have the healthiest of relationships. And there's that whole wife-in-the-attic thing. So here are a few books that reinvent the Jane Eyre story, for fans and critics alike: (Charlotte Ahlin) (Read more)

Pan MacMillan shares an article by author Nell Stevens on 'anxiety, nonfiction and Mrs Gaskell and Me'.

“I am writing as if I were in famous spirits, and I think I am so angry that I am almost merry in my bitterness, if you know that state of feeling; but I have cried more since I came home than I ever did in the same space of time before; and never needed kind words so much,-- & no one gives me them. I did so try to tell the truth, & I believe now I hit as near the truth as anyone could do.”
This is from a letter by the Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, written in 1857 after the publication of her biography of Charlotte Brontë. She had been travelling in Rome, and came home to find that her The Life of Charlotte Brontë had caused an uproar. To say the book was poorly received is an understatement: lawsuits were threatened, angry letters were published in newspapers, and Mrs Gaskell’s solicitor had issued public retractions in her name without her knowledge. Powerful figures felt she had portrayed them unfairly and demanded heavy edits. Snarky articles were published about the book and its author’s failings. People Mrs Gaskell had never even heard of wrote her “sheets of angry abuse” claiming she had misrepresented them in the book. It was the kind of reception all authors dread: a hostile readership, abusive responses, public condemnation. [...]
 “I am in despair about ‘the public’,” Mrs Gaskell wrote. “For some reason they seem to say such bitter & hard things about me, & one never comes to an end of them.” Reading about the reaction to The Life of Charlotte Brontë was like reading a description of my own fears for my book: the angry letters might be replaced by angry tweets, but their effect would be the same. But reading about Mrs Gaskell’s response to it all, her fury, her energy, the way she fought and worked and recovered, was like a how-to guide for dealing with my anxieties. [...]
And even now that I have finished work on Mrs Gaskell and Me, she continues to advise me. “In the future,” Mrs Gaskell wrote, in the aftermath of the Charlotte Brontë furore, “I intend to confine myself to lies (i.e. fiction). It is safer.” And for all that I have loved spending time with Mrs Gaskell in my book, and for all that I am grateful to the people in my own life who have allowed me to write about them over the course of two memoirs, I shall follow Mrs Gaskell in this, too. My next book will be a novel.

On Her (Ireland), a columnist quotes from Wuthering Heights:

Whenever I feel disillusioned with romance (or indeed life) I'll turn to Brontë:
'He shall never know that I love him: and that, not because he's handsome but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same'.Yep, I quoted Wuthering Heights of a Monday and I'm not even sorry. In my defence, I'm attempting to inject some romance into our lives. . . (Niamh Maher)

More on romance, as Derbyshire Live lists 'Nine of Derbyshire's most romantic places for a wedding proposal'

Winnats Pass
West of Castleton, Winnats Pass is a collapsed limestone cavern which offers one of the most dramatic landscapes in the Peak District, thanks to its steep valley-like structure. Rugged and raw, the High Peak always delivers that Brontë sisters feeling. Author Charlotte Brontë visited nearby Hathersage in 1845 an it played a part in her famous novel Jane Eyre. (Jill Gallone)

An article for those in search of their 'steam dream rail trail' in the Yorkshire Evening Post.

Beauty abounds along scenic routes from rolling dales and vales, through rugged moorland to spectacular coastline, coach transfers taking strain between steam locomotive engine trips, with free time afforded to enjoy delights, many and varied, of such welcome stop-offs as gentrified Harrogate, gothic Whitby, medieval York and full Brontë Haworth, all glistening gems in White Rose crown. Where to go: Keighley and Worth Valley Railway has witnessed much evolution since industrial revolution saw it serve Heavy Woollen District's mushrooming mill trade. Five miles of track have been backdrop, not only for Jenny Agutter's Bobbie Waterbury and co, but also such small and big screen blockbusters as Peaky Blinders, The Great Train Robbery and Testament of Youth. Without coming over all trainspotter, the service today retains four signal boxes, two tunnels, two level crossings, turntable, assorted viaducts and bridges, all serving six stations. [...]
Haworth is all about the Brontës. From burgers to beer, this Fairtrade Village in Worth Valley fold of the Pennines celebrates its literary status among assorted antiquarian and souvenir shops, restaurants, tea rooms and inns, including Black Bull, where brother Branwell's decline into alcoholism and opium addiction allegedly began. But his sisters are true stars, book worms making a bee line for former family home that is Parsonage Museum, grade one listed building celebrating Charlotte, Emily and Anne's prowess with the pen and lasting legacy. (Chris Page)

Channel News Asia goes on a literary tour of the UK.

Most of my favourite literary spots were, however, outside of London. I saw the Gothic novels I had inhaled as a teenager come alive in Yorkshire, where the Bronte sisters lived and produced their most famous creations, including Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. (Hon Jing Yi)

AnneBrontë.org has a post on the death of Branwell.