Patrick's legacy and Arthur's new wallpaper

On a day like today in 1853, Charlotte Brontë's Villette was published for the first time. We still consider it her 'undiscovered' masterpiece.

The Yorkshire Post has an article on the goings-on at the Brontë Parsonage Museum while it's closed and what to expect when it opens on February 4th.

It was the sort of clean-up for which Patrick Brontë was famous. His old study at the parsonage in Haworth that became his home exactly 200 years ago, has been undergoing its annual round of maintenance while it is closed to the public. When it reopens on February 4, it will house an exhibition on his life and legacy in the West Riding village he made his home. The father of the authors Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë had been invited in 1819 to take over the curacy of Haworth, relocating from the village of Thornton, near Bradford.
He arrived to find an industrial mill town, its views of the moors interrupted by smoking chimneys, whose average life expectancy was just 25 years and where 41 per cent of children died before they were five. “The conditions were comparable with the worst districts of London,” said Rebecca Yorke, of what is now the Parsonage Museum. “The water supply came down from the hills and through the graveyard before it reached the taps.” Rev Brontë campaigned tirelessly for sanitary and other social improvements for the local mill workers, and in 1850 persuaded the engineer and politician Benjamin Babbage to publish a report on conditions in the village – which he branded unclean and unsanitary.
The parsonage study contains many of Rev Brontë’s medical records, which he was expected to keep on behalf of those who could not afford doctors’ fees. The spring-clean, which takes the whole of January, will also see new wallpaper hung in the study of Charlotte’s husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, who had been one of Rev Brontë’s curates. A replica of the paper he used at the time of his marriage to Charlotte in 1854 was traced to the New York public library around eight years ago and new rolls commissioned.

Book Riot recommends '5 Graphic Novels and Memoirs for People Who Say They Don't Like Graphic Novels and Memoirs' and the list includes

1. Jane by Aline McKenna and Ramón K. Pérez
Jane is a modern-day retelling of Charlotte Brontë’s classic, Jane Eyre. In this version, Jane is an orphan from a small New England town. She moves to New York City to attend art school and nannies for the mysterious Mr. Rochester and his daughter, Adele. Instead of the windswept moors, Jane navigates the gritty New York streets and the social scene of the elite. After a fire threatens Mr. Rochester’s penthouse, Jane discovers more of her employer’s secrets. (Katherine Willoughby)

School Library Journal at some of this year's Penguin Random House publications for YA readers.

When the Ground Is Hard by Malla Nunn (ISBN-13: 9780525515579 Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group Publication date: 06/04/2019)
In this stunning and heartrending tale set in a Swaziland boarding school, two girls of different castes bond over a shared copy of Jane Eyre.
Adele Joubert loves being one of the popular girls at Keziah Christian Academy. She knows the upcoming semester at school is going to be great with her best friend Delia at her side. Then Delia dumps her for a new girl with more money, and Adele is forced to share a room with Lottie, the school pariah, who doesn’t pray and defies teachers’ orders.
But as they share a copy of Jane Eyre, Lottie’s gruff exterior and honesty grow on Adele, and Lottie learns to be a little sweeter. Together, they take on bullies and protect each other from the vindictive and prejudiced teachers. Then a boy goes missing on campus and Adele and Lottie must rely on each other to solve the mystery and maybe learn the true meaning of friendship. (Amanda MacGregor)

Just Kindle Books recommends Marina DelVecchio's Dear Jane.

Kit Kat’s letters to Jane Eyre demonstrate the resilience and power that she derives from Jane’s own dark narrative and the parallels between their lives that include being neglected, unloved, poor, orphaned, and almost destroyed by the madwoman in their lives.
This coming of age novel is about family, loss, and forgiveness. Free on Kindle.

Newsarama reviews Blossoms 666 #1 by Cullen Bunn with art by Laura Braga and Matt Herms.

While the rest of the show is characterized almost entirely by its chameleon aesthetic, Blossom plots are uniquely gothic. There’s repressed sexuality, incestuous overtones, generation-spanning consequences, and it sometimes feels like each time the show visits Blossom Mansion we could find Brontë’s madwoman in the attic. (Joey Edsall)

The Guardian reports that writer and editor Diana Athill has died at age 101.

She “nannied” Jean Rhys as she completed Wide Sargasso Sea, straightened out Molly Keane’s chronology and boosted VS Naipaul out of his depressions after delivering a manuscript – a chore that Athill remembered whenever she needed cheering up, consoling herself that “At least I’m not married to Vidia.” (Richard Lea)

GraphoMania (in Italian) has a post on Anne Brontë. Also in Italy, Marie Claire thinks that 'every girl' should read Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre's Library (in Spanish) writes about two of the first translations/adaptations of Jane Eyre in Spanish.