The kind of people who play Brontë scenes out in their minds

On Literary Hub, Meg Donohue, author of the Wuthering Heights-inspired novel You, Me, and the Sea, discusses 'Why We’ll Never Get Tired of Literary Retellings' and goes to select her favourite twelve.

I make an effort to read a wide variety of books, but the genre that I find myself drawn to time and again is retellings of classic novels. I’ve yet to hear about a new twist on a timeless tale that doesn’t sound compelling to me. In fact, it’s a niche of storytelling that I enjoy so much that I’ve written my own entry into the genre, a novel entitled You, Me, and the Sea that is inspired by Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. As I worked on my novel, I spent a lot of time thinking about my favorite retellings, and what it is, exactly, that makes these stories so endearing to readers—and writers. What I’ve come to believe is that reimaginings present a unique delight to readers because they manage to combine the pleasure of surprising twists with the comfort of a familiar story. [...]
And then there’s the pleasure of spotting the similarities and differences between the new novel and the one to which it pays homage—an English major’s version of Where’s Waldo. Retellings come in all shapes and sizes, with some adhering strictly to the plotline of their source of inspiration, and others using the older novel as a springboard to something entirely new. Some retellings, like Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (inspired by Jane Eyre), shift the story so that readers view it from a new perspective, giving voice to a character whose voice was not heard in the original. Others, like Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, have the story unfold in a different era, often revealing the ways in which the themes at the heart of the classic novel are timeless. [...]
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
If at a certain point retellings surpass the genre and become classics themselves, Wide Sargasso Sea has certainly done so. Published in 1966,  Rhys’s novel brilliantly reimagines Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre from the point of view of the first Mrs. Rochester, the mad wife locked in the attic, and in so doing turns the classic entirely on its head, making the reader see each character in a new light. Brontë created strong, passionate female characters, and Rhys’s novel takes these characters several startling, feminist leaps forward. I believe this is the first novel I ever read that was directly inspired by another, jumpstarting my love for fresh takes on classics. [...]
Lyndsay Faye, Jane Steele
“Reader, I murdered him.” From this line—a zinger of a twist on one of the most famous sentences in literature—I was hopelessly hooked on this inventive reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Set in Victorian England, with Jane retooled as a witty serial killer, Jane Steele manages to capture all of the dark, romantic energy of the original story while refashioning it into something entirely new, fast-paced, and deeply entertaining.

Writer Morgan Meis talks about the Brontës and Wuthering Heights for Image.

Here's a scene I play out in my mind. The Brontë sisters (and little Branwell, of course) are sitting around the house in Bradford one fine mid-nineteenth-century afternoon. It’s a Saturday. The children have just been reading Byron’s “Darkness” aloud to one another for the umpteenth time. Or not reading it at all, as they have memorized it and can recite it at will:
_____ I had a dream, which was not all a dream….
Suddenly the postman comes to the door. I have no idea, actually, how the post was delivered in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the early to mid-nineteenth century, but let’s say it happened like this. The children run to the door. Patrick Brontë flips through the mail as the children cluster around him. He hands Emily a piece of mail covered in brown paper. Everyone knows exactly what this is. It is the latest edition of Blackwood’s Magazine, which the children will devour over the next months, reading each story, poem, and essay over and over again.
These same Brontë sisters will have the good sense to produce a mere handful of truly great works of literature and then die tragically young. Bravo.
One of these is Wuthering Heights, written by Emily. Wuthering Heights ranks, to me, as one of the greatest works of world literature partly because I’m still not sure I understand what it is. Even the plot confuses me, with its story wrapped in various nestlings of telling and retelling. The first two times I read it, I was baffled and mildly annoyed. And yet. The way others discussed the book kept me coming back. And a childhood memory of my father coming down the hallway late one night just after he’d given me a tattered paperback copy of the book, crying, “Heathcliff…. heathcliff….” with a mischievous smile at the corner of his mouth. And all the terrible movies that could never capture the book’s dark mystery. And all the literary essays that try and fail to penetrate its heart. And Kate Bush dancing, ridiculously, wonderfully, in her flowing red dress in the woods somewhere.
_____ Heathcliff, it’s me, Cathy
_____ I’ve come home, I’m so cold
_____ Let me in through your window
Wuthering Heights was published in 1847. Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” was released in 1978. That’s about 130 years of marinating in one book. And Wuthering Heights cannot, now, be disinterred from all that marinating, ruminating, slow digesting. All the stuff piled on top of the book has become one with the book; the Wuthering Heights of 2019 is a rich, encrusted, heavy thing.

Chicago Reader has selected 'Five films that address the position of women and sexual mores' of 19th-century women, including The Piano.

Set during the 19th century, this original story by Campion—which evokes at times some of the romantic intensity of Emily Brontë—focuses on a Scottish widow (Holly Hunter) who hasn't spoken since her childhood, presumably by choice, and whose main form of self-expression is her piano playing. (Jonathan Rosenbaum)

The Telegraph and Argus announces that Prince Edward will be 'spending the day at Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, Ingrow Church and Bahamas Locomotive Society' on Friday and

From Ingrow West Station, he will board the beautiful L&Y Club Car, one of KWVR’s most luxurious carriages that dates back to 1912 to enjoy tea and cake on board whilst travelling through the beautiful Brontë countryside down to Keighley.

The death of Anne Brontë 170 years ago yesterday on AnneBrontë.org and on the Brontë Parsonage Twitter account. Sadly, Writergurlny also wrote a post about Anne for the occasion but got dates mixed up and celebrated her birthday (which is actually on January 17th). Bookish Whimsy posts about the 1950 TV adaptation of Jane Eyre starring Donna Reed as Jane and Vincent Price as Rochester. The Write Now! people try to renew interest in this alleged photograph of the Brontës.