The Brontës were roleplaying long before Dungeons & Dragons

Elle speaks with writer Kate Elizabeth Russell about her book My Dark Vanessa.

The first drafts of My Dark Vanessa position Vanessa and Strane’s relationship as one, an unsurprising outcome of Russell’s infatuation with stories of toxic romances, like novels by the Brontë sisters and The Phantom of the Opera. “My understanding of what a love story could be always allowed a lot of room for obsession and darkness and even violence,” she says. It took many years for the novel-in-progress to become a darker portrait of abuse and trauma, a transformation Russell attributes, in large part, to simply growing up. (Cristina Arreola)

Lithub has an article on Sylvia Plath and her marriage to Ted Hughes.

Sylvia Plath, an American, is buried alone in Brontë country—the land of Hughes’s birth. Paul Alexander, in his controversial biography of Plath, Rough Magic (1991), notes that the plot next to Plath is empty, indicating that when Hughes joins her there, the story would finally end. But the story continues. When Hughes died in 1998, his ashes were scattered on Dartmoor, near the home he kept in Devon, England. (Emily Van Duyne)

The Telegraph recommends entertainment for people who are self-isolating and one of the shows worth watching according to them is

Marlon and Jake Read Dead People
This series caused controversy recently after author Marlon James and his editor Jake Morrissey made devastating assessments of, among others, Charlotte Brontë and E M Forster. It may raise your ire, but there is something bracing in its revisionism, too. Oh, and despite the headlines, it’s often very enthusiastic, too!

El Periódico (Spain) recommends Isabel Greenberg's Glass Town for quarantines and self-isolation. Dice Breaker has an article on how the Brontës 'were roleplaying long before Dungeons & Dragons'.

In 1845, two years before Wuthering Heights was published, Emily Brontë shared a train trip to York with her sister Anne, who was two years out from publishing her first novel Agnes Grey. To pass the time the two sisters played a game they'd enjoyed since they were children, which Anne described in her diary like so: "During our excursion we were Ronald Macelgin, Henry Angorra, Juliet Angusteena, Roseabelle, Ella and Julian Egramont, Catherine Navarre and Cordelia Fitzaphnold escaping from the palace of instruction to join the Royalists who are hard driven at present by the victorious Republicans."
They invented characters with luxuriantly fantastical names - Roseabelle Egramont is your next tiefling rogue in D&D, you're welcome - and told stories of dramatic escapes and revolutions. It was all part of an ongoing saga started with their older siblings Charlotte and Branwell years before. They told stories about these characters but, more importantly, as Anne wrote, they "were" them, embodying the imaginary heroes. It may sound closer to a game of ‘let's pretend’ or a creative writing exercise - and it was both of those things - but this imaginative fantasy of the Brontës' creation also had a lot in common with a modern tabletop roleplaying game.
They felt very connected to their characters, and used alter-egos to tell their stories and roleplay.
Emma Butcher is a historian and the author of The Brontës and War: Fantasy and Conflict in Charlotte and Branwell Brontë's Youthful Writings. She traces the origins of the Brontës’ game to 19 years before that train trip. "In 1826," she says, "the father of the Brontës brought home a box of toy soldiers - this was the beginning of their saga and they would act out early stories using these as props on the moors. They would also act stories out in the parsonage where they lived, be it in bed or around the fireplace."
Branwell Brontë owned a collection of miniatures any Warhammer player would be proud of, and when his father brought home 12 toy soldiers as a birthday present he shared them with his three sisters. Each sibling chose a miniature and named them. They became Bonaparte, Gravey, Waiting Boy and the Duke of Wellington, and were the first inhabitants of a land eventually dubbed the Glass Town Confederacy and sketched out by Branwell on a map that needs only a hex grid to look at home in a tabletop RPG supplement. (Jody Macgregor) (Read more)

West Sussex Today reviews BlackEyed Theatre's production of Jane Eyre.

Blackeyed Theatre received a standing ovation from some members of the audience at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing last night, after a fantastic performance of Jane Eyre.
And richly deserved it was, too. This was a brilliant production with excellent acting and an innovative set.
Movement was all carefully choreographed and live music was interwoven to great effect.
The technical issue of a strange buzzing through almost the entire first half was dealt with well, with Camilla Simon cleverly referencing ‘a giant fly’ buzzing around.
The entire audience was asked to leave the auditorium during the interval and the problem was resolved for the second half.
Although the noise was annoying, the performance continued with passion and commitment, so our attention was held throughout.
Kelsey Short played Jane, narrating her story in between living out the scenes. From 10-year-old to adult, she presented the different stages of Jane’s life and her many struggles.
The other four actors played multiple parts between them and Camilla was particularly impressive, with roles including Aunt Reed, Mrs Fairfax and Bertha Mason.
Ben Warwick was commanding both as Mr Brocklehurst and Edward Rochester and Eleanor Toms gave a particularly good performance as Jane’s young French charge Adele Varens, just one of her five roles. (Elaine Hammond)

Leeds Live on 'Beautiful villages and small towns within an easy drive of Leeds', such as

4. Haworth
Home to the Brontë sisters, Haworth is a great place for literature and history buffs alike with its parsonage and church. Its spectacular Pennine setting means it's great for a walk and after all that literature, history and walking there are plenty of great places to eat and drink along its cobbled main street.
Driving time from Leeds: 50mins to 1hr 25min (Dave Himelfield)

The Daily Star discusses Villette:

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is widely read as a classic feminist novel. Published in 1953, Villette, however, still resides in a shadowy region. Most readers of English novels would raise their eyebrows and then would exclaim, "Ah, that one!" And yet, in a number of ways Villette is a reminiscent of Brontë's other novel, Jane Eyre. The protagonists of both novels are lonely and poor young women venturing out in the world on their own. Both of them face adverse situations, fall in love, and suffer. Both prosper later in their lives. For many readers, the similarities end here, and for most, Lucy Snowe, the protagonist of Villette might appear antithetical to the eponymous heroine of Jane Eyre. For me, they appear as the two faces of the same coin. Whereas Jane Eyre is the romantic, turbulent expression of a deeply felt love, Villette is the realistic version of the same story lacking the presence of Edward Rochester, the Byronic hero that came to frequent many works of the regency romance in later times. (Shoshana Manzoor)