"The Brontës essentially invented the goth genre"

Some articles celebrating Emily Brontë's anniversary: "Emily Bronte, la scrittrice che anticipò i tempi moderni" on Metropolitan Magazine (Italy) [with plenty of wrong pictures], "Emily Brontë: a vida para além de O Monte dos Vendavais" in Espalha Factos (Portugal). "Emily Brontë napisala je samo jedan roman – ‘Orkanski visit’ i njime dostigla vrhunac književnosti" in Nacional (Croatia). "Emily Brontë, una alma valiente" in National Geographic (Spain). Metro.co.uk quotes her in its Thought of the Day. Countercurrents posts about Wuthering Heights from a different perspective:

A common concept today about the children portrayed in Victorian literature is that they are innocent in spite of their sufferings and brutalization by the society. One can refer to an apotheosis of childhood innocence through characters like Dickens’s Oliver Twist, Little Nell in Old Curiosity Shop, and Pip in Great Expectations, or Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. During the Victorian era morality and didacticism were appended to the Romantic imagination, and these childhood victims of social injustice were redeemed by their inherent sense of goodness and modesty. Consequently, later on in life these victims of tyranny did not turn into tyrants themselves.
Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, however, treats children and their sufferings in a very different manner. Peter Coveney observes, “the symbol which had such strength and richness in the poetry of Blake and some parts of the novels of Dickens became in time the static and moribund child-figure of the Victorian imagination”. Emily Brontë perhaps captures this idea more acutely than any other of her contemporaries. (Shohana Manzoor)

And some others celebrating Kate Bush's one, with mentions to her Wuthering Heights song: "When Music and Literature merge: Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights" in Business & Arts. "Kate Bush Has Disappeared, But Her Influence is Everywhere" in Complex, "Wuthering Heights di Kate Bush: fra letteratura, amore e fantasmi" in Metropolitan Magazine (Italy). "Ikona muzyki, Kate Bush obchodzi urodziny!" in Kulturalne Media (Poland). "Cantante, danzatrice, cantastorie: i mille volti di Kate Bush" in Stone Music (Italy). And Farout, RTVE, Onet, NPO Radio 2, L'Avenir...

And celebrating both anniversaries François-Xavier Szymczak's programme on France Musique (France) aired Kate Bush's song.

Post-Punk has an article about Charlie Rauh's music adaptation of The Bluebell:

NYC-based guitarist and composer Charlie Rauh has taken up the mantle for the next chapter of Brontë tributes with his third album, The Bluebell (Destiny Records), due out 28 August. Rauh’s lullabied homage to the poetry of the famed Yorkshire wordsmiths. Rauh is a fixture in the NYC music scene, as a performer, well respected studio musician, and artist-in-residency with the likes of The Rauschenberg Foundation, The Klaustrid Foundation, and The Chen Dance Center. Rauh’s approach to solo guitar composition takes inspiration from folk lullabies, plainchant, and the imagery of various poets, ranging from the Brontës to Anna Akhmatova.
“I’m massively influenced by Joy Division both in the music and lyrics, as well as southern gothic writers like Flannery O’Connor,” says Rauh. “But the Brontës essentially invented the goth genre!”

The Minnesota Opera has reformulated its 2020-21 season and one of the events will be:

Two productions from Minnesota Opera’s archive will also be presented online for the first time as part of the fall season.
Bernard Herrmann’s “Wuthering Heights,” an operatic adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel, was staged at Ordway Center in 2011, in a production the Star Tribune said “could hardly be bettered.” It’s available to stream for $10-$15 Oct. 10-24. (Terry Blain in the Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Look what hangs on Deborah Levy's walls, via Financial Times:

Pride of place on the wall of my shed is an artwork gifted to me by Cornelia Parker. It’s a black-and-white photograph of Charlotte Brontë’s quill and is part of a series titled Brontëan Abstracts. Parker used an electron microscope to magnify various objects and artefacts belonging to the Brontë family at the Parsonage Museum in Haworth, such as their needlework and even strands of their hair. Charlotte’s quill, in this photograph, resembles the wing of a bird. In my own mind, it is there in my shed to give flight to my own words.

ABC (Australia) explores the role of priests in fiction:

Clergy have been painted alternatively as obsequious try-hards (as in Mr Collins in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice) or morally astute and wise (as in George Eliot’s Rev. Fairbrother in Middlemarch). A clergyman is certainly not someone that a woman like Jane Eyre would want to marry — even the violent Rochester is preferable. (Michael Jensen)

The Dartmouth reviews the latest album by Taylor Swift, Folklore:

Telling another story, “invisible string” shares a tale of modern love, teeming with literary references from Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” and Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises.” (Shera Bhala)

Pix11 mentions that

[Patricia] Park is no stranger to writing about New York. The novelist is the author of “Re Jane," a modern day retelling of the Charlotte Brontë classic “Jane Eyre.” Her novel is set in the outer boroughs. (Shirley Chan)

A literary contest judge talks about it in the Shepparton News:

On the other hand, we don't know much about Emily Brontë at all, apart from her dark and brooding novel Wuthering Heights and some poems. They tell us she must have had a dark and brooding childhood, which by the accounts of others was true. (John Lewis)

The Film Experience talks about Ryuichi Sakamoto's scores like:

1992's Wuthering Heights saw the Japanese composer create some of his most romantic symphonies. (Cláudio Alves)

Het Parool (Netherlands) recommends Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys:

Waar gaat het boek over? De rijke creoolse erfgename Antoinette Cosway, dochter van een voormalige plantagehouder, trouwt met een Engelsman. Ze vertrekken van Dominica naar het huis Thornfield in Engeland. De Engelsman, die niet direct bij naam wordt genoemd, vertolkt mister Rochester uit Charlotte Bröntes Jane Eyre en Antoinette vertolkt ‘The mad woman in the attic’. Hoewel hij in eerste instantie gefascineerd is door haar schoonheid, voelt de Engelsman zich steeds meer gefrustreerd door haar ondoorgrondelijke karakter. In Engeland raakt Antoinette, steeds meer in een isolement en als het gerucht de ronde begint te doen dat er in haar familie krankzinnigheid voorkomt, wordt haar situatie steeds ondraaglijker. (Dieuwertje Mertens) (Translation)

Todo Literatura (Spain) interviews the writer Adolfo García Ortega:

Javier Carrascosa: Afirma en la contraportada que lo contemporáneo y lo clásico están unidos en un mismo tejido celular sin tiempo y sin espacio ¿no es todo lo mismo?
La literatura tiene tiempos y conexiones que le son propios. Esto se descubre cuando se lee y sobre todo cuando se lee variado y con regularidad. En algún momento inesperado de las lecturas, uno se descubre leyendo, por ejemplo, el Quijote. De ahí partirá hacia otras lecturas, como las Novelas ejemplares, o a Madame Bovary, o Jane Eyre, a Séneca, etc. Y mientras lee lo clásico mezclado con lo contemporáneo, descubrirá decenas de conexiones y cercanías, como si la lectura fuese un tiempo presente constante y fuera de la historia. (Translation)

Metro Libre (Panamá) interviews the writer Lourdes Luna:

Lineth Rodríguez: ¿Tu autor favorito y libro favorito?
Tengo varios autores favoritos: Alejandro Dumas, Stieg Larson, Lars Kepler y Charlotte Brontë están en mi lista. Libro favorito sí puedo mencionar solo uno; indiscutiblemente “El conde de Montecristo”.  (Translation)

La Libre (Belgium) talks about Jane Campion and describes like this Holly Hunter's character in The Piano:

Elle a d'ailleurs davantage le type Brontë. En la voyant, on se demande comment autant d'énergie peut se dégager d'un être si petit, si fin. (Fernand Denis) (Translation)

Il Manifesto (Italy) interviews the writer Claire Evans:

Guido Caldiron: In questo senso, c’è un libro dell’epoca vittoriana che l’ha influenzata più di altri?
Sì, senza dubbio, anche se si tratta probabilmente di uno dei testi che ha rotto di più con i canoni narrativi dell’epoca. Si tratta di Cime tempestose di Emily Brontë. Credo di averlo letto almeno dieci volte in varie fasi della mia vita. Penso che ci sia qualcosa di sfuggente, qualcosa di inconoscibile nel libro che a ogni nuova lettura mi riprometto, ma sempre invano, di scoprire. (Translation)

Clarín (Argentina) mentions the Robin Hood collection of novels, published in the 1940s, which included Jane Eyre with this cover. ScreenRant mentions Monty Python's Semaphore version of Wuthering Heights. EssexLive describes Northey Island like the Wuthering Heights of Essex. Boho Weddings presents the Shades of Wuthering Heights style shoot. The Shatner Chatner posts the second instalment of Hannibal vs. Jane Eyre series of posts. Sogni d'inchiostro (in Italian) reviews Agnes Grey. Leer en la Luna (in Spanish) reviews Wuthering Heights. The Shakespeare Option posts about Jane Eyre.

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Keeping the Flame Alive. Quiz 9

The ninth instalment of the Keeping the Flame Alive Quiz challenge. All of them devised and shared by John Hennessy.

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The Brontë sisters on a reading tour

August 1st is Yorkshire Day and The Telegraph and Argus has an article on celebrations around Bradford.

Weavers Guest House in Haworth is also lending a hand to celebrations by taking over the Visit Bradford Instagram account for a week (from August 1-9) to give people a closer look at the picturesque cobbles, moors and landscape in and around Haworth and Brontë County. (Natasha Meek)

The Spenborough Guardian seems to share an apocryphal tale about Anne Brontë:

Half-way up, on the right, was a block of four terraced houses.

“Just below these on the left in School Lane were two old cottages (now demolished), one of which was occupied by Anne Brontë, one of the Brontë sisters, and her friend.

Charlotte was a teacher but so was Anne. She taught my grandfather, who paid half a penny for two mornings a week, or two pence for a full week.

My mother had his maths book with every sum ticked correct and signed by her.

“When the cottages were demolished, the council agreed to erect a plaque stating that one of the cottages had been the residence of one of the Brontë sisters. I don’t know if this was ever done. (Margaret Watson)

As far as we know, Anne Brontë only lived near Dewsbury while studying and teaching with Miss Wooler and her sisters first at Roe Head and then at Heald's House and then while working as a governess for the Ingham family at Blake Hall. She never lived in a cottage with a friend or taught pupils outside school/a family.

Here's what AN Wilson says about Charles Dickens in The Guardian:

[His] novels are unlike any other writer’s. People have likened them to poems, to visions, to pantomime, and they are all these things. If you want to see how different he was to all his contemporaries, just try to imagine George Eliot or Thackeray or the Brontë sisters doing those reading tours, when thousands of people, the poor in multitudes, came to hear him. Nothing like it had been seen since John Wesley’s preaching tours.

The Clitheroe Advertiser and Times reviews The Miseducation of Evie Epworth by Matson Taylor.

Evie’s best friend Margaret is ‘destined for teaching’ but, inspired by her idols (Charlotte Brontë, Shirley MacLaine and the Queen), Evie dreams of a more independent life, far away from her rural home… a world of glamour lived under the bright lights of London (or maybe even Leeds). (Pam Norfolk)

Alfa y Omega (Spain) recommends reading Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey back to back.

De las numerosas recomendaciones estivales que la editorial Cátedra nos viene brindando en su activo perfil de redes sociales con el hashtag #UnVeranoMilHistorias, nos quedamos con su desafío literario de «leer en paralelo las tres novelas de las hermanas Brontë, toda una experiencia». Fue en el año 1847 cuando Charlotte, Emily y Anne alumbraron, respectivamente, Jane Eyre, Cumbres borrascosas y Agnes Grey, tres obras maestras de la literatura universal, en una sincronía que deja entrever, más allá de sus virtudes personales, el denominador común del asombroso genio familiar (recordemos, asimismo, que el padre, Patrick Brontë, fue clérigo y escritor de sermones y poemas campestres). (Carlos Pérez Laporta) (Translation)

ABC (Spain) asks writer Adolfo García Ortega about his three literary musts:

¿Y tres obras imprescindibles?

Me aventuro con estas al azar, porque es imposible semejante reducción. Propongo La educación sentimental, de Flaubert, el Ulises, de Joyce, y Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë. (Carmen R. Santos) (Translation)

France Info quotes André Téchiné on his film Les Soeurs Brontë:

Les films d’André Téchiné n’ont pas toujours reçu un bon accueil de la critique. Il revient au micro d’Elodie Suigo sur le Festival de Cannes de 1979 avec son long-métrage Les sœurs Brontë : "On appelait le film 'Les sœurs Gaumont'," et il ajoute que finalement, il a été peu heurté par ce dédain. "J’étais jeune donc j’étais plus insouciant et plus agressif à cette époque-là ; je ne me suis pas senti trop fragilisé". (Elodie Suigo) (Translation)

Gaffa (Denmark) ranks Kate Bush's albums and places The Kick Inside at number 2.

2) The Kick Inside (1978)

Imponerende debut, hvor den kun 19-årige Bush har skrevet samtlige sange uden hjælp fra andre. Albummet indeholder blandt andet de to klassikere ”Wuthering Heights” og ”The Man With the Child in His Eyes” og viser Bush fra sin mest ungdommelige og romantiske side, med stemmen i det allerøverste leje og hendes smukke klaverspil som en central del af udtrykket, der også tæller et større orkester. Samtidig er der masser af mystik og uhygge, eksempelvis på titelsangen, der tilsyneladende omhandler incest og slutter ganske brat og dermed lukker hele albummet, uden at musikken eller teksten har fundet hvile.

Debutsinglen "Wuthering Heights" er inspireret af en BBC-tv-udgave af Emily Brontës romanklassiker af samme navn fra 1847 – Bush havde ikke læst bogen, da hun skrev sangen en fuldmånenat umiddelbart efter at have set de sidste 10 minutter af tv-udgaven. Senere læste hun bogen og fandt ud af, at hun havde fødselsdag samme dag som Brontë, der i øvrigt døde af tuberkulose i 1848, kun 30 år gammel. (Ole Rosenstand Svidt) (Translation)

National Geographic Spain and Libreriamo (Italy) celebrate Emily Brontë's birthday today.

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Happy 202nd, Emily!

202 years ago Emily Brontë was born in Thornton. Hers tends to be the thinnest biographies on Brontë bookshelves, and yet there's something intriguing about her literary output that sends people looking for biographies of her in hopes that they can help explain how a provincial - albeit highly learned, despite what Charlotte would have the world believe - young woman could have written such words. (And we are pretty sure that this 'mystery' is a two-way street. Emily may have scorned the public, but we are quite confident that she would have been quite amazed at what Wuthering Heights particularly has achieved in terms of readership, influences, literary status, etc.).

And yet that is the magic and mightiness of the pen. If ever anyone showed that to the world, that was undoubtedly 'our Emily'. No explanations are really needed - a good book and good poetry are always self-explanatory.

Happy birthday!

(Post originally published in 2010)

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A dark, disturbing trainwreck you can’t look away from

BBC History Extra features the Brontë sisters

Charlotte Brontë steps into her father’s study. In her hand, she holds a book – a hardback volume bound in cloth, with the words ‘Jane Eyre’ stamped on the cover. “Papa, I’ve been writing a book,” she announces, rather understating the true matter of her achievement. In fact, her novel is completed, published, and is selling at almost record speed. “Have you my dear?” the unsuspecting Reverend Patrick Brontë replies, without looking up. As Charlotte continues, the clergyman slowly realises that his daughter has become a literary sensation, in secret, right under his nose. After some time, Patrick calls in Charlotte’s younger sisters, Emily and Anne: “Charlotte has been writing a book – and I think it is better than I expected.” It is good that he approves of Charlotte’s tale, because he’s about to learn that his other daughters have similar stories to tell… (Mel Sherwood) (Read more)

Evening Standard shares 'A definitive guide to all the references' on Taylor Swift's new album Folklore because 'There’s no such thing as a straightforward Taylor Swift lyric'.

Invisible String

There’s a handful of standout references in Invisible String. First of all, literary-minded fans have wondered whether Swift had a copy of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre to hand while working in isolation, as the “invisible strings” of the song’s title echo Mr Rochester’s musings on his bond with the novel’s heroine. “I have a strange feeling with regard to you: as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you,” he tells her. And to continue the theme, the track which follows is titled Mad Woman - a phrase which conjures up Rochester’s first wife Bertha, literature’s ‘madwoman in the attic.’ (Katie Rosseinsky)

While Rolling Stone India thinks that

You can picture the candle on her piano flickering as the wax melts over her copy of Wuthering Heights and another song rolls out. (Rob Sheffield)

Querido Clássico (Brazil) thinks that the song My Tears Ricochet is about Wuthering Heights.

The Guardian shares the obituary published for William Wyler in 1981.

Between then and 1970 he made some 40 films, but it was in the mid-thirties, in a run of pictures produced by Samuel Goldwyn, that his reputation became firmly established.

These notably included Dead End, which made a star of Humphrey Bogart, Wuthering Heights, with Laurence Olivier as a memorable Heathcliffe (sic), and The Little Foxes, which gave Bette Davis perhaps her most notable screen role.

Mental Floss has selected 'The Last Lines From 19 Popular Books', including

19. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

“I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”

Since female writers were so heavily discriminated against in the mid-19th century, Emily Brontë published Wuthering Heights under the alias “Ellis Bell.” (Ellen Gutoskey)

While The Young Folks thinks that Heathcliff and Cathy are among several 'Classic Ships That Need a Revisionist Retelling'

Do: Heathcliff and Catherine from Wuthering Heights

Speaking of hot messes, these two deserve that label more than anyone else. Since childhood, they have loved each other, but it’s an obsessive, unhealthy love. Instead of seeing themselves as two different people who complete each other, they see themselves as the same person. Even after Catherine marries someone else (itself problematic), Heathcliff continues to pursue her, and after she dies, he seeks revenge on her husband and even digs up her grave to look at her one last time. Despite the dysfunction, I think we can still learn lessons and this classic romance is still worthwhile, but the novel itself is dense, hard to read, and honestly drags at times. If this story were updated to a modern setting and voice, it could be fascinating—like a dark, disturbing trainwreck you can’t look away from. (Abby Petree)

Elle (Italy) echoes the news that Emily Brontë did actually write Wuthering Heights.

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First edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey goes under the hammer

Tomorrow, at Christie's a first edition of Wuthering Heights (and Agnes Grey) will be auctioned:

SALE 18887
Valuable Books & Manuscripts
July 30

Lot 145: Wuthering Heights. 1847
Emily Brontë (1818-1848)
Estimate: GBP 70,000 - GBP 100,000
(USD 88,200 - USD 126,000)

[BRONTË, Emily (1818-1848) and Anne (1820-1849)]. Wuthering Heights. A Novel. By Ellis Bell. – Agnes Grey. A Novel, by Acton Bell. London: Thomas Cautley Newby, 1847.

Rare first edition of Emily Brontë’s classic novel, one of the greatest and most enduringly popular works in the English language. Volumes 1 and 2 comprise Wuthering Heights, with the supplied volume 3 containing Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey.

Wuthering Heights draws upon the Gothic and Romantic traditions to create a world fraught with passion, intensity, darkness and the extremes of imaginative possibility. Due in part to its distinct landscape and the strange force of its characters, it ‘has emerged as one of those rare texts, like Frankenstein and Dracula, which has transcended its literary origin to become part of the lexicon of popular culture – the subject of film, song and even comedy. At the same time it has become one of the most written about novels in the language, to the point where the novel’s critical history reads like the history of criticism itself’ (Nestor).

Although both Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey were written and accepted for publication before Charlotte had completed Jane Eyre, it was the latter work which would be published first. The immediate and enormous success of Jane Eyre prompted Thomas Cautley Newby to bring forward the release of the present works in order to capitalise on the phenomenon. The exact number of copies printed is unknown, but it is suggested by Charlotte in a letter of 13 September 1850 that the print run of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey was limited to just 250 copies. Sadleir 350; Wise pp.97-103.

3 volumes, 12mo (vols. 1 & 2: 191 x 118mm; vol. 3: 186 x 115mm). (Occasional faint spots and stains; vol.3 with title and last 2 leaves darkened at corners, closed marginal tear in E3 into bottom line of text, C7 and O5 with neatly repaired marginal tears, lower outer corners lightly thumbed). Contemporary speckled half calf over marbled boards (vols. 1 and 2 rebacked preserving backstrips, lightly rubbed with small loss at spine ends, front free endpaper of vol.1 detached; the supplied vol.3 bound in modern speckled half calf to style); housed in a modern half calf solander box. Provenance: faint contemporary MS notes to O1 in Agnes Grey volume.

Please note this lot is the property of a private individual.

 (Via Fine Books & Collections)

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Nod to Brontë Heroines

About Manchester reports that Elizabeth Gaskell's House reopens next August 12. (Incidentally, Manchester Evening News lists Gaskell among historical figures with Moss Side and Hulme connections). Keighley News also reports that the KVWR will also return to operate trains but with severe restrictions:

The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway (K&WVR) will begin operating train rides for the public the following week, on Wednesday August 19. (...)
[Keith] Whitmore said the K&WVR planned to begin operating trains on the railway line on August 8-9 – not for use by the public – then special services on August 15 and 16 for working members and guests.
He said: “Passenger services will return from August 19 and all tickets must be pre-booked. Trains will operate between Oxenhope and Keighley and will not stop at any other station.
“A vintage bus will operate between Ingrow, Haworth and the Bronte Parsonage to Oxenhope to dovetail in with these services.” (David Knights)

The Evening Standard looks for references in the latest album by Taylor Swift:

There’s a handful of standout references in Invisible String. First of all, literary-minded fans have wondered whether Swift had a copy of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre to hand while working in isolation, as the “invisible strings” of the song’s title echo Mr Rochester’s musings on his bond with the novel’s heroine. “I have a strange feeling with regard to you: as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you,” he tells her. And to continue the theme, the track which follows is titled Mad Woman - a phrase which conjures up Rochester’s first wife Bertha, literature’s ‘madwoman in the attic.’ (Katie Rosseinsksy)

These and other connections are also mentioned on TechToday19, Berlingske (Denmark)...

WFU interviews Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders who says she has recently read Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and really loved it.

San Francisco Chronicle reviews John Le Heureux's The Beggar's Pawn:

The meal is awkward. The Hollises bring wine, but Reginald doesn’t want to open the bottle. “We follow the Bible,” he explains. David and Maggie get a strange vibe from Reginald and his taciturn wife, Helen, but they adore the Parker’s daughter, Iris. The grade-schooler begins visiting the Hollises almost daily. David reads her “Jane Eyre.” Maggie buys her a raincoat. (Kevin Canfield)

Stylist reviews the film How to Build a Girl:

Johanna is a coming-of-age heroine with a difference. She’s not cool or popular, like the Cher Horowitzs and Cady Herons we’re used to. Instead, she’s a bookworm who counts the Brontë sisters among her personal heroes, hangs out in the library fantasising about the cute boys she doesn’t speak to, and considers her dog to be her best friend. (Caroline Carpenter) 

Slate reviews the novel Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia:

Some of the literary gothic’s foundational novels are acknowledged classics—Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights—while others—most notably, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca—were unfairly diminished in reputation by their countless imitators and the prestige hit taken by any genre that’s particularly popular with women. (Laura Miller)

The Telegraph talks about Olivia de Havilland's Melanie in Gone With The Wind:

Melanie was like lots of my other favourites I liked to weep over: Beth from Little Women, Helen Burns from Jane Eyre, Little Nell from The Old Curiosity Shop, Eponine from Les Misérables. None of them did much to rupture the sinister plan fate had in store for them, and all were guided by the spirit of self sacrifice, until they too were sacrificed. They had a pure goodness that you only find in fairy tales, like the Little Mermaid’s. (Serena Davies)

Splice Today reviews the novel 22 Minutes of Unconditional Love by Daphne Merkin:

But given the sketchy (in every sense) nature of Howard Rose, I wonder if someone might write a book retelling the story from his perspective, like the novel Wicked recast the Witch, or Wide Sargasso Sea put an entirely new perspective on Jane Eyre. (Kenneth Silber)

 The Santa Fe Reporter talks about the pandemic educational choices families are turning to:

From this angle, microschools and tutoring pods are critical solutions for women who, unless they're committed homeschool teachers, need and want to keep their work on the rails. Pooling resources to create such pods is a practical response for families that can't single-handedly hire a private governess (incidental nod to Brontë heroines). This is a real dilemma for moms, whether they're working in drive-throughs, hospitals, or via corporate Zoom, and it's hardly an extreme response. (Lauren Whitehurst)

The Yorkshire Post talks about the industrial history of Oxenhope:

The reservoir sits just outside the village of Oxenhope, home to the terminus of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.
A goods shed there is used for the restoration and servicing of the carriages regularly used on the steam railway, which connects Oxenhope with the likes of Keighley and Haworth, where the Brontë sisters grew up. (Laura Reid)

Morgenbladet (Norway) talks about Lovecraft's legacy. The journalist has a confession to make:

Av og til spør avisene kjente forfattere og kritikere hvilke berømte bøker de enten aldri begynte på eller aldri ble ferdige med. Min egen lesning er usystematisk. Jeg har for eksempel aldri lest noe av Jonas Lie eller Emily Brontë. (Thomas Hylland Eriksen) (Translation)

Agora (Moldova) lists classic novels adapted to the screen:

Jane Eyre. Este cel mai cunoscut roman al scriitoarei Charllote (sic) Brontë. Inițial, acesta a fost publicat sub pseudonimul Currer Bell în anul 1847. Cartea prezintă o autobiografie despre experiențele eroinei din copilărie și până la maturitate, scoțând în relief toate momentele dificile și fericite prin care trece protagonista. De-a lungul timpului cartea a cunoscut mai multe ecranizări: în anul 1943, în 1996, în 1997, în 2006, iar cel mai recent film a fost lansat în anul 2011. (Ilinca Fiodorov) (Translation)

Lood (Estonia) interviews the actress Ülle Lichtfeldt:

“Jane Eyre'is” keerutab mr Rochester ehk Hannes Kaljujärv tantsu oma hullu naise ehk minuga, loobib, tirib, pööritab ümber oma telje. (Tiiu Suvi) (Translation)

Hertfordshire Mercury includes an easy Brontë question in a general knowledge quiz. Vital Thrills announces that Wuthering Heights 1992 will be on the Starz catalogue next month. La Opinión de Murcia (Spain) mentions Dante Rossetti's famous comments on Wuthering Heights.

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S.E. Hinton's introduces Wuthering Heights

A new edition, oriented to middle-school students, of Wuthering Heights has been published. S.E. Hinton, the author of Outsiders or Rumble Fish has written the introduction:

Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
Introduction by S. E. Hinton
Puffin Books
Jul 28, 2020
ISBN 9780593117224

BE CLASSIC with Wuthering Heights introduced by bestselling author S.E. Hinton.

     Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discoveres the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before: how Heathcliff, an orphan, was raised by Mr. Earnshaw as one of his own children. Lockwood learns of the intense and passionate romance between Heathcliff and Cathy Earnshaw, and her betrayal of him. As Heathcliff’s bitterness and revenge are visited upon by the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past. Heathcliff’s terrible vengeance ruins them all – but still his love for Cathy will not die…

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“It’s all desperate.”

The Guardian has a lovely article on Olivia de Havilland by Hannah Partos, who worked as her personal assistant in Paris when Ms de Havilland was in her 90s.

As I’m mostly working around the dusty shelves of the attic, my boss nicknames me Cinderella and Jane Eyre. She is endlessly impressed with the pages I produce, even though it’s hardly the most demanding job: typing out titles, authors, dates of publication, leafing through stacks of National Geographic magazines from the 1970s and old textbooks from her children’s schooldays. De Havilland insists, often, on paying me far more than she owes me for the hours I’ve worked – on one occasion, double the amount. I protest that she’s being too generous.
“I’m getting a message from the Lord,” she explains, in her booming voice, “telling me to pay you more.”
“Well, that’s very generous of him,” I say.
“Oh yes,” she says, “he’s known for that.”

And this is wholly unrelated to anything Brontë, but isn't it delightful?

I remember, once, overhearing a tense telephone conversation and asking her afterwards if everything was all right. “Goodness, no!” she said with a smile. “It’s all desperate.”

More on classic films on VTDigger, which features Neshobe Island in the middle of Lake Bomoseen in Castleton (Vermont), which was 'the summer gathering place for members of the New York Algonquin Round Table and their famed guests'.

The islanders guarded their privacy jealously. When a group of tourists made the mistake of pulling their boat onto the private island for a picnic, they were accosted by one of the inhabitants. It is hard to say what was most frightening about the man, his unintelligible screaming, the axe he carried or his odd attire. He wore a red wig. And nothing else. Unless you count the mud he had smeared across his body.
Though the tourists couldn’t understand his shouts, they got the message, and clambered back into their boats, leaving the island behind. Once they had gone, the naked man found his fellow islanders and told the story that has been repeated in those parts ever since. He was part of a clan of avid storytellers who made the island their home each summer for two decades starting in the 1920s.
His name was Harpo Marx. He and other famous actors, writers and artists adopted the island, Neshobe Island in the middle of Lake Bomoseen in Castleton, as their private refuge. [...]
Club members and guests on the island didn’t just play. Some found the island a source of inspiration. Book manuscripts were completed there, as was part of the screenplay for the movie adaptation of “Wuthering Heights.” Stage actresses walked around the island, rehearsing lines for upcoming productions. (Mark Bushnell)

Pitchfork reviews Taylor Swift's new album Folklore.

One of the loveliest tracks on folklore, the surprise album the singer-songwriter made primarily with the National’s guitarist Aaron Dessner, stands out for a strangely similar reason: a thread connecting two strangers that exists long before either realizes it’s there. “And isn’t it just so pretty to think/All along there was some/Invisible string/Tying you to me,” she sings on the delightfully plucky “invisible string,” simultaneously recalling famous lines from Jane Eyre and The Sun Also Rises. (Jillian Mapes)

TimeOut Melbourne recommends an online class for learning 'the Kate Bush 'Wuthering Heights' dance'.

The Brontë Parsonage Blog has a review by Marina Saegerman of Brontë Places & Poems by Geoff and Christine Taylor. AnneBrontë.org has a post on 'The Real Life Fortune Teller Of Jane Eyre'.

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Olivia De Havilland. In Memoriam

As many news outlets are reporting, 2020 does not spare even the last Hollywood legend, Olivia de Havilland (1916-2020), who died on Sunday. The star of Gone with the Wind, Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, They Died with Their Boots On or The Heiress (among so many more), has also a place in the Brontë story. She played Charlotte Brontë in the (in)famous film
Devotion in 1946.

Technically she was not the first Charlotte on the big screen, the first one was Molly Lamont in the short film Three Sisters of the Moors in 1944. But arguably she was the first Charlotte to be filmed as the film was shot in November 1942-February 1943 and was shelved by the studio in the middle of the famous legal case in which De Havilland sued Warner Brothers and she de facto made the first crack in the fall of the studio system.

Her Charlotte was particularly devious and quite unsympathetic, establishing a character profile that is still going on (Juliet Barker or Samantha Ellis would agree with it). The atmosphere on the set was also not the best one and Ms De Havilland was accused of being a troublemaker by Paul Henreid (quoted by Jeremy Arnold on the TCM website). Probably part of the problem, if not all, was the fact that she was billed the third in the film when she was playing Charlotte, the author of Jane Eyre.... when her much loved sister, Joan Fontaine was going to star in a lavish Jane Eyre adaptation by Fox.

Let's give the last word to Olivia herself on the Devotion set:

via ytCropper

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Unsettling Novel

The Guardian reviews the film How To Build a Girl:

Beanie Feldstein, who did such sterling work in Lady Bird and Booksmart, is Johanna Morrigan, a studious mid-90s schoolgirl whose heroes (the Brontë sisters, Freud, Maria von Trapp, Sylvia Plath) speak to her from pictures on her bedroom wall. (Mark Kermode)

The Mail on Sunday recommends visiting the Gaddings Dam in Yorkshire:

Stay: The Old Registry Guest House, a historic Haworth restaurant with rooms in Bronte country, B&B from £80 per night, theoldregistry.co.uk. (Joe Minihane)

Firspost (India) has an article about the writer Naiyer Masud:

Passionate about Urdu literature and painstakingly particular in his own use of the language, Masud felt that very few contemporary writers were paying attention to the intricacies of Urdu. Some of Masud’s favourite writers were Ghulam Abbas, Hayatullah Ansari, Intizar Husain and Emily Brontë. (Smita Sahay)

Cape and Castle review the latest Taylor Swift album, Folklore:

Invisible String
When I saw this title on the track list, the first thing my writer brains screamed was, "Jane Eyre" and my romantic soul immediately began having heart palpitations. While the song doesn't exactly line up with Jane Eyre, it's still romantic as hell. (Logan Angell)

Grimsby Live includes a Brontë question in a Big Night Quiz:

What were the pseudonyms originally used by the Brontë sisters? (Paige Freshwater)

Francis Bacon's fascination with fascism is discussed in The Observer:

[Diana] Watson, who was one of the first people to buy Bacon’s paintings, travelled extensively with her charismatic cousin and listened with attention as he explained his feeling for Göring, for the iconography of crucifixion and for Emily Brontë’s unsettling novel Wuthering Heights. (Vanessa Thorpe)

The Sunday Times lists recent graphic novels:

Glass Town: The Imaginary World of the Brontës (2020)
Isabel Greenberg’s historical fiction combines the fictional world the Brontës created to play in — the scheming Earl of Northangerland, his reforming wife Zenobia, put-upon daughter Mary Percy, dashing son Zamorna and adopted son Quashia – then sees Glass Town hurtle to war as the sisters head for school. (Stephen Armstrong)

iLeón (Spain) talks about the writer Helena Tur:

El "feroz paisaje" del Bierzo y su "fuerza telúrica" son el telón de fondo en el que se desarrolla Malasangre, la última novela de la escritora ibicenca Helena Tur Planells, que traslada al lector al lector a mediados del siglo XIX para vivir un relato en el que el suspense, el romance y la Historia se dan la mano para crear "una mezcla de géneros que respira" y que bebe de influencias como Mary Shelly, Charlotte Brontë, Daphne du Maurier o Henry James. (D. Álvarez) (Translation)

Infobae (Argentina) explores the importance of the fantastic genre in literature:

Charlotte Brontë publica su novela autobiográfica Jane Eyre en 1847 –bajo el seudónimo ambiguo de Currer Bell- y plantea casi panfletariamente la necesidad de la autonomía de la mujer frente a la inescapable y represiva dependencia de un hombre. Además de la defensa que Jane hace de su independencia, su libertad y la toma de decisión sobre los eventos de su vida, se niega a casarse con Rochester cuando se entera de que los ruidos extraños y los gritos nocturnos que de manera ominosa y sobrenatural pueblan el castillo no son sino el llanto y los gritos de la esposa del señor, Berta, la pobre loca recluida en el altillo de la que nunca conocemos su historia. Muchas veces se ha planteado la idea de Berta como el doppelganger de Jane, para así resaltar la mirada victoriana que se tenía de la mujer: o bien un ángel, o bien un demonio poseído. (Luego vendrá Jean Rhys en 1939 a reivindicar para siempre la figura de Berta y contarnos su historia de destierro y desolación en El ancho mar de los Sargazos).
Emily Brontë publica Cumbres Borrascosas en 1847 y aquí los condicionamientos de clase y el matrimonio arreglado convierten a sus protagonistas en ánimas en pena que se buscan eternamente en un páramo en el que nada crece ni nadie sobrevive. (Flavia Pittella) (Translation)

ABC (Spain) urges you to travel through books this coronasummer:

Siri Hustvedt: «Cumbres borrascosas», de Emily Brontë.
«Cumbres borrascosas», de Emily Brontë, es una novela famosa que ha sido convertida en películas tontas y románticas. Pero el libro es algo completamente distinto. Es urgente, hermoso, aterrador y complejo. No es una historia de amor convencional. Si realmente te abres a la novela, es posible que nunca te deje marchar. Yo vuelvo a ella una y otra vez y, cada vez que la leo, la percibo como algo nuevo. (Inés Martín Rodrigo) (Translation)

Maria Helleberg recommends reading Jane Eyre. In B.T. (Denmark):

Hvad vil du anbefale af læsning på en regnvejrsdag?
- Noget, som holder en indenfor uden fortrydelse. Charlotte Brontës "Jane Eyre" - og snyd ikke, for det er en historie fuld af twists and turns og plot-overraskelser. (Translation)

Jornali (Portugal) interviews the author Eduarda Chiote:

Diogo Vaz Pinto: É um conhecimento que não tem a ver com procurar servir-se do que descobre mas que simplesmente busca passar pelas coisas, e apreendê-las brevemente e seguir caminho...?
Não sei explicar. Tenho entusiasmos, mas acabo sempre por abandonar as coisas. Posso passar sete anos de volta de uma obra, minha ou de outro autor. E um dia deixa de me interessar. Lembro-me de ter andado durante anos e anos a ler “O Monte dos Vendavais”, fascinada com o Heathcliff... Interessava a circularidade, a construção do romance, mas interessava-me particularmente aquele personagem. (Translation)

La Nación (Argentina) interviews the actress Norma Aleandro:

-¿Qué es lo importante para usted cuando cuenta una historia?
-Bueno, en aquellos primeros días lo importante era, sin duda, el final feliz, pues yo no toleraba finales infelices para mis heroínas. Más adelante empecé a leer obras como Cumbres borrascosas, y había finales muy, muy infelices, de modo que cambié mis ideas por completo y opté por lo trágico, y me gustó. (Translation)

The Kerrville Daily Times shows a teacher and Brontëite. Finally, an alert on BBC Radio 3. On todah's Words and Music programme they will include a reading of the Emily Brontë poem Moonlight, Summer Moonlight. The Brontë Babe Blog publishes a review of Sharon Wright's The Mother of the Brontës.

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Plain Jayne

A new novel just published with plenty of references to Jane Eyre:

Plain Jayne
by Brea Brown
Wayzgoose Press (17 July 2020)
ISBN-13: 978-1938757815

Jayne Greer wasn’t the looker or the comedian in her family; she was the thinker and the writer. And ultimately, she was the survivor. When a deadly house fire claimed the lives of her parents and sisters just hours after her high school graduation, Jayne was left virtually alone in the world. Writing down her tale of grief began as therapy, but she came to hope the resulting book could lead into the publishing world [the publishing house's name is Thornfield] … and back into life. If only. Twelve years later, Jayne finds herself in Boston and completely out of her element. Her continual missteps have her ready to scrap her dream and run back to Indianapolis. Her ill-tempered editor wants Jayne to change her book. Who cares how attractive he is? Jayne has no intention of putting up with his arrogance. And even if she were willing (which she’s not), she can’t—she’s suffering the worst case of writer’s block ever. A writer’s retreat in Marblehead is her last hope, but it could cost her the last shred of control she has over her life.

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A string connecting Charlotte Brontë to Taylor Swift

According to The Oprah Magazine there are 'multiple nods to Jane Eyre' on Taylor Swift's new album Folklore.

In addition to completing an entire 16-song album, it seems that Taylor Swift has spent her time in quarantine curled up with books. Her eighth studio album, Folklore, is teeming with literary references that made the ears of this former English major perk up and say, Did Ms. Swift really just make a reference to Jane Eyre, or am I dreaming?
Reader, I wasn't dreaming. With one close listen, it was clear that for her latest release, Swift purposefully interspersed her signature personal style of storytelling lyrics with many references to classic novels. [...]
Take the song "Invisible String" as a prime example of why Folklore is a literature lover's delight. Wildly romantic, the song appears to describe Swift's life before she met her current partner, actor Joe Alwyn, and how an "invisible string" connected them over the years. She sings in the chorus: "Isn't it just so pretty to think / All along there was some / Invisible string tying you to me," and, later on: "One single thread of gold / Tied me to you."
Upon hearing Swift sing these lyrics, I was jolted by a flashback to senior year of high school, the first time I encountered Jane Eyre's most enduring declaration of love. I'd been waiting hundreds of pages for the older, grumpy Rochester to melt and declare his feelings for Jane the governess—and I utterly melted when he finally did. (I was 17, all right?)
“I have a strange feeling with regard to you: as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you. And if you were to leave I’m afraid that cord of communion would snap. And then I’ve a notion that I’d take to bleeding inwardly. As for you—you’d forget me," Rochester says, begging Jane to stay—even though he's about to marry another woman.
For the first time in the novel, Rochester characterizes the bond that ties him to Jane. Of course, Rochester's "string somewhere under [his] left ribs" is a bit more gory than Swift's "single thread of gold." But whether it's a Gothic novel or a pop song, the idea is the same: An inexplicable, near-fated connection that unites two people together.
Later on in that same scene, Rochester proposes to Jane—and she says yes, despite the fact that his track record with wives has been iffy, to say the least. His first wife, Bertha Mason, was locked in his mansion's attic for a decade (the definition of a red flag).
If we're to believe Swift spent quarantine underlining Jane Eyre, then the song "Mad Woman" may also allude to Bertha, Rochester's trapped wife—better known by her nickname, "the madwoman in the attic." The lyrics describe a phenomenon similar to the one that readers of Jane Eyre have oft debated: Was Bertha mad, or was she driven mad by her husband, by circumstances, and by by being a woman without agency? In the song, Swift sings, "Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy."
Essentially, if "Invisible String" is the song for Jane Eyre, then "Mad Woman" is Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, the humanizing novel told from Bertha's point-of-view. In "Mad Woman," Swift identifies the cycle of how perception can alter a person's sense of self—as if perception were, itself, a form of gaslighting. The chorus of "Mad Woman" goes: "No one likes a man woman / You made her like that." Then, once she's finally broken, she can be blamed, controlled, or hidden away in an attic: "And you'll poke that bear 'til her claws come out / And you find something to wrap your noose around." (Elena Nicolaou)

This reviewer from The Times is not a fan of Wuthering Heights:

“Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered,” wrote WH Auden, who had obviously never heard of Wuthering Heights. (John Self)

Oxford Mail lists 'The best films ever made in Oxfordshire', including

3. Jane Eyre, 2011
A mousy governess who softens the heart of her employer soon discovers that he's hiding a terrible secret.
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell
Oxfordshire location: Banbury
Jane Eyre was filmed in Derbyshire, Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire. The scenes in Oxford were the crew filmed ‘Lowood School’ is Broughton Castle near Banbury in Oxfordshire. (Nicole Baddeley)

Jane Eyre 2011 also crops up on ScreenRant's ranking of Jamie Bell's films according to Rotten Tomatoes.

5/10
Jane Eyre (2011) - 84%
A classic English period drama, Jane Eyre follows a young woman as she is employed by the gruff and elusive Mr. Rochester to work in his estate. The novel has been adapted many times, but this version from True Detective's Cary Joji Fukunaga has more of an edge to it. (Jack Cameron)

FarOut magazine tells about Kate Bush singing Wuthering Heights during her Tour of Life in 1979.

If there’s one thing you can always categorise Kate Bush as it has to be ‘unique’. The singer’s style is wholeheartedly idiosyncratic as she delves into the literary world for lyric inspiration, the ballet world for her performance and a whole other dimension for her vocals.
Perhaps one of the most pertinent showings of these attributes coming together is with Bush’s performance of ‘Wuthering Heights’ during her one and only tour, 1979’s Tour of Life. It’s a joy to behold.
The song is a remarkable feat for Bush. Released in 1978, the song was the first track to be written and performed by a female which went to number one in the charts. It’s an impressive breakthrough but it’s even more impressive when you remember the content of the song is steeped in literary history.
As anyone who has studied English Literature at school will be able to tell you, the track was undoubtedly inspired by the novel written by Emily Brontë of the same name. Written in 1847 and published under her pseudonym Ellis Bell, Brontë’s novel has become a cultural touchpoint across the world.
The novel may have been written in the Yorkshire moors but the song was written in a leafy South London suburb in March of ’77. As London was swollen with punk, positively pulsating with feverish anger, Kate Bush was creating a masterful pop record: “There was a full moon, the curtains were open and it came quite easily,” Bush told her fan club in 1979.
She told Record Mirror in 1978, “Great subject matter for a song. I loved writing it. It was a real challenge to precis the whole mood of a book into such a short piece of prose.”
Bush continued, “Also when I was a child I was always called Cathy not Kate and I just found myself able to relate to her as a character. It’s so important to put yourself in the role of the person in a song. There’s no half measures. When I sing that song I am Cathy. (Her face collapses back into smiles.) Gosh, I sound so intense. ‘Wuthering Heights’ is so important to me. It had to be the single. To me, it was the only one.”
This connection can most certainly be seen in the video below. The clip captures Bush performing the track at the Hammersmith Odeon as part of her one and only tour, the Tour of Life. While Bush would once again take residency in that corner of London back in 2014, these dates represented Bush in her prime and performing her songs like an entire theatrical production.
Rehearsal footage has shown how much Bush gave to her performance but if you ever needed confirmation then this physically draining performance of ‘Wuthering Heights’ is all you need to see. (Jack Whatley)

The clip is here.

The Daily Mail puts an online tool for colorising B&W pictures to the test and apparently

FEMAIL put the claim to the test on pictures of well-known historical [fi]gures
They included Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln and author Charlotte Brontë. 

Given that there are no extant pictures of Charlotte Brontë it's only natural that there's nothing more to that mention-no picture colorised or otherwise is shown below.

YourTango shares '50 Motivational Self-Respect Quotes To Remind You To Always Honor Yourself' including one from Jane Eyre.

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Poems of Anne Brontë for Mezzo-Soprano and Orchestra

Kevin Scott's Five Songs on Poems of Anne Brontë has been fully orchestrated and is available at the UCLA Contemporary Music Collection:

Five Songs on Poems of Anne Brontë for Mezzo-Soprano and Orchestra (1988/2018-20)
by Kevin Scott

For many years I sought to compose a large-scale song cycle for voice and orchestra in the same vein as Wagner's Wesendonck-Lieder, Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, Elgar's Sea Pictures and Strauss' Four Last Songs. Little did I realize that fate would play a major role in producing such a composition.
It was in the fall of 1988 that I entered a brief relationship with a young New York-based actress named Helen Damien Clift, whose free-spirited individuality captivated my mind and soul.
During this time I also wandered around many bookstores in Manhattan, and while visiting the now-defunct Colosseum Book Store on 57th Street and Broadway, I happened to come across a volume of poems by Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. While perusing through it, it was Anne's poems that fired my imagination. It was as if the texts leaped off the page while verbally saying in my mind “Set me! Set me!” I said I would, but...when? In many ways, Anne was, and for the most part continues to be, not only the least known of the three sisters, but also the most forward-looking of writers that emerged from the 19th century. As an author, her novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall brought forth a dark, Gothic power that for some surpasses those penned by her sisters.
Unfortunately, my union with Damien (as she preferred to be addressed) was very brief, resulting in a series of painful events that sapped my will in many ways. When a dinner meeting failed to transpire, I went home and left a message on her answering machine. The next morning I received a message from her stating her disappointment in me, and that she wished to discontinue our association. Suffice it to say, I was demoralized. It was then on a Sunday morning in late October of 1988 that I went to the volume of Brontë poems, read through them again and, for the next ten hours, set Anne's poem “Night”.
Immediately following that setting, I then composed “A Prayer” (also known as “My God! O, let me call Thee mine!”), and other poems followed soon after. Was this the cycle I sought to compose after all? When the dust from the fallout of my brief liaison with Damien cleared, I had set seven poems to music. At first I wanted to orchestrate all seven, but two of them did not seem to lend themselves to a large-scale format, but the other five did. I also decided to dedicate these songs to her.
In many ways, the musical inspiration for these songs came from one composer very close to my heart, namely Bernard Herrmann. It was Herrmann's score for the 1944 film adaptation of Charlotte's Jane Eyre, as well as his epic operatic setting of Emily's Wuthering Heights. Herrmann's dark and brooding music served as the wellspring for these songs. In a similar vein, so did two of Robert Schumann's major cycles, namely Dichterliebe and Frauenlieben und Leben, more in terms of word-painting and his evocative use of sonorities that he drew from the piano.
Once finished, I didn't waste time in showing these songs to several friends of mine, photocopying the rough manuscripts and not producing a neat, final copy. The results? Silence, save for one singer who felt that the voice was not used enough, and that its range was ill-suited for any mezzo to sing. Realizing that this cycle would never receive a performance, I soon moved on to other projects.
In 2012, I heard a new group of mezzos, hoping to interest them in this cycle once again. Reviewing the first version, I decided that it needed a complete overhaul, not to mention finally orchestrating them. Three of the songs were not only orchestrated, but I expanded them in many ways as well. Pleased at what I heard, I waited until someone said yes to these songs. The affirmative was there, but not the potential to have them performed. And it was in 2018 when my friend Janet Hopkins asked me if I knew any cycles by women composers, or songs where the texts were by female poets. At first I sent her another cycle, but when my inquiries about obtaining the rights to several of the texts went silent, I mentioned the Anne Bronte cycle again. Janet asked me to send them, and I did. Much to my chagrin, Janet liked what she saw, and I then said let me proof and finalize the set. Once I reviewed the two versions for voice and piano, not to mention the orchestral versions of three of the songs, did I realize that there were numerous differences on all levels. It was then that I decided to produce a third, and final, version, combining parts of the two versions while, in the case of the final poem “Retirement”, deconstruct and discard some parts and compose new sections in their place.
Finally, from the fall of 2019 to the spring of 2020, I finally decided to produce a final version for full orchestra based on the final revisions that are incorporated in the vocal score and the chamber ensemble version.
To analyze these songs would take some time to elucidate, but I leave it up to the listener and performer to decide if my settings of these five poems truly represent the personal pain she endured throughout her brief adult life, as well as her unshakable faith in God.

The pieces can listen here in a version for mezzo-soprano and chamber ensemble. Please, ignore the picture.

K. Scott · Five Songs on Poems of Anne Brontë (2020 Version for Mezzo-Soprano and Chamber Ensemble)

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Very Special Experience

Keighley News unveils how visiting the Brontë Parsonage Museum will be in the COVID-19 times:

Timed entry tickets and protective screens will be part of new measures to ensure the safety of visitors and staff amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rebecca Yorke, the museum’s Head of Communications and marketing, said: “The timed tickets will ensure that social distancing between different families or groups of visitors can be maintained.
“This will result in a very special experience, as visitors will effectively have different parts of the house to themselves as they move through the building.
“The route through the museum is already one way, but we will be making some changes to the layout of the shop to ensure that visitors have enough room to browse safely and at leisure.
“It’s very important to us that our staff and visitors feel safe, but we also want people to feel relaxed and able to enjoy the time they are in the museum, so we are taking time to ensure that everything is in place before we open our doors to the public.” (David Knights)

The Brontë-on-the-wall How To Build a Girl reference is still very much in the news:

It’s the 90s, and her only real friends are her poster wall of literary heroes, who come to life like Harry Potter portraits, and are played by celebrities from Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins as the Brontë sisters to Lily Allen as Liz Taylor. (Joseph Walsh in iNews)

Johanna Morrigan is a bored 16-year-old stuck in a crowded, working-class house — and when not talking to her Hogwarts-style wall of framed heroines (Lily Allen as Elizabeth Taylor, Mel & Sue as the Brontë Sisters) she dreams of becoming a writer. (Jamie East in The Sun)

Any lawyers in the room? Quarles & Brady LLP talks about the Paycheck Protection Program loans and its tax deductions (we have no idea what we're talking about) and presents a precedent with Brontë implications (like in a good courtroom movie):

The Notice also cited several other authorities in which expense deductions were disallowed because the taxpayer used tax-exempt income to pay for them:
In Christian v. United States an English Literature teacher travelled to England three times over three years in the 1950s to do original research in the area of her particular interest -- the Brontë sisters.[ Christian vs. United States, 201 F. Supp. 155 (E.D. La. 1962).] Her expenses were financed through a fellowship award from the American Association of University Women. The district court found that Code Section 265 disallowed deductions for this travel because the fellowship award was wholly exempt from taxes.

LitHub interviews the author Amanda Brainerd:

What was the first book you fell in love with?
Jane Eyre. I thought it was so romantic. Now my daughters tell me that Rochester threatened to rape Jane and that the book should not be considered a paragon of romance.

Spiked reviews the TV series Normal People. Spoiler alert: she hated it.

Normal People is currently being compared to the great 19th-century novels. The heroines of Eliot and Brontë are nothing like Rooney’s. Jane Eyre has guts. Marianne gives herself an eating disorder. We need authors to tell us truths in the blizzard of reality. Two hundred years on, you can read an Austen novel and find capital calibrated exactly. Everyone knows Darcy’s worth ten thousand a year. Rooney’s heroines think it’s immoral to earn more than 16 grand. (Emily Hill)

Gigwise reviews the latest album by Taylor Swift, Folklore:

In her first ever “fuck”-inclusive song ‘mad woman’, Taylor is telling the story of a Salem ‘witch’; Jane Eyre’s Bertha; herself. On 'betty', she presents a touching teenage love story. (Jessie Atkinson)

NME presents the new video of Cub Sport, Be Your Man:

The track’s stunning music video premiered yesterday (July 23) via PAPER Magazine. The video, directed and edited by Joe Agius, is “heavily indebted” to Kate Bush’s video for ‘Wuthering Heights’, and lead singer Tim Nelson’s look “partially influenced” by a 1969 performance Mick Jagger gave in Hyde Park while in a white dress. (Jackson Langford)

Kudika (Romania) recommends Wuthering Heights:

Această carte este una care te va pune pe gânduri și pe care îți vei dori să o recitești cu siguranță. Este vorba despre o poveste de dragoste dintre doi tineri, Heathcliff și Catherine, a căror soartă făcea ca totul să fie împotriva lor. Este o carte care te va face să te simți în pielea personajelor și care te va captiva încă din primele pagini. (Lorena Martin) (Translation)

Bookriot mentions the Brontës in an article about zodiac signs or something like that. Andalucía Información (in Spanish) quotes a student liking Wuthering Heights. La Silla Rota (in Spanish) mentions the Brontës as writers who wrote using pseudonyms. RadioTimes includes a Brontë question in a general knowledge quiz.

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