A Crucial National Endeavour

Several news outlets comment on the postponement of the Honresfeld Library auction: InsideHook, El Periodista (Chile), Le Figaro (France), Deutschlandradio (Germany) or The Telegraph & Argus:

Rebecca Yorke, Interim Director of the Brontë Society, said: “The thought that rare and precious Brontë manuscripts were going to be sold off individually at auction was devastating, so this is wonderful news.

"We’re proud to be working on the fundraising campaign to bring these unique items home to Yorkshire. The sums involved are significant, but we will do all we can to save the ‘little books’, letters, first editions, Emily’s notebook and other items, so they can be enjoyed by Haworth residents and visitors for years to come.”

Charles Sebag-Montefiore, Trustee and Treasurer of FNL [Friends of National Libraries], said:  “FNL is thrilled to be able to take the lead in saving the Honresfield Library. FNL is working with a consortium of institutional funders and individual philanthropists to raise the substantial funds need to secure this extraordinary collection for the benefit of everyone in the UK. This is a crucial national endeavour to raise enough funds to keep this unique treasure trove in Britain. This is cultural levelling up, as the items will be spread across the UK from Yorkshire to Edinburgh, Oxford and London.” (Emma Clayton)

Michael Stewart presents his new book Walking the Invisible in The Telegraph & Argus:

If you are familiar with Emily Brontë’s only published novel, Wuthering Heights, you will know that quite early on in the book, we learn that one of the main characters, Heathcliff, was found on the streets of Liverpool by Mr Earnshaw. (...)

This new way of writing led to my current book, Walking the Invisible, which is to be published by HarperCollins on June 24. The book is a sort of hybrid memoir. Each chapter is about a landscape that has inspired the Brontës and their writing, and each chaptDaer was written on the hoof. I walked the talk. Walking and writing became intertwined, like a strand of DNA. The book starts in Thornton, where Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne were all born, then spreads out, going first to Haworth, where they wrote their poems and novels, reaching Liverpool, on the west coast, and Scarborough on the east, before returning to Thornton.

Along the way I visit Thorpe Green in the Vale of York, where Branwell was sacked for having an affair with his boss’s wife, a slaves’ graveyard in Dentdale, and the most likely place of inspiration for Charlotte’s best-known work, Jane Eyre.

The book also includes a re-creation of the Luddite attack on Cartwright’s mill, and more information about The Brontë Stones trail that I launched in 2018, which features a poem by Kate Bush, carved into a rock.

The book includes maps of some of these walks, together with directions. There’s also an audiobook, so you too can listen to my journey while immersing yourself in that very landscape.

The Times reviews the latest production of the Northern Ballet which includes fragments from Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre:

Contemporary Cuts, Northern’s evening of new and recent work, offers a better showcase. Prudames performs an eccentric scrabble in Little Monsters by Demis Volpi, while Dominique Larose makes a turbulent heroine in an extract from Cathy Marston’s Jane Eyre. The ensemble ducks and dives through Amaury Lebrun’s For an Instant, set to Purcell and von Biber: looking good, working hard. (David Jays)

The Sun recommends local spots for summer staycations:

Strolling through the pretty village of Hathersage feels much like stepping into a Charlotte Brontë novel.

It’s not surprising, as this is the village that inspired the location of her classic, Jane Eyre. (

Sophie Swietochowski)

The Saxon and hysterical women in literature: 

The irate “hysterical” in the literary canon has also been conjured up by female novelists and cleverly subverted for their own purposes. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (“The Yellow Wallpaper”) and Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre) suggest that this type of woman is not sick or “crazy” but simply enraged by a world that has her in chains. (magictr)

Tuttotek (Italy) reviews Villette: 

La scrittura, soprattutto in quelle circostanze, diventa un’esigenza, un modo per raccontarsi e dar vita alle proprie idee e alle proprie passioni. Non è difficile capire perché sia Jane Eyre che Villette siano scritti in prima persona, in quelle che sono autobiografie fittizie.

Un grande classico in grado di essere moderno anche più di cento anni dopo. Era lei un’avanguardista o semplicemente nulla è cambiato davvero? (Erika Fontanella) (Translation)

The film director José Luis Garci praises the actress and director Ida Lupino in ABC (Spain): 

Ida estuvo fantástica incorporando a Emily Brontë, la genial autora de 'Cumbres borrascosas', en 'Predilección', 1944, con estupenda realización de Curtis Bernhardt. (Translation)

Onedio (Turkey) recommends Jane Eyre 2011 for your first date with a boyfriend/girlfriend. The Irish Times publishes a quiz that includes Brontë questions.  A lukewarm review of Wuthering Heights on Reading, writing, living. Another Flash Fiction Jane Eyre entry by Luccia Gray. The Brontë Parsonage Blog posts an entry by Krista Ovist claiming that Charlotte Brontë maybe was a blurter. Íbis Literatura & Arte (in Portuguese) posts about Wuthering Heights.