Anne Brontë's 202nd birthday

It's Anne Brontë's 202nd birthday today.

“Reading is my favourite occupation, when I have leisure for it and books to read.”

Born #OnThisDay in 1820, Anne Brontë. pic.twitter.com/wWqJ9KLI3j

— Brontë Parsonage (@BronteParsonage) January 17, 2022

Author Olivia Laing writes in The Guardian about John Berger's 1972 TV programme Ways of Seeing.

What Ways of Seeing really did was act as a vessel for carrying these electrifying new ideas into the mainstream. It is inevitably described as influential, but perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it arrived right on time, conveying a new attitude or approach to culture that would soon be dispersed globally, in post-colonial, queer and feminist studies, in Marxist readings of Jane Eyre, in media studies classes, and art school reading lists.

The Guardian also interviews several debut writers. Rosie Andrews, whose book The Leviathan is coming out in mid-February, is one of them.

Which writers have most influenced you?

My absolute favourite​s​ are Tolkien and Orwell. Tolkien was an early love. It’s the escapism that really attracted me [as a teenager]. With Orwell, on the other hand, it’s his lucidity. What he wanted to convey is exactly what comes across in his writing – there’s no ambiguity. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre was an important book for me​ as well​. That was my first experience in fiction of what I’d call psychological realism – the feeling of being inside the character’s head. Not all writers can do it. And I love CS Lewis. I love the magic. (Ashish Ghadiali)

A quiz on notable women in Arkansas Democrat Gazette asks who wrote Jane Eyre. Brontë Babe Blog celebrates Anne Brontë's birthday while AnneBrontë.org discusses 'The Brontës And Nineteenth Century Medicine'.