Honeymooning in Ireland

The Bookseller reminds us of the gender gap between readers:

From the Brontë sisters to J K Rowling, it has long been understood that women publishing under a male pen name can do wonders for broadening the pool of your prospective readership. But this isn’t a fact resigned to literary history: research published in 2021 found women are still 65% more likely to read non-fiction by men than men are to read books by women. (Sophie Gallagher)

The Brontës' use of pseudonyms is mentioned in Público (Spain).

The Irish Times visits Kilkee, Co Clare:

Among its many famous visitors was the novelist Charlotte Brontë, who spent 10 days of her honeymoon here, from July 12th to July 22nd, in 1854. She and her Irish husband, Arthur Nichols, arrived to Kilkee by steamer boat from Limerick. They stayed at the West End Hotel, now a trio of privately-owned houses. In letters written from her honeymoon (the post office was then next door) Brontë wrote of Kilkee, “A glorious watering place, with the finest shore I ever saw. Completely girded with stupendous cliffs. It was most refreshing to sit on a rock and look out on the broad Atlantic boiling and foaming.”
I go in search of the former West End Hotel, where the author of Jane Eyre once spent 10 nights. The trio of houses, one set at a right angle to the others, all have sea views. There are two small plaques that commemorate Brontë, one put up by Kilkee Heritage, which faces the road, and the other around the corner, put up by the owners of West End House. That one reads: “Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855). Authoress. Honeymooned in this house, July 12th-22nd 1854. Protected structure No 411.” (...)
It’s surprising to me that so little is made of Brontë’s visit to Kilkee, which was more extended than [Che] Guevara’s, especially given how fascinated so many people are by anything related to Brontë. To my shame, although I am from Clare, I had not known she had once visited. (Rosita Boland)

Also in The Irish Times, a review of Lacuna by Fiona Snyckers:

There is, of course, a long tradition of authors offering alternative perspectives on pre-existing texts – revising or adjusting the lens through which we view a narrative. Jean Rhys, for example, in Wide Sargasso Sea, the feminist and postcolonial prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, illuminates the source material, but the novel also operates as a literary triumph in its own right. Lacuna is less convincing in this regard. To appreciate Snyckers’s work, it is important to know Coetzee’s – not least so that the reader can observe when Lacuna misrepresents what happens in the original novel. (Helen Cullen)

RAMzine talks about the latest album by Amy Birks, In Our Souls:

In Our Souls represents Birks’ second time around as both a producer and mixing engineer. She recalled the process as being “a time of solitude, of many a late night, exploring ideas and losing myself in the books and poetry of the Brontë’s and my own personal journey over the past few years, developing my ears, skills and confidence as a composer. (...)

“I did English literature at college,” Birks said in a recent issue of PROG magazine, “and I’ve always had a fascination with the Brontës, I thought, ‘Well, Kate Bush has done Wuthering Heights so I’m not going to touch the novels, but what about the poetry?’ So, I went through them and landed on three that I loved, one from each sister.”

The title track of the album was released as a single this February gone, and drew upon Charlotte Brontë’s poem ’In Our Souls’. ‘A Death Scene’ was inspired by a work by Emily Brontë, while ‘The Dream’ comes from Anne Brontë. (Paul H. Birch)

The Scarborough News announces that 

Bridlington Central Library’s Book Club will focus on area’s writers on Yorkshire Day

Yorkshire Day is held on Monday, August 1 and that’s the date of the next book group at Bridlington central library. (...)

The group also felt it would be interesting to record the place of birth for some Yorkshire authors and they listed people they knew of collectively :

Barry Hines (Hoyland), the Brontës (Thornton), Winifred Holtby (Rudston), Susan Hill (Scarborough), Alan Bennett (Leeds), Kate Atkinson (York), Joanne Harris (Barnsley), Louise Beech (Hull), Michael Palin (Sheffield) and Val Wood (Castleford). (Phil Hutchinson)

More Yorkshire Day in Keighley News:

So, how did Yorkshire Day begin and why do we celebrate it? I'll tell you; here in Yorkshire we're a particularly proud bunch of tykes with our glorious rolling countryside, stunning castles, historic abbeys and not forgetting our natural Brontë Wuthering Heights scenery – we sure have plenty to be smiling about up north! (Alistair Shand)

Camille Styles recommends books for women in their 30s:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Not to pit the Austen girls against the Brontë stans, but when it comes to revisiting brooding romances in your 30s, Jane Eyre and its rich look at a woman’s inner life was truly ahead of its time. (Caitlin Clark)

Bookriot explores the role of wills and testaments in literature:

Fairy tales (and history) are full of patriarchs who leave everything to their second, etc., wives, ignoring their first wives and their progeny (Henry VIII, I’m looking at you…), or expecting a sister/brother/step parent to care for a niephlet/stepchild with love, only to create a Cinderella or Jane Eyre-like protagonist instead. (Tika Viteri)

Resumen Latinoamericano (in Spanish) has a well-meaning article on the women writers of the Victorian era,... but Jane Austen was definitely not Victorian:

La historia nos ha enseñado que las letras suelen ser una herramienta de rebeldía en diferentes luchas; esto incluye la resistencia de las mujeres. Durante la época victoriana –es decir, en la transición del siglo XIX al XX–, autoras como Jane Austen y las hermanas Ana (sic), Emily y Charlotte Brontë usaron esta herramienta para demostrar que es posible –y necesario– romper con los roles que nos someten dentro y fuera de la ficción. (...)

Este rol nuevo y diferente se repite en la vida real en casos como los de las hermanas Brönte (sic), las cuales priorizaron su desarrollo intelectual sobre el matrimonio como una vía para alcanzar la estabilidad económica.
Quizá si no hubieran tomado esa decisión, Emily Brontë nunca hubiera escrito Cumbres Borrascosas ni hecho traducciones de Virgilio y Homero. O tal vez, ninguna de las tres hermanas hubiera publicado de manera autónoma un volumen de su poesía. (Diana Hernández Gómez) (Translation)

Well, it was just one volume containing poems of the three sisters.

Christina Hession is excited to participate in The Most Wuthering Heights Ever Day. We read on RTÉ:

Almost forty years since I first discovered her, I'm about to have the chance to perform as Kate Bush in public. To dance like her, and maybe even experience a tiny sense of what it’s like to be her. (...)
Wuthering Heights was the song that introduced me to Kate Bush; she wrote it about the novel by Emily Brontë which I studied in school. I hadn’t expected to enjoy the book. I didn’t like the look of that sulphurous guy on the book cover. Ruffly shirt and cape indeed. The notions.
*Reluctantly, I read the first line - 'I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with.' I read on, and was surprised to find myself swiftly hooked by this story of intense, star-crossed love.
Then again, I was a teenager.
Making cow eyes at a six-foot four-inch Heathcliff of my own, across a crowded classroom. I craved an all consuming passion like Heathcliff’s and Cathy’s. Imagine your fella being so demented by grief that he’d dig up your grave. Or ask your ghost to haunt him. That was so romantic....

La Nación (Argentina) talks about the writer Siri Hustvedt:

El desafío, entonces, es leer a Hustvedt con la misma intensidad creativa con que ella lee a las hermanas Brontë o analiza un cuadro de Louise Bourgeois; o con la misma sutileza con que contrapone El hombre mecánico de Hans Moravec al Manifiesto ciborg de Donna Haraway. (Ana María Vara) (Translation) 

Kurier (Austria) reviews Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King: 

Eine 14-Jährige liest „Jane Eyre“ von Charlotte Brontë und hat ähnlich um Selbstbestimmung zu kämpfen. Ein Buchhändler, von seiner Frau verlassen, liest nur noch über Gefühle – unfähig, sie auszuleben, damit ein Herz nicht schon wieder zerhackt wird ..im Garten. Zärtlich sind die Erzählungen, Humor verhindert Sentimentalitäten. (Peter Pisa) (Translation)

Humo (Belgium) (not a blog, or a self-edited publication but a  well-known Belgium weekly magazine) also attributes Persuasion to Jane Eyre. TV Guide announces that Wuthering Heights 1970 will be in the Amazon Prime catalog since August.