Big fans of railway shares

Financial Times mentions the Brontës' adventures in investment:

Emily and Anne Brontë were big fans of railway shares and hurried to invest in the York and Midland line. Their sister Charlotte wasn’t so sure. “I have been most anxious for us to sell our shares ere it will be too late,” she wrote to a friend. “I cannot, however, persuade my sisters to regard the affair precisely from my point of view.”

Indeed, Charlotte Brontë was in the minority. The country was going mad for the railways. (Tim Harford)

Chicago Reader talks about the upcoming production at Lookingglass Theatre: a new adaptation of Villette:

lthough Charlotte Brontë’s Villette has long been overshadowed by Jane Eyre—its “more popular younger sister,” in Sara Gmitter’s words—the 1853 novel takes the spotlight at Lookingglass Theatre next month in a world premiere adaptation written by Gmitter and directed by Tracy Walsh.  (...)

“It’s her last novel, and I think it’s her best one,” said Gmitter, an artistic associate at Lookingglass, in a joint interview with Walsh, one of the theater’s ensemble members. According to Gmitter, the book is more psychologically complex and mature than Jane Eyre. “Villette is so much more realistic, and so much more grounded in real, lived human experiences that we can all relate to—that poignant feeling of unrequited love that Lucy feels and that sense of wanting to make a place for herself.” (...)

One of Gmitter’s priorities for the adaptation was conveying Lucy’s sense of humor, which surprised her when she first read the novel. “Lucy is so funny sometimes—the observations that she makes, the way that she calls nonsense nonsense, and the way that she’s so honest but in this wry way that is also so clever.”

Her complex inner life was another key quality to get across in the play. “Just because Lucy doesn’t have all the experiences that a typical romantic heroine might have, she still has all these feelings, and she still has so many thoughts,” Gmitter noted. (...)

Ultimately, Gmitter and Walsh want audience members to feel a personal connection with the resilient heroine of Villette and to be inspired by her remarkable story. “My hope, honestly, is that there are people who come out of the theater feeling the way I felt the very first time I read the book, when I was blown away by how much this, at the time, 150-year-old book was speaking so directly to me in a way that other books hadn’t,” Gmitter said. (Emily McClanathan)

The Sydney Morning Herald discusses retellings that favour downtrodden women in light of the forthcoming premiere of the musical & Juliet in Melbourne.

These retellings are at their best when they are interested in questioning all kinds of power structures, across gender, race, and class, just as Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea – a postcolonial and feminist prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre – did in 1966. (Nadia Bailey)

While Observer discusses cancel culture.

We all know what would happen. Without any trial or formal vetting of the charges, in the court of the so called “cancel culture,” Sir Laurence would be convicted and branded an irredeemable sexual scoundrel. Cries would go out to rescind his awards, to cease any showings of his films, he might even have his knighthood reneged. So, the question then becomes:

What happens to his incomparable body of work? Does his Hamlet, a performance without peer (pun intended) just vaporize and no longer exist? Do we stop watching Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, Love Among the Ruins, Marathon Man? Or, despite the accusations of tawdry behavior, do we ignore the digerati and stand firm, our admiration of his artistic achievement unshakeable?  In short:

Can we, or more importantly, should we, learn to separate the artist from the art? (William P. Hogue)

Le Vif (Belgium) features writer Mariana Enríquez and mentions her love for the Brontës.

Née en 1973 à Buenos Aires, biberonnée à Stephen King et Twin Peaks aussi bien qu’à Jane Eyre et aux concerts punk, Mariana Enríquez a tracé sa voie torse dans un pays qui côtoie toujours les fantômes de la dictature (1976-1983). (Translation)