Accute Brontitis

National World expands on the news of the Brontë Birthplace receiving funding from the government:

Brontë Birthplace Ltd, a community benefit society, announced in October that they had had an offer accepted for the Grade II-listed terrace in the village of Thornton, near Bradford.

The group’s vision is to convert the Market Street cottage, built in 1802, into an education centre and cafe, with letting rooms that would generate revenue to sustain the visitor offering.

This week it was confirmed that they had been successful in their bid for £240,000 of government money from the Community Ownership Fund, which will go towards the refurbishment of the building to bring it into not-for-profit public ownership for the first time in its history. (...)

Among the committee members passionate about bringing the cottage into the public sphere are former BBC Look North presenter Christa Ackroyd, an architect, a Shell executive and the senior curator of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth.

Also involved in Steve Stanworth, an engineer who also co-ordinates the volunteer action group at the Bell Chapel, the remains of the church where the Reverend Brontë preached before it was replaced with a new building in the 1870s. (...)

They have now collected £117,000 in pledges from members of the public via a Crowdfunder, and this money will also go towards renovation costs.

The house needs extensive work, including rewiring, roof repairs and the restoration of the original sash windows.

The seven-year plan includes tendering the contract to run the cafe on a franchise basis and appointing a business manager to run the events space and guest accommodation. Links will be forged with the Haworth Parsonage Museum, with plans for a walking trail between the two attractions. (Grace Newton)

Hello! talks about the London house of the writer Jane Fallon and Ricky Gervais:

It won't surprise you that Jane has quite the bookshelf at home. Posing in front of the unit holding a bestseller award, the author's bookshelf is adorned with copies of her own books, as well as Daphne du Maurier's The Scapegoat and Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. (Katie Daly)

Which is true. But if you take a closer look at the picture, you will discover that that is far from the only book by or about the Brontës on her bookshelves.

The Yorkshire Vet on eyes in The Yorkshire Post:

I’ve always had an interest in eyes. They present perennial challenges clinically, with a multitude of potential problems. Every patient has two of them, so we are twice as likely to see an eye illness as a nose illness, for example. And they are fascinating to examine. The retina- the shiny bit at the back of the globe- is the site of the optic disc, the only bit of the neurological system which we can see with our own eyes. Charlotte Brontë was correct when she described the eye as the “interpreter of the soul”, although maybe she didn’t know that, with the right sort of ‘scope, you could get an actual glimpse of part of the brain. (Julian Norton)

Anonymous no more! in Kashmir Reader (India):

Across the pond in Victorian England, the pseudonymously cloaked Brontë sisters epitomise defiance against patriarchal bias in literature. Deemed unacceptable for a woman to author a book, they chose gender-neutral pseudonyms: Charlotte became Currer Bell, Emily took on Ellis Bell, and Anne opted for Acton Bell. After all, who could imagine that ‘Jane Eyre,’ a ground-breaking work of romantic and social critique, could emanate from the feathered quill of a ‘mere woman’ in 1847? Subsequently revealed, the Brontës shattered stereotypes and dealt a blow to the chauvinistic world of literature. (Mahoor Haya Shah)

Remember Boygenius's visit to the Parsonage last summer?  It seems that not everything was as smooth as it seemed according to The New York Times Magazine:

The boys see a band therapist. They have only ever had, as [Phoebe] Bridgers puts it, one “for-no-reason bitchy” day on the road. It was in England, while they were touring the Brontës’ house; perhaps, she says, it had to do with the repressed “ghost of Charlotte and Emily Brontë within us, the shared trauma.” Now, whenever the boys are spinning out, they call it Brontitis. Dacus declared, “We could never make music again, and boygenius is just the title of this friendship that we had.” (Lizzy Goodman)

Thoroughbred Racing reviews the film Kincsem (Bet on Revenge) 2017:

Stir in a few surefire plot shots from Wuthering Heights and The Count of Monte Cristo, add one fabulous racehorse, and … bingo! Out comes Bet on Revenge, a high-calorie feast of delightful excess. (Jay Hovdey)

La Repubblica talks about a new Italian translation of Jane Eyre, we don't know exactly which one.

Il classico di Charlotte Brontë esce ritradotto. E la sua protagonista mossa dalla voglia di riscatto continua a sfidare le convenzioni ottocentesche

«Lettore, lo sposai». Senza incertezze su chi ha convinto e condotto il futuro sposo verso la chiesetta, Nell’800 le ragazze all’altare venivano accompagnate dal genitore (che aveva scelto lo sposo). Sotto il velo, pudore e timidezza. annuncia il già celebrato matrimonio con Rochester ai domestici che in cucina ungono e rosolano i polli. Si allontana di qualche passo, non le sfuggono i commenti dalla serva: «Non sarà una bellezza ma non è una stupida e ha un buon carattere. E del resto agli occhi di Rochester è più che bella, tutti lo vedono».

Spoiler? Ma per carità, non stiamo leggendo un giallo – anche se in Jane Eyre troveremo mistero, esotismo, gelosia, rovesci di fortuna, tradimenti, eredità, istituzioni caritatevoli solo per finta. (Mariarosa Mancuso) (Translation)

Macitynet (Italy) recommends Wuthering Heights for the holidays:

Emily Brontë ha segnato alcune delle pagine della letteratura classica mondiale. Inutile girarci attorno, la sorella Brontë era un genio della scrittura. Questo classico della letteratura inglese, pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1847, racconta la storia di un amore distruttivo, quello di Heathcliff per la sorellastra Catherine, che si svolge su un’alta e ventosa collina dello Yorkshire, in una tenuta chiamata appunto “Cime tempestose”. A narrare la vicenda è il signor Lockwood, che quarant’anni più tardi si ritrova a passare la notte nella tenuta e che, incuriosito dalla presenza di strani personaggi, chiede spiegazioni all’anziana governante Nelly Dean.

Il racconto della donna comincia dal giorno in cui il signor Earnshaw, proprietario di “Cime tempestose”, porta a casa da una sua visita a Liverpool un orfano dalla pelle scura: Heathcliff. Il ragazzo si lega profondamente a Catherine, figlia del signor Earnshaw, ma le differenze sociali finiscono con il separarli, anche se la loro amicizia si è ormai trasformata in amore. Catherine sposa il ricco e gentile Edgar Linton, pur amando disperatamente Heathcliff, e quando questi viene a conoscenza del matrimonio, furibondo, giura vendetta. La sua passione è così violenta da indurlo alla distruzione degli Earnshaw e dei Linton. (Antonio Dini) (Translation)

Metroamericas (in Spanish) publishes a very badly written article on the Yorkshire moors. Iberoshows (Spain) highlights how the influencer (whatever...) Alejandra Rubio recommends Wuthering Heights in her Instagram.