I am Cathy

The Eastern Daily Press publishes an article about Edward Bowles (1882-1967) who was the manager of the Empire Cinema in Great Yarmouth. This remarkable picture goes with the article:

Waiting for Heatcliffe (sic)? A fine way to promote Wuthering Heights at The Empire in the late 30s. (Derek James) 

DowntoEarth publishes an excerpt of The Hill of Enchantment: The Story of My Life as a Writer by Ruskin Bond:

The greatest of writers often worked in solitude or isolation, either from choice or because there was no choice: Dostoevsky from a prison cell; Thoreau from the wilderness of Walden; Steveman from a remote island in the Pacific; Victor Hugo from his exile on the island of Guernsey (where I saw his study and desk, still carefully preserved); Emily Brontë and her sisters from a lonely parsonage on the Yorkshire moors; William Blake from a humble country cottage.

Collider reviews the film Barbarian 2022 :

So, after all the trouble that Tess has caused the Mother, why does she get to live? The answer lies in that little book titled Jane Eyre that AJ briefly pulls out of Tess’ luggage earlier in the film. A huge subplot of the novel involves a woman, Bertha, held against her will in the attic of her husband’s home. She manages to wander the house at night and is mistaken as a ghost by Jane, the new object of her husband’s affection. This little Easter egg adds an extra layer to the film’s interrogation of the historical and social treatment of women. Frank, the former owner of the house, was able to keep dozens of women locked up right underneath the noses of his neighbors without so much as a second glance. Even after the neighborhood deteriorated, Frank’s legacy of torture remained. (Raquel Hollman and Emma Kiely)

Rachel Cooke publishes an eulogy of the recently deceased Shirley Conran in The Guardian:

I’m not the only one to feel this. Ask any woman of a certain age and sensibility to tell you their favourite books about friendship – I’ve done this a lot lately, because I’ve been editing an anthology on the subject – and nine times out of 10, they will say Jane Eyre and Lace, putting no paper between the two. The obituary writers can joke all they like about that scene with the sheikh and the goldfish, but the unavoidable truth is that she’s as much of a touchstone for some of us as Charlotte Brontë.

Let's put on our clickbait-y suit and announce: the terrible secret that the Archbishop of Canterbury doesn't want you to know. The Times publishes an interview with Rowan William with shocking revelations:

Blanca Schofield: First book I couldn’t finish

R.W.: I don’t think I got anywhere with Great Expectations as a child. Recently it’s Ulysses — I keep trying. I’ve never read Jane Eyre cover to cover.

The Telegraph India on writers and acute ailments. Death is technically an acute ailment, we suppose. A rather extreme one:

Death alone could stop creation. Keats could not escape tuberculosis, neither could Anne and Emily Brontë; Mozart died early possibly as a consequence of an childhood attack of rheumatic fever. 

This columnist of La Nación (Argentina) quotes Anne Brontë:

Todas las historias verídicas encierran una enseñanza, aunque en algunos casos cueste encontrar el tesoro y, aun al hallarlo, resulte tan minúsculo que ese fruto seco y marchito apenas compense el esfuerzo de romper la cáscara, advierte la novelista y poetisa británica Anne Brontë, quien previno sobre la utilidad o no de su novela. (Isabel Gamboa Barboza) (Translation)

Saarbrücker Zeitung (Germany) interviews Mithu Sanyal:

Mithu Sanyal liest am Montag in Saarbrücken aus ihrem Bestseller „Identitti“. Keine Karte für die ausverkaufte Lesung bekommen? Wir haben mit Sanyal vorab über den Irrwitz von Identitätswirren gesprochen, aber auch über obsessives Lesen und Emily Brontë. (Sophia Schülke) (Translation)

Espresso (Germany) makes a list of classics that if published today for the first time would have been controversial. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are both in there: 

„Jane Eyre“, Charlotte Brontë

In dem 1847 veröffentlichten Roman Jane Eyre werden gesellschaftliche Normen dargestellt, die uns heute sehr veraltet erscheinen. Bertha, die Frau einer der Hauptfiguren, wird für verrückt gehalten und weggesperrt, weil sie sich nicht so verhält, wie es sich für eine richtige viktorianische Frau gehört. Sie wird sogar als Vampir und bekleidete Hyäne beschrieben. Außerdem haben die Bedürfnisse der Männer Vorrang vor denen der Frauen - eine ganz andere Sichtweise als die, die wir im 21. Jahrhundert haben.

„Sturmhöhe“, Emily Brontë

Sturmhöhe gilt als einer der größten Romane, die je in englischer Sprache geschrieben wurden, und erzählt die Geschichte des ungleichen Liebespaares Catherine und Heathcliff. Heathcliff wird von seinem Adoptivbruder wie ein Diener behandelt und setzt später einen Kreislauf des Missbrauchs fort. Manchmal wird er auch körperlich gewalttätig. Damit dieses Werk für das moderne Empfinden geeignet ist, müsste ein Großteil der Gewalt und des Klassismus abgeschwächt werden. (Roxane Jérôme) (Translation)

The Lancashire Telegraph announces that The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever will return to Preston next July 21st. Diario Hoy (Argentina) publishes a short article about the Brontës who call them "little puppets with no master" and publishes a picture of some three women who are not the Brontës. Despite it all, the article is not so bad. The Deccan Herald quotes Emily Brontë saying “May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope,”. The thing is, she never wrote that, as far as we know.

Actualitté (France) announces that Quitter Hurlevent de Laurence Werner David is on the shortlist for the Prix François Billetdoux 2024.

Finally, a heart-wrenching story we read in The Saint Anselm Crier:

Students and faculty members of the English department gathered in the garden outside of Bradley House to plant Bleeding Heart flowers in honor of the recently deceased English major Caroline Rogers. Professor Meg Cronin organized the planting in coordination with the physical plant team. 

Professor Cronin taught Caroline in her class “The Brontës,” where their final exam was scheduled during the time of the planting. “Our final was scheduled for this afternoon, but after her death, I knew we needed to do something different,” Professor Cronin said. “We could not sit in that room without her and take a final exam.” Many of Caroline’s classmates attended the planting and worked with one another to place six Bleeding Heart flowers in the Bradley House garden. (...)

After students planted the flowers, they gathered around to read a poem by Emily Brontë called “No Coward Soul is Mine.” Students then stayed for a brief moment of silence for prayer and reflection in front of the memorial that they had just created. (Patrick McGann)