Miriam Battye on adapting Jane Eyre

The Telegraph and Argus reports on the conversation with playwright and screenwriter Miram Battye which was part of this past weekend's Brontë Women's Writing Festival.

A new BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre is in the works, promising to be the most faithful yet.

It is set to be a five-part series, written by playwright and screenwriter Miriam Battye, and produced by Working Title.

Ms Battye shared insights into the project during a talk at the Brontë School Rooms on September 27.

Ms Battye said: "It is going to be a limited series, but less limited than perhaps a film adaptation."

Each episode will run for an hour, allowing more time to explore the novel’s characters and themes.

Ms Battye said: "I give enough time to feel for every part of the book that you need to feel for and for the characters.

"Some of those are moments that I don't think have been adequately seen on screen."

She described the BBC as "incredibly supportive, warm collaborators" and confirmed that she has written two of the five planned chapters so far.

Ms Battye said: "The unique selling point of the upcoming drama was it was going to be one hundred percent faithful to the novel."

"I want the adaptation to include a huge amount of Charlotte Bronte's dialogue."

The writer revealed that she created the adaptation with actress Amy Lou Wood in mind.

Ms Battye said: "There really wasn't another vision in my head.

"Amy is an actress of kind of quite staggering talent."

Ms Battye reportedly approached her before anyone else was cast.

She said: "I went to the BBC and I said, Amy is the pitch.

"Essentially, it is me and Amy."

Ms Battye also addressed questions about whether there was any pressure to sexualise the adaptation, especially in light of Emerald Fennell’s recent version of Wuthering Heights.

Answering, "No, there’s no pressure.

"I believe that sexuality is a part of the book.

"I've never felt pressured to make anything overt that isn't already there."

The first episode will focus entirely on Jane’s childhood, which Ms Battye described as "almost a third of the book."

She said: "The fist episode is going to be about a ten-year-old girl.

"It's actually not going to be about Amy Lou Wood's performance of it."

She also intends to present a more nuanced view of Lowood School.

Ms Battye said: "Occasionally in adaptations it's seen as just a place of privation and sort of horror.

"I’ll debate this, but I also think I'm so interested in the joy at Lowood School.

"The idea that it's the first place a young girl discovers the idea of a home."

Ms Battye first read Jane Eyre at 15 [...] "There was a time when I was reading it every year so I’ve clocked in at least a good nine or ten readings." (Amelia Short)

The New York Times features the fact that Jane Eyre is now compulsory reading for ninth graders in China.

Nearly two centuries after “Jane Eyre” first defied the conventions of Victorian England, China is requiring a new generation of teenagers to read her story.

The British classic has long been popular in China and was already recommended reading for schoolchildren. But this fall, ninth-grade students across the country are being required to read the novel in full, according to Chinese state media. One report in an official newspaper held it up as an anti-materialistic love story that young people could learn from.

The book, in which the young orphan Jane Eyre works as a governess in the household of the wealthy but elusive Mr. Rochester, is widely celebrated in China for its themes of independence and equality between women and men.

A Chinese translation appeared as early as 1925, and there have since been numerous translations and adaptations for stage and screen. A British film adaptation was shown in Chinese theaters in 1979, just a few years after the end of the Cultural Revolution, as China was reopening to foreign culture.

Ping Zhu, a literature professor at the University of California, San Diego, who researches Chinese feminism and literature, said the novel is compatible with the Chinese government’s vision of women’s equality — one that can coexist with traditional gender roles and the heterosexual nuclear family. Its inclusion in the ninth grade textbook comes as China struggles with population decline and the government encourages young people to marry and have children, she said.

“‘Jane Eyre’ is about an independent woman, but she’s not too outrageous in her challenge of patriarchal power,” Ms. Zhu said. By the end of the novel, Jane has married Mr. Rochester and had a child. “All these things are what the Chinese government wants the younger generation to do,” Ms. Zhu said.

Published in Britain in 1847, “Jane Eyre” was striking for its depiction of a poor young woman insisting on her independence, dignity and equality in a society in which women — particularly married women — had severely limited legal and economic autonomy.

The novel has long been celebrated in China for its feminist themes, with state media often quoting Jane’s declaration to Mr. Rochester: “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart!” (Yan Zhuang and Li You) (Read more)

Arts Professional has an article by creative director of Bradford 2025 Shanaz Gulzar on ' the courage it takes to build a lasting cultural legacy'.

The first two-thirds of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights features a region and its people stripped of confidence. But by the end, the fluttering moths on the quiet moors serve as a beautiful allegory for regional reclamation, as City of Culture did for Bradford. The imagination, creativity and ability to shapeshift is still here: it created the opportunity for industry and now creates a new culture-led renaissance. [...]

Brontë Parsonage Museum is an interesting example of cultural infrastructure development: a tiny house at the top of Haworth village, known across the world. The Brontë Society had a long-held ambition for a presence closer to the heart of Haworth. Buoyed by their growing confidence as partners of Bradford 2025, delivering capital projects such as Changing Places toilets, access ramps and a partnership with Pa Gya! literary festival in Ghana, they bought three buildings in late 2025. This provides a unique and much needed additional space for their archives, exhibitions and team members – a visionary example of ensuring investment is used to enable a substantial future impact for the village and organisation.  [...]

Emily Brontë uses the metaphor of physical foundations, comparing an unyielding, eternal love for Heathcliff to “the eternal rocks beneath”. The businesses, the cultural sector, the communities, the audiences – all have fed into and created this solid foundation. It’s essential to build on that and recognise the transformation that they bought into. Wuthering Heights is a blueprint for regional renaissance; even when a place looks empty, dark or aggressively stereotyped by the outside world, the real investment is the one the community makes in itself.

The Yorkshire Post features garden designer Brian Roberts, who has won the Duchess of Rutland Cup at the 2026 Belvoir Castle Flower & Garden Show for a garden inspired by Wuthering Heights and Yorkshire moorland landscapes. 

The garden takes its inspiration from the exposed landscapes of the Yorkshire uplands: dry-stone walls, moorland planting and the way plants and wildlife respond to sometimes unforgiving conditions. [...]

Mr Roberts, founder of Patterned Earth, a garden and landscape design practice in Netherton, said: “I wanted to take a little piece of the landscape I know and love in Yorkshire to Belvoir.

"The moors, dry-stone walls and plants that somehow thrive in quite unforgiving conditions have always fascinated me.

“Weathering Heights was a playful nod to Wuthering Heights, of course, but the ‘weathering’ was important too.

"The garden was really about how landscapes, plants and wildlife respond and adapt to the conditions around them.” (Steve Teale)

A contributor to Her Campus suggests Cathy Earnshaw as one of '15 Niche Pop Culture Reference Halloween Costumes'.

Catherine Earnshaw From Wuthering Heights

If you want a costume that is actually pretty and makes you look like you stepped directly out of a dramatic period film, Catherine Earnshaw is calling your name. Think flowing dresses, romantic hair, moody makeup, and enough Victorian drama to make everyone wonder whether you’re about to run across a windswept field screaming someone’s name. It’s especially fun if your friend dresses as Heathcliff. Just remember: the more dramatic your photos are, the better. A normal smiling selfie simply will not do. (Danielle Okogho)

Spanish writer Espido Freire writes about women writers for Artículo 14 (Spain).

Este pasado cuando, como todos los años, visité con mis viajeras de las rutas literarias que organizo Haworth, la casa de las hermanas Brontë estaba llena. Coincidía que un festival de literatura femenina se celebraba a escasos metros, en las instalaciones en las que Charlotte Brontë hubiera deseado abrir una escuela. Por eso o por el día soleado, había visitantes que se detenían ante la mesa de la cocina, la cama en la que murió su hermano Branwell, sus recuerdos, como si los objetos conservaran todavía una parte de la energía de quienes los tocaron; algunas lectoras se conocían de memoria episodios de Jane Eyre o de Cumbres borrascosas, (como siempre, Anne es la gran ausente en esta casa) y personas que habían viajado hasta Yorkshire porque querían ver dónde había vivido aquellas mujeres, dónde habían subido aquellas escaleras custodiadas por un reloj de abuelo y dónde habían escrito allí algunos de los libros que formna parte del patrimonio sentimental de generaciones enteras.

La posteridad puede ser muy generosa con las escritoras, aunque no sea más que para compensar con lo cruel de sus vidas. Lo sabemos todas, Charlotte, Emily y Anne Brontë publicaron primero como Currer, Ellis y Acton Bell, nombres ambiguos en un mundo que, si bien acababa por aceptarlas, si eran exitosas, desconfiaban de una mujer con ambición literaria. Dos siglos después, pagamos una entrada para visitar su casa, examinamos sus diminutos manuscritos, reconstruimos sus horarios y costumbres, admiramos su coraje, escogemos una preferida y convertimos en santuario aquello que, mientras ellas vivían, no eran sino cuatro paredes opresivas. (Translation)

Televisual reports that the Music+Sound Awards have announced the finalists for 2026 and among them is Nina Hartstone, Supervising Sound Editor (Wuthering Heights, Saltburn).