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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-165865842016-07-23T13:06:23.957+02:00BrontëBlogThe life and works of the Brontë Sisters... todayCristinahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-13143788557288741062016-07-23T00:41:00.000+02:002016-07-23T00:42:34.411+02:00An Evening with Sally WainwrightAn alert from the Haworth Arts Festival for

An Evening with Sally Wainwright
Saturday 23 July 2016
7.00 for 7.30pm
West Lane Baptist Church
Haworth

We are delighted to be able to bring you An Evening with Sally Wainwright. Originally scheduled for the 18 June we have had to move the event to Saturday 23 July.
Sally will be in conversation with Barry Foster and we will be showing some of her work, hopefully including some footage from To Walk Invisible. Sally will be answering questions from the audience. If you have one in advance for Sally please let us know what it is on the form below.
Sally has recently had a very busy schedule filming To Walk Invisible on Main St, Penistone Hill and other locations. She is taking part in an up close and personal event that will explore her writing career. Sally grew up in Yorkshire and visits the area on a regular basis. She has helped to put Yorkshire on the map by filming locally for The Last Tango in Halifax, Unforgiven and Happy Valley, that won her the recent BAFTA awards for Best Writer and Best Television Drama Series.
M.http://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-44394077092080291322016-07-22T16:52:00.000+02:002016-07-23T00:38:28.546+02:00The dinner of the Brontë SocietyBBCOne's Celebrity Masterchef episode filmed in Haworth is one of the news items of the day:
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/The%20remaining%20contestants%20%E2%80%93%20including%20boxer%20Audley%20Harrison,%20comedian%20Tommy%20Cannon%20and%20Eastenders%20actor%20Sid%20Owen%20%E2%80%93%20will%20be%20seen%20cooking%20meals%20in%20marquees%20in%20the%20meadow%20behind%20the%20Bronte%20Parsonage%20Museum.%20%20They%20will%20then%20serve%20about%2070%20specially-invited%20guests%20in%20the%20Old%20School%20Rooms,%20on%20Church%20Street,%20where%20the%20Bronte%20sisters%20taught%20during%20the%201800s.%20%20Guests,%20who%20went%20along%20in%20period%20costume,%20included%20members%20of%20the%20Bronte%20Society,%20Bronte%20Parsonage%20Museum%20staff%20and%20their%20families,%20and%20some%20villagers.%20%20The%20contestants%20were%20seen%20marching%20up%20historic%20Main%20Street%20in%20the%20closing%20credits%20of%20last%20Thursday%E2%80%99s%20episode%20of%20Celebrity%20Masterchef.%20%20Among%20those%20tucking%20into%20food%20such%20as%20roast%20lamb%20with%20Wuthering%20veg,%20hake%20a%20la%20Rochester%20and%20Branwell%20Bronte%20pud%20were%20Bronte%20Parsonage%20Museum%20marketing%20officer%20Rebecca%20Yorke%20and%20her%20daughter%20Mala.%20%20Rebecca%20said%20the%20Bronte%20Society%20was%20delighted%20to%20be%20invited%20to%20host%20an%20episode%20of%20Celebrity%20Masterchef,%20but%20those%20involved%20were%20asked%20not%20to%20tell%20anyone%20how%20the%20filming%20went.%20%20Some%20staff%20were%20simply%20told%20in%20advance%20that%20a%20%E2%80%9CBBC%20cookery%20series%E2%80%9D%20was%20coming%20to%20the%20village.%20%20Rebecca%20said:%20%E2%80%9CWe%20didn%E2%80%99t%20know%20it%20was%20Celebrity%20Masterchef%20until%20they%20turned%20up.%20It%20was%20great%20fun%20hosting%20the%20programme.%20%20%E2%80%9CShine%20TV%20asked%20Bronte%20Society%20members,%20staff%20and%20other%20guests%20to%20be%20colourful.%20They%20asked%20if%20we%20wanted%20to%20dress%20up.%20%20%E2%80%9CThey%20used%20the%20meadow%20for%20the%20marquees%20and%20we%20had%20a%20meal%20in%20the%20Old%20School%20Rooms.%20%20%E2%80%9CAs%20part%20of%20the%20filming%20members%20of%20the%20Parsonage%20staff%20read%20extracts%20from%20Bronte%20novels%20like%20Jane%20Eyre.%20Then%20the%20contestants%20walked%20round%20the%20village.%E2%80%9D">The Telegraph & Argus:

The remaining contestants – including boxer Audley Harrison, comedian Tommy Cannon and Eastenders actor Sid Owen – will be seen cooking meals in marquees in the meadow behind the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
They will then serve about 70 specially-invited guests in the Old School Rooms, on Church Street, where the Brontë sisters taught during the 1800s.
Guests, who went along in period costume, included members of the Brontë Society, Brontë Parsonage Museum staff and their families, and some villagers.
The contestants were seen marching up historic Main Street in the closing credits of last Thursday's episode of Celebrity Masterchef.
Among those tucking into food such as roast lamb with Wuthering veg, hake a la Rochester and Branwell Brontë pud were Brontë Parsonage Museum marketing officer Rebecca Yorke and her daughter Mala.
Rebecca said the Brontë Society was delighted to be invited to host an episode of Celebrity Masterchef, but those involved were asked not to tell anyone how the filming went.
Some staff were simply told in advance that a "BBC cookery series" was coming to the village.
Rebecca said: "We didn't know it was Celebrity Masterchef until they turned up. It was great fun hosting the programme.
"Shine TV asked Brontë Society members, staff and other guests to be colourful. They asked if we wanted to dress up.
"They used the meadow for the marquees and we had a meal in the Old School Rooms.
"As part of the filming members of the Parsonage staff read extracts from Brontë novels like Jane Eyre. Then the contestants walked round the village." (David Knights)
On the Haworth Village Facebook page you can find more behind-the-scenes pictures and videos.
More comments can be found on Press Association (with a selection of tweets from viewers), Daily Express, OK!, Coventry Telegraph, AnneBronte.org ...

Still in Haworth, The Telegraph & Argus remembers the joint initiative between the Brontë Parsonage and KWVR:

The Brontë Parsonage Museum and Keighley and Worth Valley Railway have launched a joint ticket initiative.
Visitors to Haworth can travel on a vintage bus between the two attractions as well as getting cut-price tickets.
Passengers buying an Adult Day Rover at any station on the Worth Valley line will be given a voucher admitting adults to Brontë Parsonage Museum for the reduced price of £5.50.
Museum visitors will receive a similar voucher entitling them to a Day Rover railway ticket for £14.
The vouchers are valid for one month from the date of issue. Vintage buses will operate daily until September 4 to help visitors travel between the two attractions
Brontë Society marketing manager, Rebecca Yorke, said: 'We recognise there is much to see and do in Haworth.
"By working in partnership with a fellow attraction, we hope visitors will be persuaded to return and spend more time in the area, benefitting local shops and businesses.
"We also hope that local families looking for things to do in the summer holidays will take advantage of this special offer and explore the special places on their doorstep."
Railway marketing officer, Sarah Howsen, said: "We have established a successful working relationship with the Brontë Parsonage Museum and look forward to developing our partnership further, with a regular series of special events and offers." (David Knights)
Finally, in the same newspaper a brief account of the BPM events this month:

The Parsonage's first ever Poetry Festival took place early this month, and was a great success, despite a rather wet and windy start.
Gazebos were taking flight on Saturday morning, but were eventually tethered in place, and the sun finally appeared to make for a beautiful summer's weekend.
Poets and visitors mingled in the Parsonage garden and various venues dotted around Haworth, enjoying stumbling upon a real mish-mash of poetic styles, whilst some chose to hone their skills in poetry workshops at the museum.
We hope to repeat the festival next year and build on its success.
Another first for the museum this month was Tracy Chevalier's Twitter tour of our Charlotte Great and Small exhibition, which was a brilliant way of letting far-flung devotees of the Brontës see what's going on in the museum this year.
Who ever thought the Brontës would be trending on Twitter! (David Knights)
The Parsonage is not for sale, but it seems that old rectories are hot on the properties market. The Times talks about it and mentions the house of the Brontës in Haworth.

Also in The Times, Charlotte Tuxworth recommends several podcasts for this summer, including Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time episode devoted to Jane Eyre:

The story of Jane Eyre is one of the best-known in English fiction. Jane is the orphan who survives a miserable early life, first with her aunt at Gateshead Hall and then at Lowood School. She leaves the school for Thornfield Hall, to become governess to the French ward of Mr Rochester. She and Rochester fall in love but, at their wedding, it is revealed he is married already and his wife, insane, is kept in Thornfield's attic. When Jane Eyre was published in 1847, it was a great success and brought fame to Charlotte Bronte. Combined with Gothic mystery and horror, the book explores many themes, including the treatment of children, relations between men and women, religious faith and hypocrisy, individuality, morality, equality and the nature of true love.
With
Dinah Birch
Professor of English Literature and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Liverpool
Karen O'Brien
Vice Principal and Professor of English Literature at King's College London
Sara Lyons
Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Kent
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
The New York Times interviews the author Megan Abbott:

You're organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
Emily Brontë, Freud and Flannery O'Connor. That's a tough, tough crew. I'm not getting away with anything at that table. There will definitely need to be martinis.
The current turbulent political situation in Kashmir finds a Brontë echo on Greater Kashmir:

"Sweet love of youth, forgive if I forget thee, while the world's tide is bearing me along; sterner desires and darker hopes beset me, Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!" I think of these verses from Emily Brontë as I sit in my balcony in the picturesque view of Srinagar, pondering over the tragic situation out here with a very heavy heart. (Gitanjoli Dasgupta)
Margaret Hickey finds in the Irish Examiner a curious thing in common between Angela Merkel, Theresa May, Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë:

Merkel and May are the daughters of church ministers and while parsonages are not usually thought of as places of exceptional privilege, they are places that value learning. Jane Austin(sic) and the Brontës had broken the literary glass ceiling in their fathers' parsonages in previous centuries.
BBC Radio 4 lists some writers that have spent some time in prison. Including Jean Rhys:

By the 1960s, Jean Rhys was thought by many to be dead. After publishing a few minor works in the 1930s, she seemed to vanish completely. But she returned spectacularly with her prequel and reinterpretation of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre – Wide Sargasso Sea, released in 1966. But despite her reclusive nature, Rhys had quite a lively life prior to her literary successes. As well as stints as a chorus girl, nude model, demi-mondaine and possibly even a prostitute, she became the mistress of a wealthy stockbroker and then the wife of a Belgian conman and adventurer. In 1949 she found herself in Holloway Prison, charged with assault. She claimed a man had been rude to her, so she slapped him. After five days inside, and a psychiatric evaluation, she was sent back to the magistrates who ordered her to refrain from violent activities in the future.
Khaleej Times interviews the author Konstantina Sakellariou:

 What are the books that shaped your outlook and changed your life?
That question is practically impossible to answer in an accurate and holistic way. I have read numerous books of various genres, and they have all contributed to the person I am today. I particularly love novels that focus on the importance of the human story- emotions, reactions, passions, weaknesses and personal victories over ego and pain are fascinating to me. I love classics from Homer as well as the works of the Brontë sisters, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Henrik Ibsen, Virginia Woolf, Naguib Mahfouz, Khalil Gibran, Nikos Kazantzakis and Anton Chekhov, just to name a few. More modern writers would be Jose Saramago, Haruki Murakami, Kazuo Ishiguro, Amin Maalouf and Orhan Pamuk.
Bristol 24/7 explores Dartmoor:

This was my first moor. You never forget your first moor.
Sure, I had heard of moors before – as an American with a healthy interest in British literature, I had read Jane Eyre and Jamaica Inn and knew the moors were supposed to be sinister wastelands where people get sucked into bogs and ghostly voices cry out through the ever-whipping wind. Needless to say, I was very excited. (Alison Maney)
Il Manifesto (Italy) talks about the journalist and writer Grazia Livi:

Senza frenesie, distillando momenti d'essere in una svolta, nella meditazione di un rovesciamento, le strade di Londra, dove era già stata, ricongiungono al centro di sé, rammendando di imprevisto il già noto. Se colloquiare con una città significa perimetrarne le intenzioni – insieme alle proprie – in una peregrinazione audace di riconnotazione, in cui avere fiducia nell'incontro con l'altro, è nella vita di Livi che gli incontri sono stati tanti. Da Le Corbusier a Rubinstein, o anche Anna Banti – decisiva nella sua presa di coscienza letteraria. Tra quelli immaginari certamente c'è Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Carla Lonzi e poi ancora Rilke, Shelley e altri. (Alessandra Pigliaru) (Translation)
TSA-Tout sour l'Algérie (in French) reviews the novel La porte de la mer by Youcef Zirem:

Les épreuves subies par Amina défilent ainsi, de l'extérieur, un paradoxe pour des situations si intimes et des souffrances intériorisées, énoncées dans un style plus proche du roman Harlequin que d'Ahlem Mosteghanemi, d'Emilie Brontë, ou d'autres championnes de la condition féminine. (Nadia Ghanem) (Translation)
Elizabeth Hein interviews Luccia Gray who talks about her Eyre Hall trilogy: Magic, Ink and Stardust reviews Wuthering Heights.M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-19372730575963497552016-07-22T00:30:00.000+02:002016-07-22T00:30:03.146+02:00Jane Eyre in Long Beach
And today, July 22, the Long Beach Theatre Shakespeare Company presents a production of the Orson Welles one-hour adaptation radio play adaptation of Jane Eyre:

Jane Eyre
Adapted by Orson Welles
July 22, 23, 29, 30 8.00 PM
July 24 2.00 PM
Richard Goad Theatre
4250 Atlantic Ave, Long Beach, CA 90807

Charlotte Brontë's " unofficial autobiography" depicts the struggle between reason and passion, in a dark and mysterious atmosphere. The frightening, yet compelling, brooding, and romantic figure of Rochester is unforgettable as he lures the inexperienced, sensible, yet blooming Jane into a dreadful family secret.

LBSC presents this story in an hour-long radio play, adapted by Orson Welles, with original music by Edmund Velasco, and live sound effects produced by the cast!
M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-44494522745266633092016-07-21T07:30:00.000+02:002016-07-22T14:11:58.188+02:00Signed by 1,457 people #saveredhouse

Both The Guardian, the Yorkshire Post and BBC News report the news that the copy of Robert Southey's edition of The Remains of Henry Kirke White belonging to Maria Branwell, annotated by her and other members of the family (and containing also a poem and a piece of prose by Charlotte Brontë) has finally arrived in the Parsonage. We don't know why this story resurfaces now because it is basically the same as we already reported in December 2015. Even with the same comments by Brontë experts like Juliet Barker and Ann Dinsdale.
EDIT: Also on Halifax Courier, The Telegraph & Argus.

You know that we at BrontëBlog are running a campaign to save the Red House Museum. Fortunately, we are not alone and The Friends of Red House are running a local campaign and an e-petition on the Kirklees Council website. The Spenborough Guardian informs:

A petition to save Red House Museum in Gomersal has reached more than 1,000 signatures in a week.
Under Kirklees Council budget plans the historic home faces the axe.
Friends of Red House member Ruth Yates said a petition which was created online and handed out in shops last week has been signed by 1,457 people.
"In a week that's really good going. We really wanted to say a big thank you to the people of Gomersal," she said.
"We hope that it will help to keep Red House open." (...)
The petition reads: "Red House is the only example open to the public of a yeoman clothier's family house and workplace, complete with outbuildings and historic, award-winning gardens.
"It was owned and run by the Taylor family for 400 years, who made a substantial contribution to the area's textile industry.
"The family even ran their own bank from Red House for a little while.
"Charlotte Brontë was a close friend of Mary Taylor, and featured the family as the Yorkes, and Red House as 'Briarmains' in her novel 'Shirley. "Considering these close links it is very sad that Kirklees Council has made this announcement when we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charlotte's birth."
People can sign the petition online until July 21 at www.kirklees.gov.uk/petitionsPublic consultation over the plans runs until Sunday. Visit www.kirkleestalk.org/index.php/get-involved/lets-talk-about-museums/ (Jo Henwood)
The Chester Chronicle interviews the Marketing Cheshire director of tourism, Alison Duckworth:

What is your favourite book? I love to read and enjoy a variety of books, but if I was to choose I would select two as they had a profound effect on me – Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.  (Jo Henwood)
A couple of Brontë heroes in the What's on TV list of TV historical hunks:

Tom Hardy – Wuthering HeightsFrom East End gangster to one of romantic literature's sexiest brutes, a clean-shaven, Tom Hardy sizzled as Heathcliff in ITV's 2009 adaptation of Emily Brontë's novel…
Toby Stephens – Jane EyreDame Maggie Smith's son Toby Stephens played Mr Rochester, Jane Eyre's mysterious, brooding object of lust in the BBC's 2006 adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's classic novel… He falls on desperate times but we, like Jane (Ruth Wilson), herself would overlook his bigamy for a bit of thingummy! (Mick Flood)
The Millions publishes part of the preface of the recent book Exquisite Masoquism by Claire Jarvis (which we already presented some weeks ago):

To understand the elements of the masochistic scene, consider one of the strangest moments in a very strange novel, when Wuthering Heights's observant servant, Nelly Dean, comes upon Heathcliff, staring, it seems, at Catherine the Elder's ghost:

Now, I perceived he was not looking at the wall; for when I regarded him alone, it seemed exactly that he gazed at something within two yards' distance. And whatever it was, it communicated, apparently, both pleasure and pain in exquisite extremes: at least the anguished, yet raptured, expression of his countenance suggested that idea. The fancied object was not fixed, either: his eyes pursued it with unwearied diligence, and, even in speaking to me, were never weaned away. I vainly reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food: if he stirred to touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it, and remained on the table, forgetful of their aim.
Jettison for a moment the question at the heart of this brief passage (does Heathcliff see the dead woman's ghost?) and focus instead on the physical scene it describes. Nelly perceives (or thinks she perceives) Heathcliff's horror written on his face. But Nelly sees something other than horror there: rapture. Rapture and anguish, in equal portions, freeze Heathcliff in his attitude, staring at someone who may or may not be there, chilling his body so intensely that even a grasp for food fails. "Pleasure and pain in exquisite extremes" — here, the author describes a man moving — his hands "clench," rigid, before they reach food — toward a starving death. Brontë's inclusion of "exquisite" imagines there might be some kind of aesthetic satisfaction — or consummation — in Heathcliff's experience. In all of its meanings, "exquisite" develops precision and cultivation so extremely that they can tip from pleasure into pain, from beauty into fastidiousness into horror. (Read more)
GQ runs quite a weird story:

A school in Sydney, Australia has banned clapping, citing "members of our school community who are sensitive to noise." (Read: teachers.) This is some Jane Eyre bullshit, I tell you what. (Lauren Larson)
Bookriot places Wuthering Heights at the top of a list of books for ... fans of the Kanye/Taylor feud:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë:
Let's be real: Wuthering Heights is, without a question, the ORIGINAL train wreck what-are-they-doing-I-can't-look-away book.
Often misrepresented as a romance,Wuthering Heights follows the relationship of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, who drag everybody they know into a spiral of madness around their relationship. There's multiple instances of bullying, humiliation, abuse, death, and ghost sightings, because if Emily Brontë was only going to write one novel before her death, then damn, it might as well have everything.
If you like the drama of the Taylor / Kanye feud and how it manages to drag everybody into it – and I mean everybody – then you'll love Wuthering Heights. (Nicole Brinkley)
Freim (México) thinks that Wuthering Heights is a short (?) novel that you should read:

Este libro fue escrito en 1847 por Emily Brontë aka Ellis Bell y es todo un rush de emociones lo que podrás encontrar a través de sus páginas, desde amor, locura y vida, hasta sus extremos como la muerte, el odio y la venganza, en la que la dependencia entre dos personas puede llegar a convertirse en una tragedia. (Karen ZLW) (Translation)
La Opinión (in Spanish) interviews the author Steve Alten, clearly not a Brontëite:

MEG no fue escrito para adolescentes, es un libro para personas adultas, pero el público joven ADORA las historias de tiburones gigantes… A mí mismo me fascinaban cuando iba al instituto. Es puro entretenimiento, no como Romeo y Julieta o Cumbres Borrascosas (Zzzzzzzzzzzzz….) (Javier Peinado) (Translation)
Red Line (Greece) talks about laïcité and quotes Wuthering Heights:

Στην πραγματικότητα, μόνο η laïcité μας βοηθά να καταλάβουμε ότι οι ανθρώπινες κοινωνίες θα μπορούσαν ανά πάσα στιγμή να μετατραπούν σε πραγματική κόλαση αν δεν βελτιωθούν (όπως έμμεσα υπαινίσσεται η Emily Brontë στο μυθιστόρημα του Wuthering Heights), πράγμα που μας ωθεί στην πολιτική δράση με στόχο την αλλαγή της υπάρχουσας κοινωνικής θέσμισης, και όχι στην ανάθεση μιας υπόσχεσης για κάποια μεταθανάτια ζωή. (Μιχάλης Θεοδοσιάδης) (Translation)
M.http://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-3505293081397381832016-07-21T00:59:00.000+02:002016-07-21T00:59:09.788+02:00Wuthering Abridged Heights in Cincinnati

A bit of Wuthering Heights opening tomorrow, July 22 in Cincinnati:

The Cincinnati Shakespeare Company presents
All the Great Books (Abridged)
by Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor
July 22- August 13, 2016
Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. & Sundays at 2 p.m.
Final Saturday at 2 p.m.

719 Race Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202
Cincinnati, OH

All The Great Books (abridged) is an uproarious roller-coaster ride through a comically compact compilation of the world's greatest literature! Watch as 3 actors cover over 90 books in 90 minutes from 1984 through Wuthering Heights. Everyone from the illiterate to the literati will love this refresher of literature's greatest hits including Huckleberry Finn, The Odyssey, Green Eggs and Ham, Pride and Prejudice, The Bible, Harry Potter…and more! Sold-out audiences who raved about our "abridged" versions of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, The Complete History of America and Every Christmas Story Ever Told, surely will flip as we present All the Great Books (abridged)!
Directed by CSC Producing Artistic Associate, Jeremy Dubin
With Miranda McGee, Justin McCombs and Geoffrey Barnes.

M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-75426065611689404032016-07-20T15:20:00.000+02:002016-07-20T15:20:11.517+02:00The stairs and the wrong BrontësKeighley News reports the award received by the creators of the new musical Wasted:

A new rock musical about the Brontë siblings was this week honoured in the Kevin Spacey Foundation Artists of Choice awards.
Wasted, which will receive a 'work in progress'performance at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds in October, was named UK Musical Theatre winner.
Wasted is described as the remarkable true story of four young people with huge passions and amazing dreams.
A spokesman said: "Misfit kids from a Yorkshire village yearn to be heard, find fame beyond their wildest hopes and die tragically young.
"It is full of energy, emotion and humour, with songs inspired by their shocking, controversial genius. Wasted is the Brontës as you have never seen them before." (David Knights)
The Bookseller republishes the news of the acquisition by the Brontë Society of the copy of Robert Southey's The Remains of Henry Kirke White that belonged to Mrs Maria Brontë, including annotations by the Brontë children and unpublished material by Charlotte Brontë. (check this December post) and adds:

Members of the Brontë Society were allowed to view the book at their annual summer festival held last month in June. It is currently available to view as part of the "Treasures Tours" organised by the museum and is due to go on public display at the Parsonage in 2017. (Katherine Cowdrey)
Daily O tries to anwer why Elizabeth Bennet remains Jane Austen's most powerful heroine. Regrettably the Brontë reference comes with a blunder:

Even today, Elizabeth Bennet with her wit, humour, intelligence and defiance, strikes a deep chord with modern women like myself.
Yes, I now prefer trials of a troubled yet self-sustaining individual like Emily Brontë's (!!!!) Jane Eyre over her.
But Ms Bennet was also unconventional in her own way, portrayed as more conservative and traditional than Ms Eyre but still different enough in 1813 when the book was first published and she was formally introduced to the world. (Twisha Chandra)
Fortunately(?), the blunder is compensated but yet another one, this time in Female First:

The English countryside is the heartland of romantic fiction. Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennet found love surrounded by the beauty of Hertfordshire in Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Brontë's (!!!) Catherine Earnshaw was swept off her feet by Heathcliff on the Yorkshire Moors in Wuthering Heights and even Gilly Cooper set all her steamy stories in the Cotswolds.
Science Daily highlights a recent article on reading fiction and mental health:

It's assumed that reading fiction is good for your mental health, but evidence linking Jane Eyre or Anna Karenina to a broadened mind has been mostly anecdotal. In a Review published on July 19 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, a psychologist-novelist delves into that issue, arguing that reading or watching narratives may encourage empathy. By exploring the inner lives of characters on the page, readers can form ideas about others' emotions, motives, and ideas, off the page.
The actual paper can be read here: Oatley, K. Fiction: Simulation of Social Worlds. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2016.06.002

We cannot but love the awesome DIY painted stairs as published on Metro:

Propping up the bottom of the pile sit three weighty classics – Wuthering Heights, Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, and Moby Dick. Because you need something to anchor that towering stack. (Alison Lynch)
Picture: Pippa Branham/Facebook

Broadway World publishes a minibio of the playwright Brynne Frauenhoffer who is developing a Jane Eyre adaptation:

Brynne Frauenhoffer is a recent graduate from the University of Oklahoma, now living in Chicago. Her play Synchronicity will soon be workshopped at Salt Lake Acting Company; she is currently developing an adaptation of Jane Eyre for Adapt Theatre Company, and will have a play in the Snapshots 10-Minute Play Festival at 20% Theatre Company Chicago.
The Washingtonian reviews the novel The Hopefuls by Jennifer Close:

As Tolstoy's old adage proves, unhappiness is the bedrock of much of great literature. Without discontent we wouldn't have his Anna Karenina, or Jane Eyre, or Lily Bart, or Clarissa Dalloway, or Isabel Archer—miserable, fascinating women. A joyful protagonist doesn't hold much interest. But those women, along with thousands of other literary mopes, are impressive feats because they explore and study their pain, seeking to alleviate it or even to compound it. Their thoughts spin barbed circles around their fates. They wrestle with the choices that will define their psyches. They grow. Beth does not. (Hillary Kelly)
Khmer Times (Cambodia) reviews Wuthering Heights:

I totally enjoyed this gripping book―if skipping work and meals just to finish it count as "enjoying." I would recommend this book to anyone who craves a solo vacation yet can't afford to get away. The lonely moors, and Heathcliff's strange life story, will make a perfect trip for you. (Seak Sokcheng)
The Express Tribune (Pakistan) reports the re-opening of the British Council library in Karachi:

The library also houses four meeting rooms, where 20 people can gather for group-based discussions. The rooms are named after famous personalities such as poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, artist Sadequain and writers Roald Dahl and the Brontë sisters. (Saadia Qamar)
A Brontë reference on Beaut.ie:

Part of me wishes I could walk around with my hand fan and just be done with it, but no matter how hard I try it's just not the same, and I'm not sure how convinced people would be if I said I was auditioning for a part in Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. (Sarah Jane)
Der Freitag (in German) has a funny article with an appearance of the period drama (Brontë) cough:

Downton Abbey – das Hörspiel wäre genial für lange Fahrten mit dem Landrover durch die Moore der Maul- und Klauenseuche, der hustenden Brontë-Schwestern wie der rosa Trainingsanzüge tragenden Vicky Pollards (ein dralles Mädchen aus Little Britain,das stets "Aber ja, aber nein, aber ja, aber nein" sagt).
Eastern Daily Press announces that the National Theatre's Jane Eyre 2017 tour will come to the Norwich Theatre Royal in July 2017; The Library Ladies review Jane Steele.M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-76779256248624244572016-07-20T01:21:00.000+02:002016-07-20T01:21:41.095+02:00Literary Lions at Gawthorpe HallThe Brontë bicentenary is also being celebrated at Gawthorpe Hall, Padiham, Burnley:

Literary Lions: Charlotte Brontë at Gawthorpe Hall exhibition
Sat 18 Jun to Sun 30 Oct 2016

The display showcases the effect that Charlotte's friendships, especially with Elizabeth Gaskell, and her visits to Gawthorpe Hall staying with the Kay-Shuttleworth family had on her literary legacy.
The social importance assigned to Charlotte and to Elizabeth Gaskell, by Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, will also be illustrated.
Some of the objects featured in the exhibition have been loaned from the Brontë Parsonage Museum. These include items belonging to Charlotte Brontë.
An original letter written by Charlotte to Janet Kay-Shuttleworth, after her first stay at Gawthorpe Hall, is also on display. This has rarely been on public display previously.
Other items include period costume dress from the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection. The exhibition also looks at what Padiham would have been like when Charlotte visited. A pharmacy book from the 1830s, with prescriptions for the Kay-Shuttleworth family, is also on display. This has never been on public display previously.
County Councillor Marcus Johnstone, cabinet member for environment, planning and cultural services, said: "We know that Charlotte stayed at Gawthorpe Hall twice, and the exhibition will bring out the connection b
etween Charlotte, Elizabeth and the powerful Kay-Shuttleworth family.
"Visitors will be able to gain an insight into what the hall would have been like when Charlotte visited, and also what Charlotte felt about her visits and the adulation she received from Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth.
"Anyone interested in the Bronte's and their legacy, and also British literature, will find this really interesting."
"On a personal level, as I'm the county councillor for Padiham and I also live close to Gawthorpe Hall, I'm always really pleased to see such interesting exhibitions hosted."
For more information and to book tickets telephone 01282 771004 or email firstname.lastname@example.com
Gawthorpe Hall is run by Lancashire County Council's museum service on behalf of the National Trust.
Normal opening times are 12pm to 5pm Wednesdays to Sundays, with last entry to the hall at 4.30pm. The museum is open on Bank Holidays.
Admission is £4 for adults and £3 for concessions. National Trust members and children go free.
To find out more about Gawthorpe Hall and other Lancashire County Council museums visit www.lancashire.gov.uk/museums

M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-58330113014410418902016-07-19T15:24:00.003+02:002016-07-19T16:32:53.935+02:00Weddings, Artists of Choice, Ghosts and Chefs
The Telegraph, BBC News, The Times, Metro... carry a nice love story involving, among other things, a Jane Eyre quote on a Tweet:

A book lover who declared her love for the man running the official Waterstones Oxford Street Twitter account has revealed how she eventually ended up marrying him.
Victoria O'Brien had tweeted Waterstones Oxford Street in 2012, posting: "Well I'm in love with whoever is manning the @WstonesOxfordSt account. Be still my actual beating heart." (...)
On July 17 she tweeted a photo of herself and new husband Jonathan O'Brien on their wedding day, alongside her original tweet.
She included a famous quote from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë in the tweet, which has been shared and liked by more than 30,000 Twitter users. (Mark Molloy & Hannah Furness)
Congratulations to the people behind the musical Wasted which has won UK Best Musical Theatre Artists of Choice Awards given by the Kevin Spacey Foundation (via Whats On Stage). A 'demo-tape' workshop will be performed this October at the West Yorkshire Playhouse Brontë Season.

The winner of the UK Musical Theatre category was Wasted by Adam Lenson, Christopher Ash and Carl Miller. The rock musical drama tells the story of the Brontë siblings, with songs inspired by the sisters. (Will Longman)
Spooky entertainment at the Black Bull in Haworth according to Keighley News:

A company providing special access to a Haworth venue for ghost-hunting events has more eerily entertaining fun in store this summer.
Lost Ghost Nights has already run an event at the Black Bull, in Main Street, last month. (June)
The proceedings were launched by TV and radio historian Simon Entwistle, who staged a ghost walk around Haworth.
Participants were then treated to a "lock in" at the Black Bull where they investigated the property for ghosts then rounded the night off with a graveyard vigil.
The Black Bull will again be the venue for a similar night on Monday July 25.
This begins with dinner from 8.30pm to 9.30pm then a ghost investigation from 9.30pm to 2am.
As well as being known for reported sightings of ghosts and poltergeist activity, the Black Bull was infamous for being the regular 'haunt' of troubled drug addict Branwell Brontë, brother of the famous literary sisters. (Miran Rahman)
Next Thursday on BBC1, Celebrity Masterchef in Haworth:

Cooking up history were Celebrity Masterchef contestants as they catered for a Brontë feast in Haworth.
The semi-final of the popular show, filmed in the village last Easter, will be screened on Thursday at 8pm on BBC One.
The remaining contestants will be seen cooking meals in marquees in the meadow behind the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
They will then serve around 70 specially-invited guests in the Old School Rooms, on  (David Knights on The Telegraph & Argus)
New Statesman reviews The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry:

As the tension increases with portents such as "a plague of cuckoo-spit in the gardens" and "a cat aborting its kittens on the hearth", The Essex Serpent recalls variously the earthiness of Emily Brontë, the arch, high-tensile tone of Conan Doyle, the evocation of time and place achieved by Hilary Mantel and Sarah Waters and the antiquarian edgelands horror of M R James. (Ben Myers)
Mallory Ortberg remembers in The Guardian how she was able to publish Texts from Jane Eyre:

Texts from Jane Eyre was the first book I ever wrote, or even tried to write, and when I found my agent, I rather assumed my part in the process was done. She had approached me about the project, so I assumed an editor would approach her in turn, and I would continue to attract publishing attention like a sea anemone attracts shrimp. This turned out not to be the case: it took over a year, and quite active shopping, to sell the book proposal, rather than seeing it snapped up straight away.
The Huddersfield Daily Examiner recommends a visit to Oakwell Country Park

Oakwell Country Park, Birstall
Older children might enjoy seeing the exterior of Oakwell Hall, featured by Charlotte Brontë as Fieldhead in her novel Shirley, while most will love to explore the country park with its rolling acres and many places to picnic. There's a small admission charge for the house but if the weather's fine then the great outdoors, with play park and nature trail, is just as fine a place to be. A cafe on site offers drinks and snacks and there's ample free parking. (Samantha Gildea)
Big Issue North vindicates the figure of Ethel Carnie Holdsworth:

Realising the potential of stories to get her politics out to a wider audience, Carnie Holdsworth was a committed literary experimenter, dabbling with a variety of popular genres – detective fiction, romance, the gothic. She sold well. Her 1917 book, Helen of Four Gates – an even darker take on Wuthering Heights – was a bestseller here and in the US, and was also made into a film. (Nicola Wilson)
Bookriot on unintentionally creepy love interests.

If you've ever actually been hit on by your boss, you know what I mean by this being a creepy situation. I have never felt as physically creeped out as I have in this situation, and it shows up quite a lot in fiction–going back even to Jane Eyre. (Susie Rodarme)
On Vegolosi (Italy) we found the wtf moment of the month. Meet Charlotte Brontë the (irrefutable) vegan:

La testimonianza di Elizabeth Gaskell, amica e sua prima biografa, ricorda la mania del padre, trasmessa alle figlie, per la cucina vegetariana: anche se la biografia a loro dedicata è poi risultata fantasiosa in alcune parti secondo molti critici, questo aspetto della vita delle sorelle Bronte pare inconfutabile. E leggendo le pagine di Charlotte, determinata come la sua massima creatura, Jane Eyre, che celava sotto un perbenismo borghese una vita appassionata, non è difficile crederlo. (Yuri Benaglio) (Translation)
AlexcityOutlook tells about the local library's stairs literary makeover, including two steps devoted to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights; Reviews by a Book Fanatic posts about Jane Eyre; the Portuguese and Spanish translations of Villette and The Professors translationsare discussed on the Brussels Bronté Blog. The Brontë Parsonage Facebook Wall reports the visit of Josephine Reames, great grand-daughter of Sir James Roberts who gifted Haworth Parsonage to the Brontë Society in 1928.M.http://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-46074369989610340782016-07-19T00:30:00.000+02:002016-07-19T00:30:32.482+02:00Claire Harman at the Ryedale Festival
An alert for tomorrow, July 20th, at the Ryedale Festival:

Ways with Words 2 - Claire Harman – Charlotte Brontë 200 Years On
20 July 2016 3:00 pm
Helmsley Arts Centre, Meeting House Ct, Helmsley, York, North Yorkshire YO62 5DW, UK

Claire Harman looks at the life and legacy of Charlotte Brontë on the 200th anniversary of her birth in 1816. Her acclaimed biography paints the author as a literary visionary, trailblazer of feminism and driving force behind the whole family. She took charge of the family's precarious finances when her brother succumbed to opium addiction. She also travelled throughout Europe, where she met some of the most brilliant literary minds of her generation and became a bestselling female author in a world still dominated by men. Above all, she created new kinds of heroine inspired by herself and her life: fiercely intelligent women burning with hidden passions.
M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-56357415841442492352016-07-18T12:15:00.005+02:002016-07-20T00:53:01.406+02:00Sign of Our Times
Remember, tomorrow July 19:

Kirklees Council:
We will be holding information sessions at our museums and galleries, which will give you an opportunity to find out more about the 'Cultural Vision' and ask questions.
Tues 19 July 6pm Red House Museum
Places must be booked in advance here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/kirklees-museums-galleries-information-session-tickets-26370689442
Nick Holland on his blog AnneBrontë.org explains quite nicely the importance of the Red House Museum with their links to the Brontës and the Taylors.

Greenacres is a house in Mirfield which is on the market. The Yorkshire Post Lifestyle section describes it and mentions that the Brontë could (may, might... who knows) have visited it:

Dating back to 1742, Greenacres is steeped in local history but its best claim to fame is that the Bronte sisters used to play in the garden.
Charlotte was a pupil then a teacher at nearby Roe Head School and her sisters Charlotte and Anne also studied there.
"They used to jump over the wall and play in the fields, which are part of our grounds," says retired GP, Dr Abdul Hamid, who bought the house in 1988.
It's a sign of our times when a private property tries to increase its value with a loose connection with the Brontës whereas a public property, like the Red House Museum, with a strong link with them is threatened with closure.

The BBC Proms Extra event of today, July 18th,

7:45 Monday 18 Jul 2016 Imperial College Union
Arts & Ideas: Marking the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë's birth, Claire Harman, her biographer and Yorkshire-born novelist and author of 'Chocolat' Joanne Harris discuss her life and work.
The discussion is presented by Dr Gregory Tate from the University of St Andrews who is one of the New Generation Thinkers selected by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council in a scheme to find academics interested in turning their research into radio.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod.
Edited version broadcast on BBC Radio 3 during tonight's interval
This brief Charlotte Brontë comment on The Hindu In School section is a bit bizarre:

This English author made us cry with the story of Villette and inspired us through Shirley. The passion, with which she wrote and diligence with which she expressed her love for life, is evident in her books.
She was a narrator from whom we couldn't get a clue as to what lay before us. Brontë wrote under the penname Currer Bell as she recognised that society was male dominated. Her works include Jane Eyre, Villette and Shirley .
An inspiration : I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. (Jane Eyre)
All about teeth : Bronte spent much of her earnings from Jane Eyre on dentistry.
Also in The Hindu a game, Qwikipedia:

 Ever been on Wikipedia to look up an article? More often than not, we start with one topic, click a few links and within no time, are reading about something else.
Qwikipedia is a game that tries to quench this curiosity in us. The objective is to get to a particular Wiki page, starting from a specific article, using minimal clicks.
And this is today's challenge:

Monday's Marauder
Uganda —> Charlotte Brontë
Send in your paths for the above to email@example.com with the subject: Qwikipedia . (Visudha Nagarajan)
YorkMix announces that next November

 BBC History Magazine's History Weekend returns to York for the second year running on November 18-20.
Building on the success of last year's debut festival, more than 20 leading historians and authors will be sharing their passion for the past with fellow history lovers at the Yorkshire Museum and the 14th century Hospitium. (...)
Also appearing will be Juliet Barker on discovering the real Charlotte Brontë.
Gulf News summarises Wuthering Heights:

Though the Victorian novel portrays reality and strained relationships, the plot turns chaotic with disturbing elements. Critics have observed that a reader will understand better every time he/she reads between the lines.
One of the powerful quotes from the book that tugs at my heartstrings is: "If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day."
The novel starts off as a not so delightful reading, but gradually gets engrossing and intriguing. The author has deftly handled contradictions amidst melodrama and tragedy. (Priyanka Nateri)
The Straits Times thinks that Engelbert Humperdinck, the singer is an 'huggable Heathcliff':

With his slicked bouffant, screaming-red shirt and pocket square, black jacket and trousers, he was a swarthy, huggable Heathcliff, swaggering such that it seemed the evening might descend into cheesy "I was there" reverie. (Cheonk Suk-Wai)
La Región (Spain) talks about the paintings of Nuria Guardiola and quotes from Wuthering Heights:

Es esta una propuesta que coincide en verano mas no es de verano, que hay en ella un decir coherente y maduro, con sabor autobiográfico, de la profesora artista. Pues 'la gente honesta no oculta sus actos', como diría la Emily Brönte (sic) de 'Cumbres borrascosas'. (Xabier Limia de Gardón) (Translation)
LubimyczCzytać (Poland) recommends holiday reads:

 Wichrowe wzgórza. Emily Brontë
A jeżeli w te wakacje macie ochotę na dobrą opowieść o miłości, to koniecznie sięgnijcie po "Wichrowe wzgórza" Emily Brontë. Tylko ostrzegam: To naprawdę mroczna historia! Miłość, obsesja, zemsta... a wszystko to w atmosferze bezkresnych, smaganych wichrem wrzosowisk. No i ten Heathcliff! (Catherine Pużyńska) (Translate)
Froggy Delight (in French) gives some examples of the madwomen in the attic examples in music:

Vous connaissez le mythe littéraire de la Folle dans le grenier ? Les exemples sont légion, de Bertha dans Jane Eyre à La Prisonnière des Sargasses de Jean Rhys, l'histoire de cette prétendue folle, relue d'un point de vue féministe. Aucune ne l'est vraiment, au fond. En musique aussi, il y a des disques de Folles dans le grenier : "You're not mad you're just lonely" de Delphine Dora et Half Asleep, "White Chalk" de PJ Harvey, et tout un tas d'albums des soixante dernières années.
Dans son dernier album, Cate Le Bon va encore plus loin : "I'm a dirty attic", chante-t-elle. Autrement dit, elle dépasse la condition de Folle dans le grenier : elle EST le grenier. Deleuze aurait adoré. J'avais envie d'en discuter un peu avec Sing Sing, du groupe Arlt, parce que je vois une filiation assez évidente entre leur musique et la sienne. (Mickaël Mottet) (Translation)
Badische Zeitung talks about the Stimmen Festival at the Rosenfelspark in Lörrack, Germany:

Holly MacVe aus Yorkshire, jenem armen Landstrich Nordenglands, der die Fantasie der Dichterinnen beflügelte, hatte es zum Einstieg ungleich schwerer. Die blonde Sängerin knüpfte so gar nicht an die Wuthering Heights-Romantik der Brontë-Schwestern aus ihrer Heimat an, sondern hat sich einem US-amerikanischem Klangidiom verschrieben – insofern auch sie Nomadin. (Stefan Franzen) (Translation)
Hello! (Serbia) lists passionate couples in literature:

Džejn i Mr. Ročester
Radnja je smeštena u ruralnu Englesku 1820. godine u vreme kada su novac i imetak bili značajnijih od svega ostalog. Junakinja čuevanog romana Šarlote Bronte, Džejn Ejr još kao devojčica ostala je bez roditelja, a odgajala ju je okrutna ujna, koja je vrlo brzo šalje u internat ne bi li se tamo obrazovala. Bledunjava i neugledna Džejn nakon toga se pojavljuje kao guvernanta u domu Ročesterovih. Između nje i gospodina Ročestera za koga ona veruje da je udovac, strasti se polako rasplamsavaju, ali ona otrkiva da je njegova žena (inače mentalno obolela) živa i da se nalazi zatočena u jednoj od prostorija kuće. Nakon ovog saznanja Džejn je skrhana, ali ponajviše jer ju je Ročester lagao, zbog čega odlazi. Iako nam se sve vreme čini kako je ovo jedna od onih tmurnih i tužnih engleskih drama, kraj je ipak srećan: Ovo dvoje život ipak ponovo spaja i ljubav se među njima ponovo rasplamsava, and they lived happily ever after! (Translation)
E. Lockhart writes on the WHSmith Blog about the connection (if any) between her novel We Were Liars and Wuthering Heights; Literary Branches has a post on Jane Eyre. On Les Soeurs Brontë (in French) continues the analysis of Villette.
M.http://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-39652031175977320912016-07-18T00:30:00.000+02:002016-07-18T00:30:13.745+02:00Finding Freedom and The Afflicted Imagination
A couple of new Brontë-related theses:

Finding Freedom for Jane: A Reading of Subjugation, Shame, and Sympathy in Charlotte's Brontë Jane Eyre
Rebecca Shaver, Clemson University
Master of Arts (MA) -05-2016

Abstract
In an investigation of Charlotte Brontë's novel, Jane Eyre, Jane clearly desires liberty in the form of social belonging or freedom, and makes the active choice to pursue it, but finds that liberty is ultimately best won not by an antagonistic battle, but instead through subjugation by those of a higher class than herself. As a social inferior, the mere association with a higher-class family name (whether that is through employment, marriage, etc.) is enough to set Jane's eye on the ultimate goal of total autonomous freedom through social climbing. Jane actively participates in subjugation as a means to elevate her state in society, evident through choices of language. This language ranges from inhuman equations to magical creatures to derogatory social labels, but functions in the same way throughout the novel. I assert that Jane is fully active in her pursuit of a place in society. It is paradoxically through assimilating to the language and culture of the higher classes and referring to herself as an inferior that Jane takes back her power. By acknowledging her inferiority through her language, either to herself or by participating in conversations with (or active silence toward) social superiors, Jane actively wrests conversation to her advantage.

The Afflicted Imagination': Nostalgia and Homesickness in the Writing of Emily Brontë
James Thomas Quinnell
Doctoral thesis, Durham University.
March 2016

Abstract
This thesis discusses homesickness and nostalgia as conditions that 'afflict' to productive ends the writing of Emily Brontë. Homesickness and nostalgia are situated as impelling both Brontë's poetry and Wuthering Heights. To elucidate these states, close attention is paid to Emily Brontë's poetry as well as Wuthering Heights, in the belief that the poetry repays detailed examination of a kind it rarely receives (even fine work by critics such as Janet Gezari tend not to scrutinise the poetry as attentively as it deserves) and that the novel benefits from being related to the poetry. Building on the work of Irene Tayler and others, this thesis views Brontë as a post-Romantic, and particularly post-Wordsworthian, poet. Much of her writing is presented as engaging in dialogue with the concerns in Wordsworth's poetry, especially his 'Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood'; her poetry and prose eschew Wordsworth's 'simple creed' and explore 'obstinate questionings'. In so doing, they follow his own lead; Brontë brings out how complex the Romantics are.
Chapter one focuses on the idea of restlessness as stirring a search for home. Chapters two and three, on Catholicism and Irishness respectively reflect on ways in which Emily Brontë used contemporary national debates in exploring imaginatively states of homesickness and nostalgia. The conceiving of another time and place to find a home in these chapters is developed in chapter four. This chapter considers Brontë's internalisation of a home in her imaginative world of Gondal and argues for Gondal's relevance. An imaginative home formed in childhood leads into chapter five which discusses Emily Brontë's presentation of childhood; the chapter contends that Brontë imagines the child as lost and homesick, and rejects any 'simple creed' of childhood. Chapter six, which starts with the abandoned child in Wuthering Heights, focuses on the the novel as stirring a longing for home. The inability to find home, and particularly the rejection of heaven as a home, leads into a discussion of the ghostly as an expression of homesickness in the final chapter.
M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-4054742646441585342016-07-17T12:01:00.002+02:002016-07-17T12:01:27.097+02:00"Haworth expresses the Brontës; the Brontës express Haworth" The Yorkshire Post carries an article about Haworth's real estate business and the Brontë 200th anniversary:

Brontë fans, walkers, train buffs, day trippers, vintage enthusiasts and real ale drinkers all love a day out in Haworth.
This year has seen a bumper crop of tourists thanks to celebrations and events in honour of Charlotte Bronte's 200th birthday.
Estate agents say it is hard to know how many of these visitors decide to make Haworth their home but some do and its many charms and its literary claim to fame are certainly big selling points.
The term "Brontë Country" features in almost every property brochure and the parsonage, where the sisters grew up, and the moors that feature in their novels, are often highlighted. (...)
Visitors who coo over the quaint cottages on Main Street will be pleased to know that there is one for sale. The one-bedroom property also has a Brontë connection, as a previous owner, Archibald Leighton, was an associate of Patrick Brontë. The house is on the market for £120,000 with Dacre, Son and Hartley. (Sharon Dale)

Well, Archibald Leighton was indeed a contemporary of Patrick Brontë. But he was also a convinced Chartist and, although he and Patrick sometimes stood united (for instance, in the opposition to the Poor Law Amendment Bill in 1834), they were more antagonists than associates.

The Guardian quotes an anonymous teacher about a completely unrelated topic, but we thought the following passing reference quite funny:

The meeting started with: "I want to have a chat with you about a discussion you've had with one of your classes." A variety of class conversations rolled through my head – a recent debate about Wuthering Heights had got a little heated.

The Times suggests a weekend in Haworth:

It's a funny thing. Charlotte Brontë and her family may be among the biggest draws to Haworth, but Brontë didn't do much for the village's reputation. "Haworth [is] a strange uncivilised little place," wrote one of the West Yorkshire village's most famous former inhabitants to her publisher. In another, she wrote to her friend Ellen Nussey, "[It is] such a lonely, quiet spot, buried away from the world," as she lamented her return home from Brussels.
No doubt the author of Jane Eyre would have been perturbed by Virginia Woolf's observation that "Haworth expresses the Brontës; the Brontës express Haworth". (Fiona Wilson)
The Toronto Film Festival website (TIFF) publishes an article highlighting the similarities between The Beauty and the Beast and Jane Eyre (not the first one to notice them, by the way):

She's a bookish young woman. She defies authority and lives by her own rules. She moves away from an abusive family and into the mansion of a rich aristocrat. He's tall and beastly, rude and impassive. Their personalities clash. Slowly, they find solace — in each other, in their shared interests, in their contrasting values and the humour when those two things inevitably clash while they live together.
The man's servants are friendly and caring towards the girl. They fiddle uncomfortably when she asks personal questions about their master's past. Slowly, the girl gains the affections of the beastly lord of the house. In turn, she begins to care for him, to the point that she considers him a friend. They spend time together and learn from the vast chasm that separates their worlds.
But then, she learns what his terrible secret is. It's ghoulish, and it horrifies her so much that she runs far away from the castle, back to her family. Eventually, when she realizes that the beastly man's life took a turn for the worse after she left, she comes back to him. Her love saves him; it literally transforms him into a new person. They get married and live happily ever after. (Read more) (Vanessa Hojda)
A very curious fashion show in the Asheville Citizen-Times:

The Asheville Community Theatre's signature fundraiser returned for its fifth year bigger than ever.
Costume Drama: A Fashion Show displayed the hard work of dozens of area designers who created wearable art in the categories of paper, light, plastic and artistic license - the fashion interpretation of famous works of art. (...)
In the paper category, Mars Hill University graduate Tricia Ellis, 23, entered a bibliophile's dream dress made from the pages of classic books such as "The Great Gatsby," "Wuthering Heights" and Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein."
The full gown took weeks to construct with help from friends and was so big that she had to borrow her boss's car just to get it to the show.
The hard work was not in vain, as she not only got to see a creation of her favorite words strut down the runway but she also took Best in Show, the grand prize of the event. (Angeli Wright) (Photo: Angeli Wright)
El Mundo (Spain) describes Theresa May's dress style using Brontë (somewhat misleading) references:

Comparte con la princesa Ana un pasado de rebeca lila y moño bajo deshilachado tipo Jane Eyre. Su estilo en los 80 era propio de hermana Brontë, con perlitas y cuello de bebé, entre decimonónico y kitsch. (Beatriz Miranda) (Translation)
The Stuff covers the Christchurch Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever event; ABC, The Age, Der Tagesspiegel and the Daily Mail talk about the Melbourne one; VLT has pictures of the Uppsala one; Northern Star follows Lismore's event, the Globe and Mail is in Montreal, etc...

Diario de Sevilla (Spain) reviews the latest novel by Charlotte Cory:

Como artista plástica, Charlotte Cory (Bristol, 1956) se ha dedicado a desarrollar lo que podríamos llamar "pastiches victorianos": varias propuestas a modo de collages con motivos animales. De ellas, su trabajo más conocido es Visitorian: una serie de tarjetas de visitas alteradas -hasta hace poco, expuso una muestra en torno a Charlotte Brontë en el Sir John Soane Museum de Londres, lugar que recoge una colección tan inclasificable y peculiar como las mismas propuestas de la artista-. (Pilar Vera) (Translation)
To Read a Novel reviews World of Ink and Shadow by Lena Coakley.M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-63936633252594677482016-07-17T00:30:00.000+02:002016-07-17T00:30:40.613+02:00Romance's Rival
A new scholar book with Brontë-related content:

Romance's Rival
Familiar Marriage in Victorian Fiction
Talia Schaffer
Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780190465094

Romance's Rival argues that the central plot of the most important genre of the nineteenth century, the marriage plot novel, means something quite different from what we thought. In Victorian novels, women may marry for erotic desire--but they might, instead, insist on "familiar marriage," marrying trustworthy companions who can offer them socially rich lives and futures of meaningful work. Romance's Rival shows how familiar marriage expresses ideas of female subjectivity dating back through the seventeenth century, while romantic marriage felt like a new, risky idea.
Undertaking a major rereading of the rise-of-the-novel tradition, from Richardson through the twentieth century, Talia Schaffer rethinks what the novel meant if one tracks familiar-marriage virtues. This alternative perspective offers new readings of major texts (Austen, the Brontës, Eliot, Trollope) but it also foregrounds women's popular fiction (Yonge, Oliphant, Craik, Broughton). Offering a feminist perspective that reads the marriage plot from the woman's point of view, Schaffer inquires why a female character might legitimately wish to marry for something other than passion. For the past half-century, scholars have valorized desire, individuality, and autonomy in the way we read novels; Romance's Rival asks us to look at the other side, to validate the yearning for work, family, company, or social power as legitimate reasons for women's marital choices in Victorian fiction.
Comprehensive in its knowledge of several generations of scholarship on the novel, Romance's Rival convinces us to re-examine assumptions about the nature and function of marriage and the role of the novel in helping us not simply imagine marriage but also process changing ideas about what it might look like and how it might serve people.
M.http://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-13399029937416081492016-07-16T06:14:00.000+02:002016-07-16T06:14:22.749+02:00God's gracious gift
GeekMom reviews both Jane Steele and The Madwoman Upstairs:

Shiri is not a lover of Charlotte Brontë (*ducks tomatoes and excrement thrown at her as she is placed in the stocks*). She loves gothic and she loves period, but she has never been able to reconcile time spent on a Brontë when there was Austen to be devoured. She was, thusly, somewhat hesitant to delve into Jane Steele but was unable to resist when a friend, who is equally enthusiastic about books, called it "the only book I need for the rest of my life." And Shiri is very glad she checked her inclinations because they would, in this case, have led her astray and been the cause of her missing out on yet another wonderful read.
Simultaneously a gothic-style novel and a satire of the same, Jane is murderess with a cause and that cause is righteous. By turns tragic, hilarious, hysterically funny, and romantic, Shiri found herself thoroughly engrossed by Faye's original, innovative, and somehow grounded, work. There's even a bit of education to be had as regards Sikhism and the religious and racial politics of the time. A third highly recommended read for the month. (...)
Sophie's book club chose The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell and she tore through the 352 pages in only a few days. From the blurb, Sophie imagined this to be something approximate to The Da Vinci Code, only focused on the legacy of the Brontë sisters. (...)
Sophie described this book to her husband as a pretentious book about pretentious people having pretentious conversations. That doesn't necessarily mean that she disliked it, she grew up attending a very pretentious English private school herself and so the characters were very much speaking her language, however, she did feel that the book tried so hard to assert its own cleverness that it became bogged down by a strange lack of substance. She did find the ending particularly annoying, that being said, the book made her want to pick up all the Brontë novels she has yet to read (so… most of them) so if nothing else it was inspiring. (Sophie Brown)
The Sydney Morning Herald on failure as an important life lesson (although we don't agree with the Jane Eyre example):

Failure stories are better. Jane Eyre wouldn't have been Jane Eyre if Jane hadn't flunked life's lottery and ended up in semi-indentured slavedom chez Rochester. Nobody would have wanted to read about an Anna Karenina whose decision to leave her husband for Count Vronsky turned out to be a sensible one. (Jacqueline Maley)
The Guardian interviews the writer James Kelman:

What he will say is that younger writers must discover the distinctive Scottish tradition themselves. "Writers like myself or Tom Leonard are working from that tradition, but maybe [younger writers] don't realise that was what it is." He points out that Justified Sinner, for example, the brilliantly eerie but neglected novel by Scottish author James Hogg, was published a couple of decades before Emily Brontë's more celebrated Wuthering Heights. "I feel that there are all these areas in Scottish culture that are still not properly explored." (Libby Brooks)
This columnist on TheWhig (Canada) tries to understand why British voted Brexit:

The tendency of some Britons to wallow in the past has been encouraged by the British entertainment industry. Movies and television programs relentlessly focus on bygone eras. The glory days of the Raj in India are evoked in productions such as A Passage of India, The Jewel in the Crown, King of the Khyber Rifles and Far Pavillions. Genteel life in the 19th and early 20th centuries is the subject of an array of productions such as Jane Eyre, The Forsyth Saga, Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey. All of this tends to encourage some people to look to a comforting past rather than face the present and the future. (Louis A. Delvoie)
Baby Names inspired by feminist literary characters on Romper:

 1. Jane From 'Jane Eyre'
Though it's been a popular name throughout history, Jane from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is a particularly empowering character. Despite her tragic childhood, Jane rises above and never doubts her potential and intelligence. Her name means "God's gracious gift" and is the perfect vintage sounding name for a little girl. (Olivia Youngs)
Der Tagesspiegel (Germany) explores the history of homosexuality in literature:

Gleich war es mit der erfüllten Liebe und dem unerfüllten Verlangen. Davon erzählten Emily Brontë oder Heinrich von Kleist; davon erzählte Goethe, erzählten alle in allen nur erdenklichen Abweichungen. Es ging dabei ganz selbstverständlich um die vielfältigen Spielarten der Liebe zwischen den Geschlechtern. Wer sich im 18. oder 19. Jahrhundert Hinweise auf die Liebe zwischen Männern erhoffte, wurde enttäuscht. (Alain Claude Sulzer) (Translation)
And Ziarul de Iași (Romania) lists the 'most popular male characters' in literature:

Heathcliff, La răscruce de vânturi, Emily Brontë. Heathcliff e prototipul bărbatului care nu numai că iubește cu pasiune, dar și vrea să posede în integralitate obiectul afecțiunii sale. Iar asta este teribil de seducător pentru un anumit procent de femei. Heathcliff este atât de atrăgător pentru potențialul lui de a fi schimbat de femeia pe care o iubește. Și ce femeie n-ar da orice să poată spune că a schimbat un iubit? (Translation)
Tinyletter comments on a fragment of Claire Harman's biography of Charlotte Brontë: the summer break when Charlotte started Jane Eyre.M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-81023074560124841912016-07-16T01:00:00.000+02:002016-07-16T01:00:14.393+02:00The Most Wuthering Heights Day EverToday is the day, July 16th. The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever:

The 16th July 2016 will see individual en masse dance events to Kate Bush's classic Wuthering Heights happening around the world. Each event is entirely independent, not for profit and held for joy and entertainment.

Inspired by UK performance troop Shambush who will revisit their 2013 world record this year with The Shambush! Ultimate, Ultimate Kate Bush Experience. The name The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever was the brainchild of the Berlin event organizer and has been adopted by many of the events.
There will be events in Montreal, Brighton, Atlanta, Sydney, Tel Aviv, London , Berlin, Uppsala, Malmö, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Oslo, Hobart, Adelaide, Amsterdam, Brisbane and Melbourne.M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-11419412779849069312016-07-16T00:30:00.000+02:002016-07-16T00:30:15.308+02:00Brontës at the Mirfield Arts Festival
Some alerts from the Mirfield Arts Festival:

Saturday, July 16th

11.00 Brontë200 Children's Art & Painting Competition --- Creative Arts Hub
12.00 Brontë200 Book Reading of The Professor by Angela Crow --- Library
12.00 Brontë Book Signing by author Angela Crow --- Library

Sunday, July 17th

14.00 Brontë 200 – 'A Pleasant Walk with Brontë Connections' --- Library Gardens
M.http://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-74110002218083115712016-07-15T11:16:00.003+02:002016-07-16T01:10:38.053+02:00Independent WillThe New York Times announces the upcoming Charlotte Brontë exhibition in New York:

Brontë's original 1847 manuscript will be open to that page at the Morgan Library & Museum, starting Sept. 9. The document will be part of an exhibition honoring the 200th anniversary of Brontë's birth, a collaboration with the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, England, that purports to be the largest Brontë exhibition ever presented in New York City.
The show, "Charlotte Brontë: An Independent Will," is to include literary manuscripts, letters and rare printed books from the Morgan's collection, along with personal artifacts, drawings and photographs from the Parsonage.
In addition, the Morgan will borrow for the show two portraits of Brontë from the National Portrait Gallery in London (which currently has a Brontë portrait show) and the "Jane Eyre" manuscript from the British Library.
Highlights include Brontë's earliest surviving miniature manuscript, her portable writing desk and paint box, a blue-and-white floral two-piece dress she wore in the 1850s and a pair of her ankle boots.
"The unifying theme of the exhibition is Brontë's own independent will," said Christine Nelson, the Morgan's curator of literary and historical manuscripts, "the ambitious steps she took to attain creative success and the bold stance she took as a woman writing under a male pseudonym," Currer Bell. (Robin Pogrebin)
The Herts Advertiser presents one of the productions at the upcoming Edinburgh Fringe Festival:

Jane Eyre: An Autobiography is the latest piece of theatre from St Albans-based Dyad Productions, the creators of Dalloway, The Unremarkable Death of Marilyn Monroe, Female Gothic, I, Elizabeth, The Diaries of Adam and Eve, Christmas Gothic and Austen's Women.
It can be seen at the Maltings theatre from Wednesday, July 27, to Friday, July 29.
Directed and written by Elton Townend Jones and performed by Rebecca Vaughan, the story is told through the eyes of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë's creation who shocked the Victorians.
Rebecca embodies every woman Jane and several other characters in an intimate study of love's realities. (Madeleine Burton)
Fusion discusses the #singlebecause Twitter hashtag:

The devastation of heartbreak and loneliness has long been a source of literary inspiration. Whether it's Jane Eyre pining for the mercurial Mr. Rochester on an English moor (crying into her crinoline!) or Blair Waldorf lamenting her lost love over a Park Avenue brunch, we can't seem to get enough of people's romantic entanglements and misfirings. (Laura Feinstein)
Planet Hugill reviews the recent CD edition of Carlisle Floyd's Wuthering Heights opera:

Floyd's music is intense and dramatic, in a form of continuous arioso as the libretto is more poetic prose than poetry, with individual speeches standing out aria-like, including the one which gave rise to the piece in the first place. The language is more regular than Emily Bronte's, and there is little of the sense of place which characterises the novel. Though the music gusts, I never really feel the moors. That said, Floyd does use the orchestra a lot and the texture is punctuated with atmospheric orchestral episodes. This is a tragedy of two people drawn to each other yet failing to find themselves which has been made less specific and more international.
The recording was made at a pair of concerts performances and we have to be grateful for Florentine Opera that we finally have Wuthering Heights on disc. The disc comes with a libretto (though the sung text has subtle differences to the printed) and you need it. If the performances have a fault it is that the cast's diction is lacking; without the printed words it is difficult to follow the plot and there is a significant amount of dialogue in the opera. (Read more) (Robert Hugill)
Financial Mail (SouthAfrica) reviews the film Me Before You:

Many whose hearts have been claimed by Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre remember its famous line: "Reader, I married him." Recall, though, that Jane weds Rochester only once a fire has engulfed his mad wife in the attic and warped his sight and body. Me Before You echoes that extraordinary climax. The echo that resonates in this strange film is ancient: the alleviation of pain and suffering through love. (Peter Wilhelm)
The Packet (Canada) review the novel From a Good Home by Trudi Johnson:

While squinting through the keyhole, I watched Hannah prepare for her trip. "Ah," said I. "Shades of Jane Eyre. Here's a young maid leaving home to work for a wealthy man."
Of course, after I hove open the doors and went inside I realized I was wrong — again. Well, mostly wrong.
Jane left home and got in tack with wealthy Mr. Rochester who had skeletons in his closets, so to speak — a crazy ol' wife barred up in the attic or some such, if my faulty noggin serves me well. (Harold N. Waters)
Lainey Gossip talks about the emails between Natalie Portman and Jonathan Safran Foer in the New York Times:

It's all quirky anecdote followed by a deep thought about deepness and then a question about freedom. Repeated over and over again. They're the parents of Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Or, maybe, her descendants. Or this is performance art. And she's writing as, I dunno, Emily Brontë and he's Thomas Hardy and they're imagining what their letters to each other who read would read like. Is it supposed to be this annoying? And, also, boring?
Literary places to visit according to The Week (India):

 Explore the desolate, sweeping moorlands of Yorkshire, the birthplace of 19th century English writer Charlotte Brontë, whose novel Jane Eyre is considered a classic of Western literature. Visit the village of Haworth, where Charlotte and her sister Emily Bronte (author of Wuthering Heights) grew up, and stop by the Bronte Parsonage Museum to know everything Brontë.
The highlight of the bicentenary celebrations is an exhibiton on the sisters—Charlotte Great and Small—curated by novelist Tracy Chavalier. The exhibition which runs till February 2017, features letters written by Charlotte, some of her clothes and art installations. If you plan to explore Brontë country, you might as well head to nearby Wycoller to see the ruined hall, often cited as the inspiration for the Ferndean—the manor house buried deep in the woods—in Jane Eyre. (Ancy K. Sunny)
Berliner Morgenpost has an article on the Brontë 200th anniversary and, particularly, Jane Eyre:

Zum 200. Geburtstag von Charlotte Brontë wird das Schicksal ihrer populären Romanheldin Jane Eyre neu übersetzt
An Winterabenden, wenn Bessie gut gelaunt ist, dann dürfen sich die Kinder zu ihr setzen, wenn sie im Kaminzimmer bügelt und sie erzählt ihnen etwas. Nicht, dass Bessie eine besonders gute Erzählerin wäre, aber sie kennt viele Geschichten von Liebe und von Abenteuern. Sie kennt Märchen und Balladen und die Kinder hören gebannt zu, auf jeden Fall dieses eine, Jane, deren Schicksal uns die nächsten 600 Seiten bewegen wird. Wenn es dann in ihrem eigenen Leben endlich auch um Liebe und Abenteuer geht, dann vergleicht sie es mit diesen Geschichten. Und das Erzählte mischt sich mit dem Erlebten.
Zum Beispiel an diesem Abend, viele Jahre später, an dem Jane Eyre dem Helden der Geschichte zum ersten Mal begegnet. Der Mond ist schon aufgegangen und unsere Heldin hat auf dem Weg ins nächste Dorf eine Pause gemacht. Jetzt sitzt sie da und betrachtet das Herrenhaus, in dem sie als Gouvernante lebt, auf der einen und das Dorf auf der anderen Seite. "In der völligen Stille hörte ich deutlich das leise Gemurmel des Lebens", berichtet sie uns. Da taucht auf einmal ein "grobes Geräusch" auf. Schon stellt sie sich vor, dass ein Geist namens "Gytrash" unterwegs sein könnte. Nicht, weil sie an diese fantastische Figur tatsächlich glaubt, es ist eher die Erinnerung an eine von Bessies Geschichten aus ihrer Kindheit. Reisende würde er überfallen, mal in Hund, mal in Pferdegestalt. (Read more) (Judith Luig) (Translation)
Un Minuto Radio (Colombia) has an article on the Brontës; The Silver Petticoat Review lists '8 Times Mr. Rochester Made Us Swoon'; NewCBlog Don Robbins posts about Jane Eyre 2011; Pages Unbound Reviews posts about Jane Eyre.

Tonight, on BBC Two a new chance to watch the documentary Being the Brontës:

BBC Two
Being the Brontës
July 15, 23.35 h
Finally, a job alert from the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

If you would like to work at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, then this is the page to bookmark. We advertise all our upcoming positions here.
Retail Assistant Posts
Job One: 22.5 hours a week on days to be agreed.
Job Two: 4 hours a week every Sunday.
More information here.M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-36774429507763347302016-07-15T10:09:00.002+02:002016-07-15T10:09:37.023+02:00Jane Eyre in PenworthamAn amateur production of Jane Eyre (in the Willis Hall adaptation) is currently being performed in Penwortham, UK:

Jane Eyre
Dramatized from Charlotte Brontë's novel by Willis Hall
A Trouble Theatre + Preston Young Actors production
July 13,14,15, 7.30pm
St Mary's Church, Penwortham
Lancashire Evening Post adds:

"Troublehouse believes in encouraging the arts from a young age and Jayne Eyre has proved a fantastic experience to do just that with a very talented group of students from across Lancashire."
Originally the production was intended just for friends and family of performers, but due to the enthusiasm of locals, it was arranged for a three-night run at the church in Church Avenue.
The seats inside St Mary's have been cleared out for the actors, who are also making use of the balcony area where the organ was situated.
M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-1518899764809872932016-07-15T01:10:00.001+02:002016-07-15T01:10:13.251+02:00An Evening with Charlotte Brontë in HaworthAn alert from Haworth for today April 15th:

Little Ren Hed Theatre presents
An Evening with Charlotte Brontë
Devised and Performed by Prudence Edwards

West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth
Performances: 15 & 16 July 7:30pm
Sponsored by Heath and Harebell, Haworth

This one-woman piece brings to life extracts from the works of Charlotte Brontë; her poetry and fiction, including her masterpiece, Jane Eyre; and gives the audience a glimpse into the mind of a genius.
Keighley News adds:

The 70-minute one-woman play, devised and performed by Prudence, will particularly feature extracts from Charlotte's masterpiece Jane Eyre.
Premiered in 2006, An Evening With Charlotte Brontë show has been performed many times around the north-west, most notably at the Buxton Festival Fringe in 2013.
Prudence added: "Little Red Hen Theatre has had a long-held ambition to perform the show in Haworth, close to the
Parsonage, where many of her famous words were penned.
"We are also hugely excited to be part of the Brontë 200 celebrations." (David Knights)
M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-3968748071578874922016-07-14T15:15:00.002+02:002016-07-14T15:15:12.761+02:00 Experiencing education as Charlotte Brontë didThe Missourian reviews The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell:

This novel is perfect for the Brontë lover in all of us and is especially appealing to those who have read the author's three famed works. (...)
"The Madwoman Upstairs" is creative and rich in vocabulary, even if it may be a bit outrageous at times. Laced with a forbidden love story and nuisances galore, this story is one that will leave the reader with the willingness to search for any adventure possible in everyday life. (Moe Godat)
Time Out London talks about The Most Wuthering Heights Day event in London:

Kate Bush fans of London, limber up: this Saturday is your chance to take part in the biggest 'Wuthering Heights' dance-along ever staged, at the Lambeth Country Show in Brockwell Park.
The event is called 'The Ultimate, Ultimate Kate Bush Experience', and that isn't (just) breathless hyperbole. 'The Ultimate Kate Bush Experience' took place in Brighton in 2013 and involved 300 dancers in red dresses recreating Kate's iconic 'Wuthering Heights' video. The dance went viral on YouTube, and now the organisers (an outfit called Shambush) are doing it again – this time with an amazing 1,000 Kates. It's part of an international series of Bushy events on July 16 that's being called 'The most "Wuthering Heights" day ever'… which sounds about right. (James Manning)
Cosmopolitan lists some beach reads, like Jane Steele by Lindsay Faye:

Jane Steele has a few things in common with Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre: She's an orphan who suffers under the tyrannical rule of her aunt and cousin; she's shipped off to a ghastly boarding school; and she comes into the employ of a familiarly gruff and silent type, one Mr. Thornfield. But unlike the Jane Eyre, Jane Steele overcomes her obstacles with less ... humility. Jane Eyre's revenge is living well; Jane Steele's revenge is murder, and by the time she finds herself falling in love with Mr. Thornfield, she has to decide how much of her true self she can reveal. (Dana Glaser)
The Guardian has a very interesting thought on an article which was not easy to forget: The Very Quiet Foreign Girls Poetry Group:

Eszter, though, seems to have solved it: her critical writing is every bit as fine as her verse. As I write this, she is in a corner of the library, reading Jane Eyre. In all the recent updates and retellings of the Brontës, no one cast Jane or Lucy Snowe as an eastern European in England, because we always concentrate on Jane's gender, not her class. But Eszter is experiencing education as Charlotte Brontë did: both as a precarious road out of dangerous poverty which requires ceaseless striving, and as the only possible means of self-expression. Eszter's poems are as passionate as the paintings Jane shows Rochester, and also as accomplished, because she adores poetic form and will happily, indeed joyously, spend two hours adjusting three commas and a line break. She got stellar GCSEs. We hope she will apply to Cambridge next year. (Kate Clanchy)
Miami New Times talks about the singer Sur Back and her first single (Jane Eyre) off her first album Kitsch:

This can be observed most readily in her inaugural release, 2014's "Jane Eyre." Accompanied by a music video that alternates between shots of the expansive Atlantic Ocean and the claustrophobia of many a suburban South Florida bedroom, "Jane Eyre" captures Sans' acute understanding of both her unique artistic background and her capacity for impactful compositions.
Although separated by two years of heightened expectations and artistic growth, Kitsch fulfills Sur Back's initial promise on "Jane Eyre" with a maturity — both in songwriting and sound — that belies her sparse discography. Even on an EP, she demonstrates a control over pacing and progression that eludes many veteran musicians. (Zach Schlein)
Karl Davis offers his two cents on the new British Prime Miniser, Theresa May in The Huffington Post:

The cancerous smears of the Murdoch press, and the acidic bleatings of the Daily Mail et al convinced many that austerity was something to be applauded, even as their own prospects and those of their children didn't so much shuffle back in time, they actually moonwalked to a samba beat all the way back to the era of Dickens and Brontë!
Ny Tid (Norway) reviews the novel The Vegetarian by Han Kang:

Yeong-hyes opphold på psykiatrisk institusjon minner om Amalie Skrams selvbiografiske Professor Hieronymus og den ikoniske «madwoman in the attic» i Charlotte Bröntes Jane Eyre. I Skrams verk blir institusjonen brukt som et kontrollorgan for kvinner som oppfører seg annerledes enn det «normale»; hos Brönte er alt det fremmede og truende lukket inne på loftet. Kvinnene blir også språklig innesperret i en diagnose, på 1800-tallet som gale og hysteriske; i vår samtid som nevrotiske og spiseforstyrrede. ( Birgitte Gustava Røthe Bjørnøy) (Translation)
TG Tourism (in Italian) has an article about Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre. Tansy Bradshaw reviews Wuthering Heights. The fascinating European trip on translations of The Professor and Villette led by Eric Ruijssenaars on the Brussels Brontë Blog comes to the Nordic countries: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland.M.http://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-72775044307261951732016-07-14T00:17:00.000+02:002016-07-15T10:13:21.286+02:00Brontë in AlnwickA new amateur production of Polly Teale's Brontë opens today, July 14 in Alnwick, Northumberland :

Alnwick Playhouse Senior Youth Theatre presents
Brontë
Alnwick Playhouse & Arts Centre
Thu 14th July, Fri 15th July at 7:30pm

The Senior Youth Theatre present Brontë, a 2005 play by British playwright Polly Teale about the lives of the Brontë sisters, their brother Branwell and their father Patrick.

It is 1845. Branwell Brontë returns to the parsonage in Haworth in disgrace, having lost his job as a tutor after an affair with the mistress of his employer. As he descends into insanity, his sisters, Charlotte, Anne and Emily, go on writing their extraordinary novels, scenes from which punctuate the play, illuminating their lives...

The play will be performed with the audience on stage, with the cast performing with audience on three sides.
EDIT: More information in The Northumberland Gazette.M.http://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-59276393563590641312016-07-13T14:12:00.002+02:002016-07-14T13:31:25.109+02:00Celebrating IntelligenceTorontoist reviews the musical Matilda by Tim Minchin:

Up until now, 2016 has been a banner year for ignorance—see: the Trump candidacy, Britain's exit from the EU—so it's a refreshing treat to encounter a musical that celebrates intelligence, learning, logic, creativity, and a strong sense of right and wrong. All of which qualities are embodied in one feisty five-year-old rebel named Matilda. (...)
Matilda's head certainly has more than the typical allotment of brains. Lavender (Riley O'Donnell), her self-appointed new best friend at Crunchem Hall school, believes Matilda has so much grey matter it might come pouring out of her ears, and vows to be there to catch it. Matilda, you see, is a human calculator and a voracious bookworm who has already devoured such classics as Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, and Crime and Punishment—the latter, in the original Russian. (Martin Morrow)
Rachel Cooke reviews in The Guardian the recent biography of the Yorkshire Ripper, Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son by Gordon Burn:

Occasionally, Burn quotes Elizabeth Gaskell, who passed through Bingley on her way to see Charlotte Brontë, and with good reason: the town remains inescapably Victorian, a liminal place hunkered between the heavy industry that caused it to grow, and the countryside that still bounds it.
Many websites are announcing the Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever, next July 16th. For instance, Creative Loafing in Atlanta or Broadsheet in Melbourne:

This Saturday, July 16, out on the wiley, windy moors of Candler Park, hundreds of Kate Bush admirers will gather to re-enact the music video for her classic single "Wuthering Heights." Attendees are encouraged to dress "as Kate as they feel" (in a red dress, black belt, green eyeshadow, the works) and to arrive early to practice the steps to the video's whimsical, free form dance routine. However, it is by no means necessary for participants to master the choreography. "It's like a lot of goofy faces and spinning around, it doesn't really matter if you know the dance," says Kim Manning, one of the event's coordinators. "We'll call out the moves as we go, so people really shouldn't be intimidated by needing to practice or really knowing it well, unless that's what they're into." (Emily Kinzer)
There will be events in Montreal, Brighton, Atlanta, Sydney, Tel Aviv, London , Berlin, Uppsala, Malmö, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Oslo, Hobart, Adelaide, Amsterdam, Brisbane and Melbourne.

USA Today reviews several romance novels:

Gothic romances have a long and respected pedigree. Jane Eyre features most of the elements that mark such a story. Wuthering Heights has more than a few. (...)
In Etiquette With the Devil, heroine Clara Dawson always followed the rules, until one terrifying night when her inheritance is stolen and the man responsible is left for dead. (...)
"I first pitched this novel as Jane Eyre but with spies. I consider this a Gothic romance, but I think readers who prefer the classic Gothic romances may consider it a historical romance with strong Gothic elements, which I can also understand," [Rebecca Paula, the author] said. (Madeline Hunter)
Mainfatti (Italy) presents a programme on Rai5 about English literature:

La campagna inglese è stata spesso protagonista della grande letteratura inglese dell'Ottocento. Poeti e romanzieri, da Jane Austen alle sorelle Brontë, a Thomas Hardy e William Wordsworth hanno scelto di viverci e di raccontarla nelle loro opere. (Translation)
Il Vescovado (Italy) talks about a couple of novels of Licia Giaquinto. One of them is La Lanara:

Per sfuggire al suo destino Adelina attraverserà "paesi, boschi e campagne", finché non giungerà in vista di un grande e magnifico palazzo: vi entrerà come l'ultima delle sguattere e - sorta di funebre, allucinata Jane Eyre, schiava amorevole e possessiva fino al delitto - servirà e accudirà con assoluta, cieca fedeltà il signore di quel luogo. (Translation)
Le Livroscope! (in French) reviews The Professor, part of the A Walk on the Moors Challenge; the Brussels Brontë Blog now turns to Hungary in its search for Villette and The Professor translation; Les Soeurs Brontë (in French) has a 'numerological' approach to number three and the Brontës.M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-1473653816633185012016-07-13T00:43:00.000+02:002016-07-13T00:43:32.777+02:00Reader, I Married Him - A review

Reader, I Married Him
Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre
Edited by Tracy Chevalier
Stories by Tracy Chevalier, Tessa Hadley, Sarah Hall, Helen Dunmore, Kirsty Gunn, Joanna Briscoe, Jane Gardam, Emma Donoghue, Susan Hill, Francine Prose, Elif Shafak, Evie Wyld, Patricia Park, Salley Vickers, Nadifa Mohamed, Esther Freud, Linda Grant, Lionel Shriver, Audrey Niffenegger, Namwali Serpell, Elizabeth McCracken.
Harper-Collins. Imprint: William Morrow Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780062447098
After over 10 years of scanning news sites for mentions and references to the Brontës, we have remarked that one of the most malleable and adaptable phrases to come from literature into widespread news reports and columns is without the shadow of a doubt Charlotte Brontë's 'Reader, I married him'. We have seen the 'married' bit used with countless other verbs to suit the context and we have seen it used as is in many contexts. You don't need to be a Brontëite to recognise it. Heck, you don't even need to know who the Brontës were at all.

As Tracy Chevalier argues in the introduction to her compilation of stories, it has a 'powerful resonance'. It's a triumphant phrase and, when in the context of Jane Eyre, it's both elated and quiet. Just four words that show Charlotte Brontë's mastery of language.

And just as it has inspired journalists from all over the world to create their own witty turns of phrase, so it has inspired 21 excellent writers. Each of them has crafted a short story based on what the line suggests to them. They may or may not refer explicitly to it. Some of them use the phrase as a distant echo (The Self-Seeding Sycamore  by Lionel Shriver, Robinson Crusoe at the Waterpark by Elizabeth McCracken) while others are firmly based within the context of Jane Eyre (The Orphan Exchange by Audrey Niffenegger, Grace Poole Her Testimony by Helen Dunmore, Reader, She Married Me by Salley Vickers) while others yet take us further into Brontë territory, with nods to other writers in the family (Dorset Gap by Tracy Chevalier) or Charlotte's own life story (Since First I Saw Your Face by Emma Donoghue).

Some of the reviews of the book so far seem to complain about the 'inequality' in the quality of the stories and while we think that some may suit some tastes better than others, all seem top quality to us. Some of them make the reader think hard to make the connection to 'Reader, I married him' but that's part of the fun. This books is, in a way, a literary version of what we encounter in our newsrounds. The phrase - or the inspiration behind it - takes the reader to Africa, to South America, to Texas, to England, to Switzerland.

In spite of the above, we can't help but pick some favourites. Patricia Park, already famous in Brontëland because of her novel Re Jane, has written the wonderful The China from Buenos Aires. It has a sense of time and place that is certainly reminiscent of what the Brontës were capable of in that sense. and it's a beautifully-crafted story that reveals its author, once again, to be a great lover and connoisseur of Jane Eyre. A couple of our favourite stories are among the farthest from actual explicit references to the novel but are so well-written that they would have been a delight to read in any collection: The Self-Seeding Sycamore and Robinson Crusoe at the Waterpark. Tracy Chevalier not only deserves a mention for her editing skills but also because her own story, Dorset Gap, is a wonderful tribute to any Brontëite/bookworm. Salley Vickers' Reader, She Married Me, Francine Prose's The Mirror and Helen Dunmore's Grace Poole Her Testimony were all somewhat unsettling to read as they present different versions of events told in Jane Eyre. The Orphan Exchange by Audrey Niffenegger shows a different, rather apocalyptic approach to Jane and Helen Burns's friendship.

A remark on the Notes on the contributors. we loved reading those that, rather than rattling off the list of awards received and books written, offered a short anecdote concerning some life event or other connected to the Brontës or their books, even if it's only to point out that they have never read Jane Eyre, as is Susan Hill's case (whose story, by the way, is told by Wallis Simpson about her relationship with Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, as imagined by the author, of course).

Charlotte Brontë would have a great many things to be proud of, but surely a literary tribute is one of the most moving tributes a writer can receive. We wonder if the plan is afoot but a compilation of short stories for each of the siblings' bicentenaries would be quite the celebration.

In our opinion, summer, with its comings and goings and lack of routines, is the perfect time of the year to read short stories and this collection is certainly a great one for any Brontëite but we would dare to say that it's also a perfect collection for any lover of the genre.Cristinahttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-34344524763144507282016-07-12T14:17:00.004+02:002016-07-13T12:29:14.487+02:00Brontës on Horrible Histories and John Joubert's Jane Eyre OperaSlipedDisk reveals great news. John Joubert's 1997 opera Jane Eyre (with libretto by Kenneth Birkin) will be premiered in Birmingham in October, albeit in a concert version. Even more, the performance will be recorded and it will be released next year:

A Charlotte Brontë opera that occupied twenty years of composer John Joubert's life until its completion in 1997 is to receive its world premiere on 25 October 2016, at the Ruddock Performing Arts Centre in Birmingham.
Joubert will turn 90 next year. (...)
To mark the 200th annive Jane Eyre will receive its world premiere in a concert performance on 25 October 2016, at the Ruddock Performing Arts Centre in Birmingham. The SOMM label will be on hand to capture a live recording which is scheduled to be released in March 2017 to coincide with Joubert's birthday.
rsary of Brontë's birth in 2016, and in anticipation of British composer John Joubert's 90th birthday in 2017, Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra will premiere Joubert's opera based on Brontë's first and most popular novel.
Joubert's Jane Eyre has been over two decades in the making, yet the seeds were sown as far back as 1969, when the composer penned his song-cycle Six Poems Of Emily Brontë. He became drawn into the world of the Brontë sisters and, perhaps inevitably, Jane Eyre. The result is a major operatic work with "a score of translucent beauty – Joubert's undoubted magnum opus," comments conductor Kenneth Woods. For the premiere, soprano Katherine Manley will portray the title character and baritone David Stout – who previously collaborated with Woods on a SOMM recording of Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen – will take on the role of Rochester. They will be joined by a full supporting cast. The librettist is Kenneth Birkin, a post-graduate student of Joubert's at Birmingham University whose Ph.D. focused on the libretti of Strauss's post-Hofmannsthal operas. (Norman Lebrecht)
More on Edition Peters and on the ESO blog.

CBBC's Horrible Histories Special Episode: Staggering Storytellers was aired yesterday, July 11. It included the Brontës (even Branwell) in a funny sketch.

The episode wraps up with a few more trivia about Lord Alfred Tennyson, Charles Dickens, who apparently was the star of his era (semi-agoraphobic and fan-despising as it were), and the Brontë sisters, whose antagonist was Jane Austen in the publisher's eyes. (Katerina Perdikaki on On the Box)
Harrogate Informer tells us of yet another floral homage to Charlotte Brontë:

The fifty year anniversary of the Harrogate International Festivals and some significant literary landmarks are being celebrated in a special flower bed in the town's Valley Gardens.
Over eleven thousand plants have been used to create the flower bed, the centrepiece of which is a giant '50' to mark the 50 years that Harrogate International Festivals have been bringing world class acts to the town.
The flower bed also depicts four open books, each featuring the initials of four literary giants who have special anniversaries this year: Charlotte Brontë (2016 is the 200th anniversary of her birth), Beatrix Potter (150 years), Roald Dahl (100 years) and William Shakespeare, who died 400 years ago.
Newsweek presents the Prime Minister-in-waiting and Leader of the Conservative Party, Theresa May with a Brontë reference:

May also presents as the serious-minded and dutiful daughter of a modest English clergyman. This is a strong myth in British society, with its Brontë undertones. And in terms of image it is worth pointing out that this is a much more powerful and intricate myth than being a clergyman's son. (John Gaffney)
The Guardian has an article about what we call solipsistic femininism and mentions Maggie Nelson's novel The Argonauts:

Her narrative is neither solipsistic nor a cold critique; yet it is both literary and feminist. "Reader, we married there," she says a short way into the book, Jane Eyre's words reconstituted to fit the comedy of rushing to marry in California before the midnight passing of Proposition 8. It is arrangements like these, frequent in Nelson's work, that show the artistry in self-exposition, the role of curation in the task of mining one's own life for feminist fodder. (Rafia Zakaria)
Washington Post reviews the novel Miss Jane by Brad Watson:

Dr. Thompson gives her books to read — Brontë, Flaubert — and continues explaining Jane's biology to her. These moments of pure honesty ground the book in the reality of medical conditions that, a hundred years ago, changed lives permanently. (Aditi Sriram)
Washingtonian is concerned about how many sentences begin with an unnecessary 'and':

And reader, I married him.
*
You wouldn't remember them in quite the same way if Abraham Lincoln, James Joyce, and Emily Brontë (!!) had actually put in the Ands at the start of those sentences (added by me). (Bill O'Sullivan)
AND... blunder habemus (in an article correcting style, it's frankly a bit embarrassing).

Sun Herald has a kids summer reading recommendation:

"Shrunken Treasures: Literary Classics, Short, Sweet, and Silly," written and illustrated by Scott Nash
Kiddos aren't quite ready for "The Odyssey," "Jane Eyre," or "Hamlet"? Enter "The Versizer," a new - and very scientific - invention that condenses those voluminous literary works into children's verse. Genius! Far from your typical CliffsNotes, these nine kid-friendly interpretations of the classics feature fun illustrations and lots of jokes.

Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/living/article88837927.html#storylink=cpy
The Tribune (India) quotes the author Vani saying:

Vani, whose debut novel The Recession Groom is a rom-com set in the period of global credit crisis, believes that age has no bearing on writing. She substantiates her point by throwing in some internationally well-known names, "Some of the greatest writers of all times such as, Emily Brontë, who wrote Wuthering Heights, penned their best works in their 20's."
Her best and only work, we may add.

Esquire has an article about the doubtfully shaped St Petersburg's island in Dubai:

"Our honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade over your grave or mine."
Although this quote from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is admittedly a bit morbid, we think she gets her point across quite well: Honeymoons are important. (Lucas Oakeley)
Trendencias (in Spanish) explores things that can be learnt from the Brontës:

1.- Se puede comprender la intensidad de la naturaleza humana viviendo en un páramo solitario o en un pueblo perdido en el monte.
Las tres, Anne, Charlotte y Emily fueron capaces de derribar las barreras del mundo en el que vivían y escribir historias extraordinarias, comprender una pasión que ellas mismas no habían experimentado y abrirse a un mundo totalmente diferente al suyo. No podemos menospreciar a las personas que llevan vidas mucho más sencillas porque eso no significa que su naturaleza no sea igual de curiosa, inquieta y compleja que la de las personas que tienen por costumbre viajar, relacionarse más, vivir en grandes urbes con acceso a muchos eventos culturales, etc.
2.- Para ser un gran escritor no hay que vivir una vida épica y llena de excéntricas experiencias.
Nada que ver con Ernest Hemingway o Jack London. Las tres hermanas Brontë llevaban una vida de lo más casera, encerradas en una pequeña casa repleta de trastos y en el campo. ¿Y cuál es el secreto para sin abandonar esa casa escribir Cumbres Borrascosas? Ser una gran observadora de la naturaleza humana, ser auténtica y fiel a sí misma. (Read more) (Rebeca Rus)
Also on Trendencias, a recommendation of Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.

A Voz da Serra (Brazil) has an article on Scheherazade and women in literature:

Essas mulheres abriram a porta para que grandes escritoras como Jane Austen, George Elliot e Emily Brontë pudessem escrever sob suas próprias assinaturas. (Kelly Cristine) (Translation)
Filthy Casket Book Reviews and The Vince Review post about Jane Eyre; Eric Ruijssenaars continues exploring Villette and The Professor translations (now in Czechia and Slovakia) on the Brussels Brontë Blog.M.http://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-16586584.post-46568322352079927782016-07-12T13:03:00.001+02:002016-07-12T13:03:13.873+02:00Charlotte Great and Small Twitter Tour
A Twitter alert for today, April 12:

Brontë 200 - Charlotte Great and Small Twitter Tour

Tracy Chevalier presents her exhibition tweet by tweet
July 12th 2016 08:00pm - 09:00pm

Not yet had a chance to see Charlotte Great and Small, our bicentenary exhibition? Join our 2016 Creative Partner Tracy Chevalier on twitter for a virtual tour!

Tracy will be tweeting about the exhibition between 8pm and 9pm BST on Tuesday 12 July. Follow the activity @tracy_chevalier using #BronteTwitterTour.
M.http://email@example.com