We never could have guessed that Annie Murphy had a Brontë role in her past, Via Bustle:
Annie Murphy has always had range. By 14, the Ottawa, Ontario native was a rising star in her private school’s theater program, portraying Little Red Riding Hood in Into The Woods and Dodger in Oliver Twist. She also earned a role in The Gut Girls, about women who worked in a slaughterhouse, and a part in one particularly memorable, little-known work: “My English teacher wrote a very bizarre play about the Brontë sisters, and I played a Brontë,” Murphy tells Bustle over Zoom in late June. (Gabrielle Bondi)
The Texas Inquisition Book Ban Bill appears in many news outlets as bookstores are trying to protect their business and, basically, freedom of expression, with a lawsuit challenging this new legislation:
Legislators expressed concern that the overbroad language of the Book Ban could result in the banning or restricting of access to many classic works of literature, such as Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men, Ulysses,Jane Eyre, Maus, Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation, The Canterbury Tales, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and even the Bible.
Another kind of contemporary inquisition is woke revisionism which is explored in the context of George Orwell (which is kind of ironic) in New Statesman:
I would guess that there are two main reasons to write a novel inside the world of an existing novel. There’s fan fiction, because you want to spend more time with Elizabeth and Darcy or Harry Potter and see what else happens. And then there’s wanting to fix a book that seems somehow wrong or missing something important. For that, the type specimen must be Jean Rhys’s The Wide Sargasso Sea, pointing out the racism and colonialism of Jane Eyre by focusing on the first Mrs Rochester, the mixed-race woman locked in the attic while Jane carries on with Mr Rochester below. It’s a strange, dreamy, sensuous book, not just a reprimand. (Rebecca Solnit)
Emma Cline discusses in AnOther Magazine her love of Difficult Women by David Plante:
Difficult Women by David Plante makes you realise how impossible most attempts to encapsulate the whole of a person are. The book comprises short accounts of three of Plante’s relationships – with Jean Rhys, Sonia Orwell and Germaine Greer. They’re all ‘difficult’ in some ways, but Plante isn’t easy himself. It’s not a kind book, and the sadness of life is held up mercilessly, almost triumphantly. His portrait of Rhys – most famous for Wide Sargasso Sea, though Good Morning, Midnight might be my favourite – is the most memorably grim. She’s holed up in a cold cottage in rural England, desperate for money, always on the lookout for a free drink. Is this portrait just cruel? I don’t think so. Plante’s sketches, drawn from his diaries, are ungenerous, even betraying, but Rhys’s strange brilliance is unmissable. It’s a hard book to look away from.
The Greenfield Recorder talks about the Most Wuthering Heights Day celebrations in Greenfield, MA:
If you head to Greenfield’s Energy Park on Sunday afternoon you will discover a field of red-clad dancers swaying about to the song “Wuthering Heights” by the British musician Kate Bush. The reason for this collective performance is that the dancers are participating in “The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever,” a global event held in locations around the world where participants recreate the music video for Bush’s 1978 song “Wuthering Heights.” (Sheryl Hunter)
Or you can go to San Diego, Tipperary, Canberra, Dubbo...
We are a bit confused by this recommendation of 'hidden gems' in Yorkshire as read in the Yorkshire Post:
“Stoodley pike at Brontë Parsonage Museum.” - Scott Wright (Liana Jacob)
Stoodley Pike is in Brontë country, but at the south of Hebden Bridge, near Todmorden.
More than confusion, perplexity is what we experience reading comparisons like this one. In a review of a recent gig of The Last Dinner Party as published in Leftlion:
Watching The Last Dinner Party is like attending Marie Antoinette’s ball after reading Wuthering Heights. The all-female quintet cordially invite you in to their orchestral Boudoir, executing their songs in an ethereal way that exude gothic romanticism, leaving you entranced, euphoric but also melancholic - a sense of wanting to be a part of it, this choir of rebellion, rage and authenticity. (Charlotte Gould)
The Times interviews business owner and political activist, Gina Miller:
York Membery: Where did you grow up?G.M.: ’m one of five children and I spent my first 11 years in the former British colony of Guyana. My staunchly royalist mother was a botanist, so I grew up surrounded by lots of flowers, and my father later became the country’s attorney general. In 1976, aged 11, they sent me to a boarding school in England so I swapped the tropical weather of my homeland for sunny Eastbourne, East Sussex. By that age I’d read a lot of Dickens and Charlotte Brontë, so I had a certain view of England that was quite unlike the reality.
In New Statesman Charlotte Stroud reminisces about how she was able to grow up as a fish out of water:
It wasn’t until I took a job as a nanny to fund my way through university that I learned of a parallel universe. In this previously hidden world, children were given books like Jane Eyre and Lord of the Rings at “just the right time” by parents who were determined to fatten them up with culture, like foie gras ducklings.
The Kathmandu Post (Nepal) interviews the journalist and researcher Abha Lal:
Kshitiz Pratap Shah: What books had a lasting impact on you?A.L.: (...) My favourite novel of all time is ‘Villette’ by Charlotte Brontë. I keep returning to that book, and it had a lasting impact on me. It has a very well-written and interestingly constructed world. I like the other books of the Brontë sisters, too, like ‘Jane Eyre.’
Fortress of Solitude includes Jane Eyre among the most iconic fictional characters of all time:
At this point, everyone knew who the Brontë sisters were, but in 1847, when Jane Eyre: An Autobiography was published, Charlotte Brontë published her story under the male pen name “Currer Bell”. The novel follows the iconic fictional character Jane Eyre, the heroine of her story.The book was initially published with the autobiographical title because it followed the life of the strong-minded Jane from her years as an infant to adulthood, touching on her time as an orphaned child, her first employment as a teacher and then as a governess, and even the romances she experienced throughout her life.Facing unbelievable trauma and neglect as a child, the death of her friend by consumption, and surviving a typhoid epidemic as a student, Jane manages to survive despite all her hardships. She decides to make her own way in the world. Finding a job and finding love, however tumultuous it might have been, Jane Eyre is seen as the start of an era in which novels focused on women as the story’s protagonists.Having been written by a woman, and not a man, Jane Eyre isn’t just a beautiful girl who gets swept off her feet by a handsome hero, but was strong and independent and an icon to women of the time who were learning that a man was not all they needed in their lives and that they could make their own way in a world that was so clearly male-dominated. (Megan Oosthuizen)
The Somerset Council celebrates the achievements of Somerset children:
Lemn Sissay, who spent his entire childhood in care, was an inspirational speaker at the awards. As part of his speech he drew attention to our fascination with fostered, adopted and orphaned children who are at the heart of many our greatest cultural works: Harry Potter, Superman, Cinderella, Batman, Heathcliff, Jane Eyre, Moses, Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, Aladdin, Mowgli, Tarzan, Snow White, and many more.
Star's Insider lists Emily among history's most famous recluses. The text is not very accurate, but at least is not totally wrong as the two pictures they take to illustrate it. None of them is Emily:
One of the three legendary Brontë sisters, Emily Brontë is known for penning the English literary classic ‘Wuthering Heights.’ Sheltered from a young age, and growing up on an estate in the English countryside, Emily left very little behind for biographers to analyze.‘Wuthering Heights’ was the only novel published by Brontë, and it seems she spent most of the rest of her days walking the grounds of her family’s estate with her beloved dog, named Keeper, and did not develop much of a social life outside of her family.
València Plaza (Spain) interviews the author Esther López Barceló:
Óscar Mora: Ha sobreviscut a set mudances…E.L.B.: Compartisc biblioteca amb ma mare. A sa casa tinc els llibres que han marcat la meua educació literària-sentimental, les autores victorianes, com les germanes Brontë. Vaig arribar a elles i a autores com Sylvia Plath de la mà de ma mare. (...)Ó.M.: Quins llibres conserves més temps? Els de xicoteta: els Astèrix i Obèlix, els de E.L.B: Mafalda i els del Pequeño Vampiro. També he buscat i recomprat els meus favorits, com una quarta edició de Jane Eyre, de Charlotte Brontë. (Translation)
Onedio (Turkey) makes a list of romantic films that 'will leave you with a smile':
Jane Eyre 2011Jane Eyre, 10 yaşındayken öksüz kalmış ve mutsuz bir çocukluk dönemi geçirmiştir. Babasının öldüğünü zanneden Jane, kendisine adeta bir köle gibi davranan halası tarafından oldukça katı disiplinli bir yatılı okula gönderilir. On yıl boyunca bütün hayatının geçtiği bu yatılı okuldan mezun olduktan sonra kendisi de aynı çatı altında öğretmen olarak çalışmaya başlar. Bir süre sonra da Edward Rochester’ın malikânesinde çocuklara mürebbiyelik yapmaya başlar. (Beyza) (Translation)
Pinkvilla posts quotes about uncles including one that they attribute to Emily Brontë, but it is not (and we rather think is not the only quote misattributed there). A quick check with Bard and the Internet Archive turned out this information (that we can't confirm):
Sure, I can check the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive. Here are the results:Goodreads: The quote was attributed to Emily Brontë on Goodreads between March 2010 and March 2014. However, the quote has since been removed from the website.Quotes.net: The quote was attributed to Emily Brontë on Quotes.net between February 2013 and February 2015. However, the quote has since been removed from the website.It appears that the quote was once attributed to Emily Brontë on these websites, but it has since been removed. This suggests that the quote was likely misattributed, and that it does not actually come from Brontë's work.
Finally, an alert for tomorrow, July 28 in Salem, MA:
On July 28 at 6 p.m., the Salem Athenaeum’s Summer Salon presents a 35-minute performance with actress Julie Butters portraying some of classic literature’s most exciting leading ladies, along with historical women who created brilliant works in defense of their gender. Meet Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet, Mrs. “Marmee” March, Joan of Arc, Olympe de Gouge and many more, followed by a Q&A. The program, “Ahead of Their Time: Inspiring Women of Literature",: is free to Salem Athenaeum members; $15, general admission. The Salem Athenaeum is located at: 337 Essex St. Salem. (Salem News)
