The Times has very good 2026's cultural resolutions for all of you: Have a Brontë bonanza It’s going to be a year of Brontë for me. Recently I picked up Charlotte B’s Villette — prompted by a Times recommendation from the author Kaliane Bradley, who described it as “superb” and “horny” — and while I can’t exactly say I’m racing through it, the narrator is a remarkable heroine: bitter, wry, self-hating, kind of like a corseted Fleabag. Next goal: wrap up Villette in time to read Emily’s Wuthering Heights before the “sexed-up” movie with Margot Robbie comes out (February 13), so I can criticise it smugly but authoritatively. And then, I suppose out of fairness, it’s time to find out whether Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is utterly brilliant or a weird story about rental agreements. (Neil Fisher)
Haworth village is one of the most picturesque, fascinating, and best places to visit in Yorkshire. Here are our top five things to do in Haworth that will persuade you to put it at the top of your bucket list for 2026. 1. It is the home of the Literature Queens, the Brontë Sisters One of the things that Haworth is most famous for is being the home of the talented Brontë sisters. The authors of such works, including Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, have left their legacy in Haworth. They continue to attract thousands of visitors to the village each year. Here are some of the main attractions linked to the Brontë Sisters you must see when you visit Haworth: The Brontë Parsonage Museum The famous home of the Brontë family is now a fascinating museum. At the Brontë Parsonage Museum, you’ll discover the world’s largest variety of original Brontë items, including furniture, books, paintings, clothes, and much more. Throughout the year, there are family activities, insightful talks, and special exhibitions.
Haworth Parish Church After visiting the Brontë Parsonage Museum, you should take a look at Haworth Parish Church, located right next door. It has deep connections with the family. Firstly, Patrick Brontë, the sisters’ father, was the parish minister for 41 years. Also, Emily, Charlotte, Bramwell (their brother), and Patrick are all buried here. It is a must-visit when wandering Brontë Country.
Top Withens Top Withens is an iconic landmark in Haworth. This ruined, isolated farmhouse located on Haworth Moor is roughly a 3.5-mile walk from the village’s main street. It is widely considered a significant inspiration for Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights. With this connection mixed with the beautifully wild landscapes, it is a highly popular spot for walkers.
Black Bull
After a long day walking and sightseeing, you might very well want to stop for a hard-earned drink. If you want a cosy pub but also want to keep discovering more about the Brontës, then look no further than the Black Bull. The pub is famous as it was the favourite drinking spot of Branwell Brontë, the sisters’ brother. An excellent creative in his own right, he was a regular visitor to the pub, and you’ll still find his famous masonic seat. The pub also appeared in a BBC drama ‘To Walk Invisible’, which tells the story of Bramwell and his family. (Eddie Brickdale)
Not the only news outlet that recommends a visit to Haworth. We read in The Scottish Sun: Hazel Rickett, from leading small-group tour operator Rabbie’s, has recommended six incredible destinations, perfect for a staycation in the new year to keep the January blues at bay. (...) And finally, Haworth, located in West Yorkshire, was her sixth recommendation for anyone seeking a relaxing started to 2026. Best known for being the home of the Brontë sisters, the village and surrounding moorlands are incredibly atmospheric at this time of year. She added: “Here, people can explore the cobbled, Victorian streets or plan a visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, before warming up in one of Haworth’s traditional pubs after a crisp winter walk. (Ruth Warrander)
The dales and moors of Yorkshire are a well-established muse for writers and visual artists. Most recently, the region has served as the romantic location for “Wuthering Heights” and “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.” The North Yorkshire Moors Railway and the Yorkshire Dales make appearances in both and are a must-see when visiting. Make sure to squeeze in a visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where the Brontë family lived from 1820 to 1861. The historic space offers fascinating insight into the lives of the three Brontë sisters and the world that inspired “Wuthering Heights.” The Week awaits eagerly for Wuthering Heights 2026: The trailer for Emerald Fennell’s “ravishingly stylish” adaptation of Emily Brontë’s only novel sent much of the internet into a “tizzy”, said Jack King in GQ. This “definitely isn’t the ‘Wuthering Heights’ you read for your GCSEs”. As you would expect from the director of “Saltburn”, the trailer was “factory-made to provoke a reaction”. In her “gleefully anachronistic romance”, Margot Robbie (pictured above) and Jacob Elordi take on the starring roles of Catherine and Heathcliff, while Charli XCX has contributed some “absolute bangers” to the soundtrack. Is it a surprise Fennell’s film “seemingly sticks a middle finger up at the source material? More to the point: does it really matter, when it looks like this much of a laugh?” (Irene Forshaw) The anticipation is shared in Express, Kent Online, The Standard, Variety, Vulture, The Sydney Morning Herald, FandomWire (which thinks that "with two A-list actors leading the project and giving this classic gothic story a steamy spin, it’s no surprise that this will churn $1 billion at the box office"), ComingSoon, Readly, Gold Derby, QueVer, El Nuevo Siglo, ELLE México, il Libraio, RTL, inStyle, Chicago Tribune, Cosmpolitan, Time Magazine, Prestige or Vogue which is, of course, more interested in the costumes: While Emerald Fennell’s forthcoming film is already stirring up conversation thanks to its surprising costumes, Margot Robbie and stylist Andrew Mukamal are already plotting a fashion fantasia for the press tour. “The couture shows are in January. So we can see what comes out of that,” Robbie told British Vogue. Maybe, if we’re lucky, co-star Jacob Elordi will break out the cravat again. (Hannah Jackson) Vanidad (Spain) has a list of the most anticipated music albums for 2026: 4. «Wuthering Heights» de Charli XCX El próximo 13 de febrero los fans de Charli XCX estarán de celebración, y es que la artista anunció hace unas semanas que el segundo mes de 2026 llegaría por todo lo alto con un nuevo disco bajo el brazo: « Wuthering Heights». Un disco que se presenta como algo muy distinto a lo que ha hecho hasta ahora y del cual ya hemos conocido los temas « Chains of Love» y « House», tema que compuso para la banda sonora de la adaptación de « Cumbres Borrascosas» y que parece ser que es un muy buen chivatazo de lo que se viene con el disco en conjunto. Tal y como ella ha contado, hizo un disco completo para conseguir introducirse en el personaje, y de hecho ha creado este álbum junto al autor de la banda sonora de la película, Finn Keane. ( Translation)
Best Opera Performance Anna Sideris - Jane Eyre - Arcola Theatre 33% Anna Netrebko - Tosca - Royal Ballet And Opera 29% Laura Mekhail - Jane Eyre - Arcola Theatre 22% Hector Bloggs - Jane Eyre - Arcola Theatre 15%
Best Opera Production Jane Eyre - Arcola Theatre 48% Tosca - Royal Ballet And Opera 29% Saul - Glyndebourne 23%
Mononoke The Movie: Chapter II – The Ashes of Rage (Kenji Nakamura/Toei Animation/Netflix) Rage burns incandescent. This film is hardly the first literary work to note that women's rage, in particular, is hard to extinguish (though it might be the most visually striking). Honestly, I feel like the closest comparisons are Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper.
Why I recommend it: My second-greatest tip for getting back into reading is to revisit the first book you ever loved, and I do that every year with Wuthering Heights. It’s a classic novel about — and I can’t believe I’m saying this — the toxic situationship between two monstrous people. Catherine and Heathcliff both suck, but they’re more than soulmates, and their impossible love, set against the gloomy backdrop of the English moors, never gets boring. It helps that Emily Brontë’s pen is unmatched: “Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad.” That’s the hottest line ever written. I’m so mad at her for dying before she could write anything else. It is impossible to talk about Wuthering Heights without noting that there’s a new movie adaptation coming in February 2026 — your homework is to read this before then, and don’t fall for the rage-bait of whatever inevitable inconsistencies the Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi version has. They’re different media, for goodness’ sake! Let Emerald Fennell (the notoriously polarizing director) have a little fun with it!
Also, what’s up with Millie’s room in the attic, which features a window that won’t open, a door that locks from the outside, and a serious Jane Eyre-meets-Gaslight vibe? (David Fear) The Guardian reminisces about the legacy of Bradford's city of culture year: They also installed the first visitor toilets at the Brontë Parsonage Museum; relocated the Peace Museum to Salts Mill where its annual visitors increased from 3,000 per year to more than 50,000; and they installed a lift at Ilkley Playhouse. None of that is sexy. But in a city with a council that by its own admission faces financial challenges which rank “among the most significant in local government nationally”, it is work that simply would not have happened otherwise. (Lanre Bakare) Consideration of book sizes was sparked recently by noticing my spouse and I were both reading books from the Oxford World’s Classics series, her Austen’s “Emma” and me Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.” Both were small Aldus portables, but her “Emma” was noticeably larger at 4½ inches by 6½, while “Jane” was merely 4 by 6. The type in “Jane” was a bit smaller, too, as was the price. Published by Oxford Press in 1999, “Emma” cost $13, while “Jane” was published in 1986 by Avenel, a New York company, for $2.99. (Greg Hill) A recent Brontë-related honor thesis: by Blythe Meacham, Angelo State University December 2025
Since its appearance in the mid-eighteenth century, Gothic literature has been equal parts popular and scandalous; these stories thrill audiences through their treatment of controversial topics and taboo ideas, particularly in their representation of women. Literary scholars have applied many theoretical lenses in studying Gothic texts, with gender studies and psychoanalysis being among the most prominent. Beyond the Female Gothic contributes to criticism in Gothic literature by reading two texts, Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, in conversation with contemporary work in the interdisciplinary field of affect studies. Affect studies draws from the disciplines of philosophy, history, literature, psychology, and neuroscience to explore how affect, which includes conscious and non-conscious emotions and embodied feeling, both shapes and is shaped by social and cultural conceptions of gender, relationships, and power dynamics. Placing affect studies alongside established literary scholarship, including critical discussions of the “Female Gothic” that explore how women are represented in Gothic literature as characters and authors, provides a unique way of looking at these novels. In particular, I will demonstrate how the language of emotion developed by the philosopher David Hume and the language of feeling developed by precursors to neuroscience in this time period inform representations of affect in Gothic literature. Through readings of these key texts that theorize affect in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries alongside Mary Wollstonecraft’s writing on female education, I will argue that through the discourse of affect, Zofloya and Wuthering Heights theorize conceptions of feminine agency that go beyond the framework offered by the “Female Gothic.”
Samantha Ellis publishes a piece in The Guardian trying to explain why Wuthering Heights is not "the greatest love story of all time" but something much more complex, troublesome and brilliant: The most astonishing thing about the first trailer for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is not the extreme closeup of dough being kneaded into submission. It’s not that in the lead roles Margot Robbie is blonde and 35, and Jacob Elordi is white, when Emily Brontë described Cathy as a teen brunette and Heathcliff as “a dark-skinned gypsy”. (...) The most astonishing thing is that the trailer says Wuthering Heights is “the greatest love story of all time”. Which is almost exactly how the 1939 Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon film was trailed – as “the greatest love story of our time … or any time!” Have we learned nothing? I am not talking about the fact that (like Oberon’s!) Robbie’s wedding dress is white, which is not period-correct. This has exercised many people on the internet. I’m more worried about the fact that almost a century since Olivier’s film, we are still calling it a love story – a great one! The greatest! It’s being released the day before Valentine’s Day! – when what actually happens is that Cathy rejects Heathcliff because she’s a snob, and he turns into a psychopath. (...) It’s true it’s low on laughs. It’s no romcom. Instead of a meet-cute there’s Cathy’s father bringing home a ragged orphan he’s found starving on the streets of Liverpool. The boy-loses-girl part is all there, but the boy-gets-girl ending never quite happens. The real question is whether it’s too brutal for the screen – Andrea Arnold’s raw, stripped-down 2011 version is probably the closest to the book’s dark energy, and even she stuck to the first half of the book. There’s so much cruelty. Heathcliff is abused by Cathy’s brother Hindley. He then goads Hindley into drinking himself to death, takes his house and abuses Hindley’s son. He tricks Cathy’s sister-in-law into marriage, beats her, calls her a slut, hangs her dog and gaslights her, insisting this is what she wants. Cathy is too narcissistic to care about any of this. So even ignoring her death and the second half of the novel, it’s a lot. If Fennell continues to the (bittersweet) end she’ll have to deal with Heathcliff abusing his own son and Cathy’s daughter, forcing them to marry, and renting Cathy’s marital home to a middle-aged fop who slashes a ghost girl’s wrists with broken glass. (In a frame narrative. The complexity of the plot is another reason it’s a nightmare to adapt.) (...) Perhaps it’s not the greatest love story of all time, our time or any time, but is the greatest story about what we think love is like when we haven’t experienced it.
Keighley News celebrates one of the highlights of the Brontë year, the reopening of the Brontë Birthplace: The house at Thornton opened to the public for the first time in its 200-year history in March. Contributions from more than 700 individual investors – together with grants from Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, and the Community Ownership, National Lottery Heritage and Rural England Prosperity funds – led to the property being bought and placed under the care of Brontë Birthplace Ltd, a community benefit society. An extensive renovation was carried out ahead of the public launch. And the official opening of the building – as a museum and education centre, with facilities for overnight stays in the historical rooms – was performed in May by Her Majesty Queen Camilla. Whilst the Brontë siblings are inexorably associated with Haworth – where they lived and drew inspiration for their work from the surrounding moorland – Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne were all born at the house in Thornton. Brontë Birthplace fundraising co-ordinator, Nigel West, says: "This is an amazing story of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture using its legacy funding and then 770 members contributing – and the formation of a community benefit society – that will protect the Birthplace for the community. "This was the most important heritage opening anywhere in the UK in 2025, and it is as significant to this country as Shakespeare's birthplace." (Alistair Shand)
Also in Great British Life. Express visits Haworth, "the gorgeous little village with the UK's best high street". Haworth is the kind of village that makes you want to slow down and take it all in. Nestled on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, it’s best known as the home of the Brontë sisters, whose novels immortalised the windswept landscape. But the village itself has a story worth exploring, a mix of literary history, industrial heritage, and small-town charm that feels genuine and unpolished. The village grew around the textile industry in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of its stone houses were built for workers in the local mills, and the streets still echo that past. Cobbled lanes twist between stone cottages and independent shops, and while tourism has increased over the years, Haworth retains an authenticity that makes it feel like a lived-in place rather than a museum. Today, the Brontë Parsonage Museum sits at the top of the main street, a constant reminder of the village’s literary fame, while the moors beyond provide the dramatic backdrop that inspired Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. (...) It’s easy to see why the Brontës found the surrounding landscape so inspiring: dramatic without being forbidding, wild but still inviting. (...) After dinner, I walked uphill toward the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The street narrows as it rises, with stone cottages gradually giving way to more open space. Even without entering the museum, wandering around the gardens and the lane leading up to it is evocative. Low walls, rough grass, and flower beds frame the house, while beyond the gate the moors roll endlessly into the distance. It’s easy to imagine the Brontës pacing these paths, their minds wandering as far as the open land before them. (Aditi Rane)
The Craven Herald & Pioneer coincidentally also has an article about how the Old Post Office in Haworth has been named the cosiest place to eat by The Yorkshireman. Meanwhile, Irving returns to his signature subjects: circumcision, tattoos, wrestling, and the endless possibilities of sexual attraction and intercourse. He examines works by the Bronte sisters, Charles Dickens, Arthur Schnitzler, and Anne Frank, the films High Noon and The Seventh Seal, and songs by Bob Dylan. (Glenn C. Altschuler) The photographer James Glossop shares his favourite images of 2025 in The Times, including one of a Northern Ballet’s performance of Jane Eyre on March 20, 2025. SWR (Germany) interviews the writer Anjet Daanje, who now publishes the German translation of her novel Het lied van ooievaar en dromedaris: „Das Lied von Storch und Dromedar“ ist ein multiperspektivischer Roman, der durch Emily Brontës doppeltes Erzählen im Roman „Sturmhöhe“ inspiriert wurde. Dadurch wirkt Daanjes Erzählen wie ein postmodernes Puzzle und besitzt zugleich die Eleganz eines englischen Gesellschaftsromans. Anjet Daanje sagt: „Man könnte sagen, dass dies das gemeinsame Lied von elf Personen ist. Die elf Kapitel bilden zusammen eine Art Gedicht, also ein Lied. Der ganze Roman ist ein bisschen wie ein Musikstück angelegt. Mit Themen, die variiert werden.“ Zum Beispiel Geschwisterbeziehungen. Klavierspiel. Oder der Umgang mit Zeit. „Ich sehe „Das Lied“ aber auch als Ballade. Früher wurden Balladen gesungen, um Geschichten zu erzählen. Und das macht Anjet in diesem Buch sehr stark. Und das nennt sie dann ein „Lied“, sagt Anton Scheepstra. Daanjes Ballade umfasst drei Jahrhunderte. Sie beginnt in England, geht weiter unter Auswanderern in den USA, macht im Ersten Weltkrieg einen Abstecher nach Frankreich, im Zweiten Weltkrieg nach England und kehrt am Ende geradezu heim nach Groningen. „Das letzte Kapitel spielt in den Niederlanden. Das hatte ich zuerst gar nicht vor", berichtet Daanje. „Ich dachte eher an England. Aber dann recherchierte ich zu Glockentürmen und dachte: Die gibt es auch bei uns. Warum den Roman also nicht in den Niederlanden abrunden?“ (Katharina Borchardt) (Translation)
And of course, Wuthering Heights 2026, features in many list of the films to watch next year: The Tab, Evoke, Glamour, Breaking News, The Journal, Soap Central, Elle, Forbes, Euronews, Time Out... The Times of India includes Emily Brontë in a list of haunting lines from books and classics. AnneBrontë.org posts about the Patrick-Maria wedding preparations in 1812.
A new scholarly Brontë-related paper in Spanish:
Gerard Hidalgo Izquierdo, Universidad de Córdoba Esferas Literarias, n.º 8, diciembre de 2025, pp. 100-15, doi:10.21071/elrl.i8.18630.
La época victoriana fue un periodo de prosperidad y desarrollo para las escritoras británicas. Muchas de ellas criticaron la moral y los valores victorianos a través de sus obras. Las mujeres empezaron a rebelarse contra las normas establecidas por la sociedad, y la literatura femenina comenzó a desarrollarse como una forma de combatir el patriarcado. Posteriormente, a finales del siglo XIX, Sarah Grand acuñó el concepto de La Nueva Mujer. Sin embargo, en este trabajo sostengo que este concepto puede encontrarse previamente en la literatura victoriana temprana. De este modo, este trabajo propone analizar los personajes femeninos en Mary Barton (1848) y La Inquilina de Wildfell Hall (1848) que representan a la Nueva Mujer, y cómo Elizabeth Gaskell y Anne Brontë crean personajes femeninos que desafían los estándares sociales victorianos.
Lots of sites are listing the must-see films of 2026 with Wuthering Heights in their selections. Here are just a few: Newsweek, BBC, Yahoo! Entertainment, The Argus, etc.
Edhat takes a different approach and lists 'The Top Screen-Inspired Travel Destinations In 2026' including Yorkshire, UK The dales and moors of Yorkshire are a well-established muse for writers and visual artists. Most recently, the region has served as the romantic location for “Wuthering Heights” and “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.” The North Yorkshire Moors Railway and the Yorkshire Dales make appearances in both and are a must-see when visiting. Make sure to squeeze in a visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where the Brontë family lived from 1820 to 1861. The historic space offers fascinating insight into the lives of the three Brontë sisters and the world that inspired “Wuthering Heights.” (Jeanette D. Moses)
Forbes (Spain) looks into the profitability of adapting classics.
Girls' Life lists '5 Literary Classics That *Still* Hit Different', including Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre is more than a gothic romance—it’s a revolutionary tale of a woman refusing to be anyone’s shadow. Orphaned, headstrong and fiercely moral, Jane challenges the rigid rules of Victorian society with every choice she makes. Thornfield Hall is full of secrets, but the real shocker isn’t the locked rooms or the mysterious master—it’s Jane herself, daring to demand respect, love and autonomy on her own terms. Brontë’s novel breaks conventions by giving a voice to a heroine who thinks, feels and acts for herself, weaving themes of gender, class and morality into a story that is as thrilling and dark as it is emotionally rich. A story of courage, desire and moral reckoning, it still feels daring and modern centuries after it was written.
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