Daily Mail and others report on Edinburgh's Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever yesterday. She famously sang ‘it’s me, I’m Cathy’ in her hit song Wuthering Heights. But passers-by could be forgiven for wondering which one was the real Kate Bush as hundreds of fans wearing red gathered on Edinburgh’s Meadows to recreate the dance from the 1978 chart-topper. The annual gathering is part of the global Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever, with this the fifth time it has taken place in Edinburgh. One previous participant has been quoted as saying: ‘It takes a certain kind of person to want to frolic in a field dressed like Kate Bush – a bunch of eccentric people celebrating a wonderfully British icon.’ (Emma Newlands)
The one that made you want to become an author: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (Elise Dumpleton)
Yesterday marked the anniversary of the death of Patrick Brontë and AnneBrontë.org had a post about it.
A chance to see Jane Eyre Convention in London, before it premieres at the Edinburgh Fringe in August:
Theatre Caddis Presents by Eleanor Zeal, directed by Danielle Arkwright June 9-13 The Bread & Roses Theatre 68 Clapham Manor Street, Clapham SW4 6DZ, London
Jane Eyre aficionados meet in a community hall in West Norwood to reenact their favourite novel. They fight unashamedly over the best lines examining their own neuroses and histories as they go, eventually reaching the end. Opportunities for audience to join in and feel real, potentially therapeutic emotions.
After reading This Dark Night and having a lot of trouble putting it down between chapters, my biggest disappointment had nothing to do with how Deborah Lutz uniquely captured the essence of Emily. It was the tragic brevity of her literary subject’s life (1818-1848). (...) What brings this unusual and ultimately tragic family into focus for 21st-century readers is Lutz’s consummate skill at weaving seemingly mundane details of everyday life into the fabric of their creative existence. Alongside the practical necessities of acquiring a Victorian education, maintaining a place in society, dealing with youthful emotions and romances, encountering illness and death, and keeping a motherless household running, Charlotte, Emily, Anne and their only brother, Branwell, lived energetically in imaginary worlds they created and wrote about together --- not only during childhood, but also well into young adulthood. Much of their imaginative fervor, especially Emily’s, was stirred by the climate and rugged landscape of the Yorkshire moors around their hometown of Haworth. Their intellectually liberal father, Patrick, was a local clergyman who largely home-schooled the children. He would outlive not only his wife, but all six of his offspring. By drawing so deeply on the real and imaginary worlds that the Brontës simultaneously inhabited, Lutz adds meaning and relevance to Emily’s poetry, which spans her entire short life: her seeming obsession with death, graves, memorials, ghosts and the supernatural; her passion for the beauty of the night sky and contemplation of the infinite; her keen eye for the subtlest changes in the flora and fauna of the moors on which she wandered at every opportunity; and her passion for the welfare of animals. She also captures Emily’s sometimes-painful transition into adolescence and adulthood, times in which she could be both an acute observer and vocal critic of human nature and relationships (platonic and erotic). An especially endearing and often poignant element of This Dark Night is the generous amount of correspondence that Lutz includes between Emily and her sisters, friends and relatives, which not only serves to highlight the intimacy of their connections, but also brings the larger 19th-century world into their quite isolated rural environment. An important part of that wider world was the innovation of affordable rail travel that arrived in Yorkshire in time for Emily and Charlotte to journey overseas to Belgium for additional schooling, an experience that deeply influenced both their writing. (Pauline Finch)
Helen Burns Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, 1847 “Life appears too short to me to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs,” the dying Helen Burns advises the furiously unhappy, rebellious young Jane in the opening chapters of Charlotte Brontë’s best-known novel. Helen’s pacific world view provides both moral and spiritual guidance for Jane, as Brontë’s wayward orphaned heroine negotiates her way into adulthood. Yet Jane also struggles to reconcile Helen’s submissive sensibility with her instinct to kick against compliance as a woman’s sexual and political lot. The unwaveringly good Helen inhabits one part of Jane, and Bertha Mason, Rochester’s “mad wife” whom he has imprisoned in the attic, the other. The genius of the novel lies in the way it holds these feminine contradictions in balance. (Claire Allfree)
Firstpost posts a 'Gen Z review' of Wuthering Heights, the book I love Wuthering Heights from every inch of my heart. I love it with a passion that I love very few other books, and it is easily in my top three of all time. Like many others, I’d grown up thinking it was a romantic book, the pinnacle of romance really, a story between Catherine and Heathcliff. The first time I read it, I was fresh out of school, in that angsty period between school and university when life promises potential but everything is uncertain. In all honesty, I didn’t fully understand it, and I am almost certain I didn’t enjoy it either. I don’t remember feeling much, which in retrospect makes sense — I was in an all-girls boarding school for most of my teenage years and wasn’t particularly social enough to have formed any real romantic attachment outside of it. I read the book emotionally unprepared, which is to say, I came to it without having loved anyone yet. No wonder I found it disappointing. Where was the adventure? The tragedy? How much time were they actually spending together? (...) The insults in the novel were fabulous — “he’s such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him,” “thou saucy witch” — the characters so wickedly themselves that I found myself reading passages aloud to no one. Nevertheless, it was the central miscommunication that undid me. Heathcliff walking away two minutes before Catherine confesses that he is “more myself than I am, whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” It is almost the 1800s version of Normal People. I remember how wretched I felt, wanting to shake him. And then Catherine dies, and Heathcliff says “I cannot live without my life, I cannot live without my soul,” and there is simply nothing to be done with that. The thunderstorm, and the fool who loves him Most people who read Wuthering Heights expecting a love story come away confused and slightly betrayed. This is because it is not a love story. It is a revenge tale, and once you read it that way, the fact that everyone is so comprehensively horrible to each other starts to make a great deal more sense. The structure of the book does something interesting to the characters, particularly the first generation. The whole story reaches us third hand — Nelly Dean tells it to Lockwood, who writes it in his diary, occasionally admitting he is condensing things. Nelly herself wasn’t present for a lot of it. (Read more) (Treya Sinha)
Clara lists books you should read if you liked the film: 'La inquilina de Wildfell Hall' de Anne Brontë Las hermanas Brontë fueron tres: Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848) y Anne (1820-1849). En el mundo occidental de principios del siglo XIX, las mujeres no tenían hueco en casi ningún ámbito, y menos aún en aquello que se consideraban tareas masculinas. Las tres tenían intereses literarios y las tres publicaron sus escritos para ayudar a su padre, que era pastor, a sacar adelante a la familia. Con menos de 30 años, publicaron relatos donde los personajes femeninos eran inteligentes, complicados y rebeldes. Emily solo publicó Cumbres borrascosas, pero sus hermanas continuaron su carrera de escritura. La más conocida de Charlotte es Jane Eyre. Anne fue una de las más olvidadas, pero cuenta con obras tan interesantes como La inquilina de Wildfell Hall. En esta novela, cuenta la misteriosa llegada de Helen Graham y su hijo a la vieja mansión Wildfell Hall. El pueblo no sabe que esta mujer realmente huye de un pasado muy turbulento. Algo que va descubriendo mientras lee su diario el narrador de la historia, Gilbert Markham, que está enamorado de ella en secreto. En el relato se cuelan opiniones y actitudes de mujeres muy avanzadas para su tiempo que lo hacen aún más atractivo. ( Lidia Lozano) (Translation)
The Edinburgh Evening News publishes photos of Meadows Festival 2026, "including hundreds of people dressed as Kate Bush dancing together in the popular Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever event." BBC talks about a grant received by the Haworth Village Hall: A community hall in a historic West Yorkshire village has been awarded a £74,800 grant to fix facilities which had fallen into "significant disrepair". The Local Regeneration Fund approved the money to refurbish Haworth Village Hall's toilets, which have been described as unsafe. A Bradford Council spokesperson said the works, in the village synonymous with the Brontës, were "vital to ensure the building meets safety standards and provides accessible amenities to meet the needs of the growing community". (Chris Young)
Emily Brontë Translated by María Rosa Lida Illustrated by Isabella Mazzanti ISBN:
La novela Cumbres borrascosas presenta una narración apasionada y sombría, donde el amor se transforma en tormento. Heathcliff, marcado por el abandono y la humillación, inicia una cruzada de venganza que alcanza a quienes más amó. Su relación con Catherine Earnshaw, llena de deseo, orgullo y desgarro, arrastra consigo a dos generaciones, en un paisaje tan salvaje como sus emociones. Esta edición ilustrada por Isabella Mazzanti añade un tono expresionista que ahonda en la psicología de los personajes. Una obra de referencia dentro de la literatura inglesa, imprescindible para quienes buscan emociones intensas y tramas profundamente humanas. Ideal para lectoras y lectores desde los 16 años, esta edición ofrece una experiencia estética y literaria única. Un regalo perfecto para redescubrir un clásico que sigue inspirando adaptaciones, debates y pasiones más allá del tiempo.
After critics and authors picked their top 100 books, The Guardian has now compiled a list of 100 books based on its readers' suggestions. Adaptation is another driver to widespread popularity: as well as Tolkien, it powers the enduring popularity of Jane Austen, readers’ most nominated writer overall, even if Emma slipped behind a host of modern novels, including Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Blood Meridian – your preferred Cormac McCarthy novel at No 28 (although The Road still ranks at 80). And perhaps the timing of film releases also provides a clue as to why Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights places above her sister Charlotte’s Jane Eyre. (Alex Clark) [Tied at #26 with Charles Dickens's Bleak House] Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Sarah Owen, Cheshire, 54: “The first book I ever read through the night and went to work with no sleep the next day. The sun was coming up as I finished it. All of the emotions: the outrage at her treatment as a child, the hope as she made her way into the world, the repressed longing, the romantic tension, the sting of betrayal – fantastic.” [...] [Tied at #14 with Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall] Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë Élise Camilla, Oxford, bookshop worker: “Gothic. Shakespearean. Dramatic. Beautiful. I’ve never loved a novel as much as this one … It changed the fabric of my being at 15 and I’ve never looked back.”
No Wide Sargasso Sea on this list and no Anne Brontë either.
“Charlotte Brontë: Senseless Trash,” created by artist Fran Bundey, will be performed on Saturday, June 6, starting at Sapgate Gardens. The 30-minute outdoor production blends theatre, sound and storytelling into an immersive experience that guides audiences through a creative interpretation of the author’s life. Ms Bundey described the piece as difficult to categorise, combining multiple art forms into one experience. She said: “It’s sort of part theatre, part found art, part tour, and with a little bit of silent disco thrown in there as well,” The performance is designed as a promenade show, with the audience moving through the space alongside the performer while listening through silent disco headphones. Ms Bundey explained: “It’s an outdoor promenade show, so I walk around with the audience… and we do a little journey through wherever we are.” The title ‘Senseless Trash’ comes directly from Charlotte Brontë’s own writing, reflecting a moment of self-doubt early in her life. Ms Bundey said she was struck by a letter Brontë wrote after receiving discouraging feedback from poet laureate Robert Southey. She said: “[Charlotte] says she felt a painful heat rise to her face and that the first letter she sent to him was ‘all senseless trash from beginning to end’,” The show imagines the journey between that moment and Brontë’s eventual decision to publish her work, exploring how the celebrated author overcame those doubts. The performance combines historical storytelling with modern influences, featuring field recordings from the Yorkshire moors alongside contemporary music. Audiences can expect to hear “the howling winds at Top Withins” and “the tranquil trickling of nearby waterfalls”, as well as unexpected musical moments. (Jess Blissitt)
U.S. Catholic thinks that 'In Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights,’ agency is left unexplored'. Not every love story is a romance. Some love stories—the ones rooted in reality and humanity—are also stories of the cultural fissures in a particular historic moment. They may also show us the ways lovers can sometimes clumsily harm each other, while they barely understand themselves. By reducing Wuthering Heights to a mere romance, Emerald Fennell’s recent film cheats us out of wrestling with the actual issues Emily Brontë put on the page in 1847. These issues—generational trauma, class and race divides, entrenched gender expectations, and abuse from people who love us—are still acutely relevant today. [...] If ever two characters loved each other despite personality disorders and social boundaries, it’s Heathcliff and Cathy. These people are knotted up in dysfunctions we would readily name today: narcissism, dismissive avoidance, codependency. Their story is disturbing, haunting, and beloved because of the flat-out fierceness these two characters have for each other, the consuming obsession and cruel behavior they share, and the exquisite violence of their passion for each other. Fennell’s version diminishes a tale of tortured personalities shaped by hardship, class divides, and probably racism. (Brontë describes Heathcliff as being dark and swarthy, and he’s called a “Gipsy”; that explains a great deal about why his friendship and eventual romance with Cathy were so offensive to their society.) In Fennell’s film, the tall, handsome (and white) Jacob Elordi portrays Heathcliff—which seems especially odd; Shazad Latif, a British-Pakistani actor, is cast as Edgar Linton. Margot Robbie, however, is convincingly willful as Cathy, as merciless and difficult to warm to on screen as the character is in the novel. Where Brontë critiqued the artificial cultural and social barriers people invent and insert between one another—sources of much human pain and suffering—the film neatly lops that out of the conversation. Heathcliff’s brutish rage at the injustice of the poverty he’s been dealt is simply missing here—though that’s part of what fueled him to leave Cathy, go out into the world, make himself into a wealthy gentleman, and return to destroy the prosperous men around him. With this element removed, the narrative loses much of its power. We don’t get to see Heathcliff at his wildest, exacting revenge on the class system that dismissed him and kept him from wedding Cathy. Load-bearing plot elements and essential characters are carved out of the narrative, turning the grand, searing story into a dime-a-dozen romance. There’s none of the book’s redemption here. No scene of Cathy and Heathcliff’s ghosts, wandering the moors together. No tale of Cathy’s daughter finding a more peaceful love with Hareton, who is expunged from the film entirely. No Heathcliff agonizing in guilt after Cathy dies. Set design is extraordinary in places (the fireplace mantel of carved hands!), and costumes—though thuddingly symbolic (we get it, she always wears red, she bleeds to death)—are stunning. The scene of Cathy crossing the moors in her voluminous wedding dress and veil lifted by the wind is a spectacle. Cathy seizes what power is available to her—the power of a woman to attract and use men. Far more vicious in the book, here she manipulates the attention of a rich man, denying herself the man she really loves. She breaks her own heart because of who she wants to be in life. At the same time, she exerts as much agency as her society grants her. Brontë’s story expresses a feminism of sorts, however twisted. But it’s a feminism Fennell leaves unexplored. Cathy has her own justifiable rage at her limited options in life, but the film leaves that perspective in the background. Cathy’s sort of feminism was surely central for Brontë, who created female characters pushing back against the Victorian ideals of feminine behavior that bound the author herself. (She initially published the book under a male pseudonym to bypass 19th-century prejudice against female authors.) She and her sisters Charlotte and Anne created imaginary worlds for their own entertainment, driven by their isolated lives on the bleak and remote moors. Emily wrote the book for herself, and published it only after Charlotte urged her to do so—because they needed the money. One of the most powerful love stories ever, written by a woman for the pleasure of scribbling it down, just for herself. This should be a story about damaged people loving each other savagely and without pause, finding what’s lovable and deserving in each other, despite their many flaws and obstacles. The film should have been an exploration of human passion and what binds us to one another, even in unhealthy ways. Instead, it’s much less. (Pamela Hill Nettleton)
The Australian Standing Stones will be awash with red and black this winter solstice as locals gather to channel their inner Kate Bush for Glen Innes’ first-ever Wuthering Heights Day. Organised by Shimmy in the Glen’s Helen Tucker and Lisa Wilson, the event invites people of all ages and abilities to recreate the iconic dance from Kate Bush’s 1978 hit Wuthering Heights in one of the region’s most distinctive locations. While Wuthering Heights Day events have become a global phenomenon, this will be the first time Glen Innes has joined the fun. “Lisa and I have often seen other people in other places doing it regularly,” Ms Tucker said. “We have plenty of friends that do it and we were like, ‘We must do that one year, we must do that one year.'” The idea gained momentum after a conversation with Standing Stones Management Board member John Rhys Jones. “I said, ‘We’re thinking we might do that this year,’ and he just jumped for joy,” Ms Tucker said. “He was like, ‘Yes, love it.’ And he said, ‘Please, can we do it with solstice?'” The answer was an easy one. “So we decided we would go with it.” The quirky celebration traces its roots back to the United Kingdom, where a group of fans gathered in 2013 to recreate Bush’s famous music video in an attempt to set a Guinness World Record. “Essentially it started in 2013 when a group in the UK decided that they would reenact Kate Bush’s dance from Wuthering Heights for a Guinness World Record of the most number of people dressed as Kate,” Ms Tucker said. From there, the idea spread around the globe. “Everybody just thought it sounded like such a good idea that it grew and it goes around the world.” Ms Tucker believes the singer’s enduring popularity is helping attract a new generation of fans. “I think people of a certain age certainly remember when the video came out and that it was a big deal,” she said. “But I think the fact that her Running Up That Hill song was in Stranger Things, and of course with the Wuthering Heights movie coming out this year as well, it’s kind of even the younger people know about it.” For those worried they might not have the dance moves, organisers have a simple message: don’t be. “Not at all,” Ms Tucker said when asked if participants need dancing experience. “We’ve also got some people who have already said, ‘I’m not up for the dancing, but I want to get dressed up and come anyway.’ “So it’s completely up to people as to how active they are.” Participants are encouraged to wear anything red and black and simply enjoy being part of the spectacle. “We’re just encouraging as many people as possible to come along and just to wear anything red and black so that they can be part of the colour.” Free dance classes will be held at Glen Innes Town Hall in the lead-up to the event, with sessions scheduled for Tuesday, June 16 and Thursday, June 18 at 5pm, and Saturday, June 20 at 10am. Participants can attend one class or all three, and online tutorials are also available for those wanting to practise at home. The festivities will follow the Standing Stones’ winter solstice activities, including the solar noon ceremony, before dancers take centre stage at midday. “My plan is that we’ll actually do the dance and then we’ll probably play the Running Up That Hill song and run up the hill,” Ms Tucker said. “And then come back down again, maybe take a few photos and then probably do the dance again.” With organisers also hoping to capture drone footage of the colourful gathering against the backdrop of the Standing Stones, the event promises to be one of the more memorable ways to mark the shortest day of the year. As Ms Tucker puts it: “We just thought it was a bit of fun.” Wuthering Heights Day will be held at the Australian Standing Stones on Saturday, June 21, with dancing beginning at midday. Everyone is welcome. (Penelope Shaw)
More Recent Articles
|
%20(1).v1.jpg)
