Brontë Sister House Party, a comedy that’s equal parts literary feminism and Christopher Durang-style surrealism, feels like it was expressly written for Nu Sass Productions. (...)

Nu Sass co-founder and artistic director Aubri O’Connor plays Jane Eyre author Charlotte Brontë in House Party. Her performance as a neurotic people-pleaser who lives (well, “lives”) in hope that a Belgian professor who inspired characters in at least three of her novels will at last show up for this interminable soirée is one of the best reasons to attend.

Written in 2021, this clever provocation comes to us from playwright Courtney Bailey. Bailey holds a Ph.D. in English literature from Baylor University, but her premise is far from academic: We are all the invited guests of the three literary Brontë ladies, none of whom lived to see 40, now sentenced to entertain us in some otherworldly bardo until their jailer decides they (we?) have reached The Point of Celebratory Reverence. Our hosts have little guidance on exactly how they might achieve this ecstatic state. Their only clue is a game show-style chime that rewards them whenever they do something to indicate that they’re fun-loving and sociable and not just a trio of introspective and invariably miserable writers. (..)

 Her characters are not all of equal interest, and the performances animating them are variable. Director Kathleen Barth struggles to keep the pace of all this clever existential chitchat sufficiently caffeinated, as evidenced by the fact that a play with a published (and ideal) run time of 90 minutes to two hours stretches out, intermission included, to two and a half. Still, it’s a fun night out, and one that might inspire you to brush up on your Brontë bibliography. (Chris Klimek)

1. Hathersage

Hathersage has strong literary connections - having inspired Charlotte Brontë while she was writing Jane Eyre. The nearby North Lees Hall (pictured here) also became the main inspiration for Thornfield Hall. The Grave of Little John, Robin Hood’s second-in-command, can be found at St. Michael’s Church in the heart of Hathersage. While there is little evidence proving he is buried here, ballads suggest that he originated from Hathersage and settled there again later in his life. (Tom Hardwicke)

A haunting prequel to Jane Eyre, imagining the life of Mr. Rochester's 'madwoman in the attic' before her confinement, a Creole heiress in postcolonial Jamaica. Rhys writes with lush, feverish intensity, turning a footnote of Victorian fiction into a devastating meditation on colonialism, identity, and erasure. Essential, and far richer than its source material. (Simran Sukhnani)

Más figuras literarias surgidas en Yorkshire han acabado en la pantalla. Por ejemplo, la pareja de Cumbres Borrascosas. Su escritora, Emily Brontë ambientó la obra en su paisaje natal, el parque nacional de Yorkshire Dales. Sus páramos cubiertos de brezos, entre verdes oscuro y púrpuras, según incida la luz de un sol casi siempre plomizo, aportan tenebrismo al relato. Y pasan a ser un protagonista más en la reciente cinta protagonizada por un tempestuoso Jacob Elordi y una Margot Robbie, tan hermosa como tóxica. (Armando Cerra) (Translation)

The New York Times Midi Crossword (August 21, 2026)  contains a Brontë question: "Jane, in a Brontë novel".

At first, the concept makes good use of actors trying to act mirthful, a feat even more difficult to pull off convincingly onstage than in real life. In time, the irony fades, and the audience—who is, for some reason, also in the void with the sisters—must endure the Brontës’ fumbling efforts to achieve a measure of self-acceptance. (...)

It doesn’t help that the cast’s vain efforts to engage the audience seem pitched for a bigger space (or for overpowering the steady drone of the air-conditioning), making us feel even more like befuddled trespassers in the afterlife. Add a general grasp of character that rarely moves past stereotype and directorial composition that gets more muddled as the play gets more crowded and suddenly everything is being forced, not just the fun.

Granted, [Courtney] Bailey’s script—aiming for feminist critique by way of a postmodern, madcap mash-up—gives the company many confusing cues to sift through, including when it comes to the author’s thesis. The sisters indulge their angry, mediocre brother, a poster boy for toxic masculinity if there ever was one, and yet the authors’ famous characters are there mostly to flagellate them for not writing work that was feminist enough. Internalized misogyny is at play throughout, as one character bluntly states, but that’s a hard problem to unpack thoughtfully when the sisters’ punishment already seems wildly harsh and when their salvation has a lot more to do with “being their true selves” than it does with the plight of women as a whole. (Jared Strange)

Following the acclaimed arrival of her English translation debut, The Remembered Soldier, a National Book Award finalist, Anjet Daanje’s latest novel, The Song of the Stork and Dromedary, is yet another psychological puzzle, enveloping readers in a mystifying literary haze that persists until the novel’s final pages. Drawing on the lives of the Brontë sisters, Daanje weaves macabre imagery, dubious diaries, scattered letters, and a series of vignettes into a story spanning nearly 300 years. The result is a sprawling meditation on death, sisterhood, and the mysteries that refuse to be buried.

Opening the novel in late 18th-century England, Daanje wastes no time linking the novel to the esteemed Brontë sisters, primarily Emily, whose life is mirrored by the cryptic Eliza May Drayden. The Drayden sisters not only write Victorian Gothic novels but also echo the Brontës in their sisterly bonds, childhood-born imaginary worlds, and encounters with illness, all of which lie at the heart of the narrative. Blankly gazing at the corpse of yet another sister, six-year-old Eliza asks, “Is God hungry?”, initiating the novel’s lengthy exploration of death. Along this ghastly thread, readers follow eleven primary profiles—including biographer Agnes Chambers, Emery Niles, and several pairs of fated sisters—whose lives are all influenced in some manner by Eliza Drayden and her novel Haeger Mass, a heavily criticized Gothic tale in the vein of Wuthering Heights. These episodes are interspersed with diary entries, notes, and poems that gradually fill in the gaps of the enigma that surrounds Eliza far beyond the grave. (Brock Covington)

Daily Mail vindicates the wonders of Scarborough:

Ignore the haters – I fell in love with Scarborough all over again, from Anne Brontë’s grave to fish and chips, cheap arcades to seaside tat. (...)

Standing in a quiet corner of St Mary's Church in Scarborough, I gaze at the gravestone of Anne Brontë, who died in this North Yorkshire seaside resort in 1849 aged just 29. The peaceful spot overlooks South Bay, where pavements are heaving with day trippers.

Nowadays, visitors flock to Scarborough for fish and chips and, of course, the beaches.

But Anne came to Scarborough when it was rising in popularity in the 1800s, although its famous spa waters were discovered earlier, in 1626, marking the creation of the UK's first seaside resort. (Alesia Fiddler)

Decider reviews the last film by Julia Hart, Don't Say Good Luck (beware of spoilers):

Elizabeth is wheeled out in the backyard in a wheelchair, looking very sick and frail, but still happy to see her family. She hands her husband Ted (Max Greenfield) a copy of the book she had been reading, Jane Eyre, with a note on it to him, “You’ll have to tell me how it ends.” They both understand this to mean that Elizabeth only has a few weeks, maybe even just a few days, left to live. (Anna Menta)

Wuthering Heights 2026 features among the 20 sexiest movies on Prime Video to stream according to Esquire:

Love her or hate her, Emerald Fennell can make a steamy movie. Wuthering Heights is a little more of a reimagining than an adaptation, taking quite a few liberties with the text, but It puts the romantic and sexual dynamics right at the forefront of the story.

MyRepública thinks that the original novel deserves your attention, no matter what you think of the film:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)

Emerald Fennell’s 2026 adaptation has sparked outrage among the book’s lovers and (hopefully) interest among those whose introduction to Emily Brontë’s 1847 masterpiece came through the movie. The movie, with its stunning visuals and a subdued storyline, strips away much of the original story—including the entirety of the second generation of Linton, Heathcliff, and Earnshaw children—and leaves much to be discovered in the pages of the book.

Brontë’s novel has romance, certainly, but also includes tension caused by race and class. Heathcliff as a character is both sympathetic and abhorrent. His status as an outsider causes him to be abused at the hands of Hindley. Yet, his own cruelty toward Isabella and toward the offspring of Edgar Linton and Hindley Earnshaw, enemies he wishes to take revenge upon, cannot be overlooked. 

Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff’s equal, also defies expectations of the heroines in most romance novels. She is cruel, selfish, and temperamental; her hold over Heathcliff, and their inability to be together, is the central conflict in the story. Cathy proclaims, “I am Heathcliff,” a statement both romantic and terrifying, inviting the reader to understand the depth of their passion for and obsession with each other. Their love is far from healthy, and that is one of the most compelling aspects of the book.

Ultimately, the ‘love story’ the reader has been expecting throughout the tale happens in its third act, as the younger generation puts an end to the cycle of violence and abuse. A story centred around human emotion that does not shy away from its ugliness and destructiveness, Wuthering Heights deserves a read for both its romantic aspects and its exploration of human behaviour. (Samanata Shrestha)

Elle explores the revival of dollhouses:

The renewed fascination with dollhouses isn’t just playing out online; it’s influencing pop culture. Emerald Fennell notably added a dollhouse to her film, Wuthering Heights, a 1:12-scale replica of Thrushcross Grange (Brontë devotees will know there is no dollhouse mentioned in the 1847 novel). The scaled replica featured prominently in Architectural Digest’s tour of the film’s set with its star, Margot Robbie, and production designer, Suzie Davies, who showed viewers its perfectly scaled Regency rooms. (Madeline Weinfield)

The Hindu has an article of how Madras filmmakers adapted literature to film:

 Shanti Nilayam (1969) borrowed the unsettling mysterious elements of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. (Suganthy Krishnamachari)

TodoLiteratura (Spain) compares Carmen Laforet and Emily Brontë:

 Nuestra Emily Brontë es Carmen Laforet. Voy a ir una semana a Tenerife y decido leer “La isla y los demonios” de Laforet, que se desarrolla en Gran Canaria, pero habla de Tenerife. Dice que los demonios son las pasiones humanas, que son mucho más de siete. Y las pasiones constituyen a las personas y ayudan a conocerlas. Y forman parte de su vitalidad profunda, de su abismo. Lo mismo ocurría en “Cumbres borrascosas” y en las obras de Shakespeare. (...)

[Nada] tenía una fuerza sorprendente en una novelista de veinte años. Lo mismo que “Cumbres borrascosas”, de Emily Brontë, que con veinte años parecía ya haberlo vivido todo y conocido todo. (...)

El mismo estilo, sin florituras, pero expresivo y certero, contribuye a esa hondura de [La Isla y los demonios], a que la vivamos con fuerza y casi miedo como la de Emily Brontë. (...)

No hay nada que Carmen Laforet escribiera por escribir o por predicar algo. E incluso el catolicismo que aparece en “La mujer nueva” es el catolicismo desgarrado y vivo de Georges Bernanos, no el de las estampitas. Y sobre todo Laforet tiene novelismo, en el sentido más noble del término. El que señala un romanticismo como expresionismo, como indagación en lo que la realidad convencional esconde. Las novelas hacen eso, y las de Carmen Laforet más que las otras. Igual que las de Emily Brontë.

Incluso Charlotte Brontë, la hermana, que en “Jane Eyre” habla de una institutriz en apariencia convencional, tiene sus demonios. En el desván de su amante casado está la mujer loca en el desván. Esa mujer de las Antillas que enloqueció por las frialdades del marido inglés, o más bien la consideran loca porque no sigue la frialdad del montón.

Jean Rhys en “Ancho mar de los Sargazos” cuenta la historia desde el punto de vista de la loca, una mujer que vibraba en las selvas y los acantilados de la isla Dominica y llega a los estiramientos de una familia británica.

Emily Brontë era británica, pero con algo de Jean Rhys y de esa loca de los Sargazos. Y Carmen Laforet es española, pero tiene esos demonios encendidos y oscuros que pone en sus novelas. (Antonio Costa Gómez) (Translation)

Ranker has a list of fictional characters named Jane, and Jane Eyre (only) gets number 8. Good Housekeeping vindicates Wuthering Heights 2009.

Busy like the Brontës!

Thurs 20 Aug, 12:30 - 3pm

Brontë Event Space in the Old School Room, Haworth

When the Brontë children were growing up they didn’t have much to entertain them, but what did they do when they had some spare time? We know they loved to sketch, and aunt Branwell made sure the girls spent a lot of time sewing - they became very good at cross stitch! It was also when they were children that they began to write, creating their amazing tiny books. Join us every Thursday in the summer holidays to try your hand at a Brontë pastime! 

In Courtney Bailey’s offbeat, but easy-to-watch play directed by Kathleen Barth, the sisters and feisty brother, Branwell (Ty Edwards), are stuck in a time warp sometime in their afterlife. It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact years of Purgatory, but it’s definitely contemporary. The task they must complete is to reach the highest level a party can attain and, once achieved, they will be released from this punishment.

Emily (Leah Ly) seems to want out of her current situation as she struggles with her distrust of men. Her T-shirt berates men, real and fictional. She has a special affection for women, especially Cathy, the character she created in Wuthering Heights, who shows up at every party. Brenna Horner is superb as this vixen whom we want to love/hate. She steals the show with her hand mic and sexy gown and leads the audience in a party song. As the actors kept filling our glasses for the expected toasts, I felt I was in the best place for a hot, August Sunday afternoon. My guess is that it would be just as special during mid-winter. (...)

While it looks like nothing will be resolved, and the party dims with Branwell’s rant about hating all the women who loved him. He was my least favorite character in this otherwise all-female cast. For the record, I enjoyed this ‘party’ more than many of my earth-bound soirees. My only issue was that Alexa never revealed what the “best party song” was. My guess is Brittany Spears. I suppose I’ll have to return to find out. I would like that very much, and this time, I will toss my cane, put on some dancing shoes, and sequins, just like the house manager who was adorned with silver sparkles. (Carolyn Kelemen)