Writer Amanda Craig writes about her experience of motherhood in The Guardian. I loved literature, but nothing I read had prepared me for life after birth. What came after marriage was glossed over by the Victorian fiction I adored: Jane Eyre’s Mr Rochester has recovered his sight enough to see the child she puts in his arms and, unlike her author, she does not die a pregnancy-related death.
Good Housekeeping has '4 Best-Selling Authors Share Their Favorite Historical Fiction Books'. Adriana Trigiani recommends Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë “Every summer, I reread Jane Eyre. I love that story. Because it's about a poor girl who's shunned by her family, thrown out, has no reason ever, at any point in her life, to do the right thing. But she's got a moral code. And she cannot be deterred from her path of being a decent human being. So that's the kind of historical fiction I like.” —Adriana Trigiani (Sarah Vincent)
Two new items on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum and a recent exhibition at the Old Schoolroom.
Wed 4 Feb – Thu 31 Dec
Charlotte Brontë's bracelet is currently on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum alongside other examples of mourning jewellery. The intricate, delicate bracelet features hair from two people, believed to be Charlotte's sisters, Emily and Anne. During the Victorian era, hair jewellery was fashionable and widely worn and it was common practice to make mourning jewellery incorporating the hair of a deceased relative. In February 2026, Oscar-nominated actress and producer Margot Robbie wore a replica of this bracelet with a custom Dilara Findikoglu dress inspired by it.
'A Book of Friendship' is now on display in the Museum. This prop from Emerald Fennell's new film "Wuthering Heights" is the scrapbook Isabella (Alison Oliver) makes for Catherine (Margot Robbie) as a Christmas present. On loan from LuckyChap Entertainment. Display dates are subject to change.
How can we reframe and illuminate history? 'Gone Like Dreams' is an exhibition of publications by Level 5 BA(Hons) Illustration students from Leeds Arts University. The students have been dreaming and speculating on the Brontës’ experiences, taking inspiration from the Brontë Parsonage Museum and the surrounding moors. Through their research, they have pieced together fragments of the Brontës' lives to create their own archive. The Brontës are the most famous literary family of all time. They were complex, challenging individuals, each with their own outlook and experiences. But they were also siblings arguing by the fire, stepping from rock to rock, writing about the world they knew and wishing others into existence. We invite you to walk in their footsteps and step into their worlds, even for a moment. Location: Brontë Event Space in the Old School Room, Haworth Poster by: @livditchburn_art @yasmin.illustrates @aaaangel_gy
Ireland Live publishes an account of the Offaly Brontë Group celebration last weekend: A Musical tribute by Michael and Christine O'Dowd to the celebrated 19th-century Brontë family of Yorkshire was hosted by the Banagher Bronte Group last weekend to mark Charlotte Brontë's birthday. The tribute was a melodic cycle of ten original studio-recorded songs. 40 people attended the event in Crank House. James Scully introduced the world premiere programme of nine songs and lyrics. He also requested a minute’s silence to mark the passing of Kieran Keenaghan, his great friend, historical colleague and good friend of Banagher Brontë Group. Michael and Christine delivered the relevant historical Brontë information for each of the songs, thus enhancing and informing the audience’s experience. A stunning projected film complemented the songs and music and raised the show to a very sophisticated level. Thornton, Yorkshire was the birthplace of the Brontës. Queen Camilla visited in 2025 and learned about the famous literary family. The first song was Brontë Birthplace, Maker of Dreams. Next was Maria, the mother of the family, singing a lullaby to Charlotte. Then, We are the Brontës by the youthful Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne. Followed by Emily, I am a woman. Branwell’s Lament, showed him as lovelorn and melancholic. Anne’s Evensong is a nightly prayer. The Reverend Patrick’s Blessing, prays for divine favour. Charlotte and Arthur's Waltz was a prelude to romance. Charlotte's Way represented the happy couple in Banagher. Charlotte died in 1854. Arthur Bell Nicholls lived in Banagher for 66 of his 80 years. In Forever Free, a schooner represents Freedom floating on a friendly sea to the divine underworld. Frances Browner did a workshop on the Brontës for 6th class in the National School. The fruits of that, were readings of their own poems by Caoimhe Teehan, Maddie Mahon and Diarmuid Boylan to the very appreciative adult audience. Well done to them and their teacher Michaela Keenaghan. Adult readers were James Scully, Courtney Caitlin Phillips, Caleb Phillips, Eileen Casey, Francis Browner. Courtney and Caleb from Alabama also duetted and entertained as singer and musician. Jeannenn and Greg Eastway from Australia and Betsy Pearson from Ohio enjoyed the welcome. Well, That Beats Banagher! Thanks to the Banagher Bronte Group committee, James Scully, Maebh O’Regan, Nicola Daly, Sean O’Regan, Sean Corrigan, Donie Hogan, Frances Browner, and Cora Stronge Smith provided a memorable day and thank Amanda Pedlow and Karen Gray for their support, encouragement and direction for the project. Also Maebh O’Reagan for the art on the back cover of the memorable programme by Brosna Press, Nicola Daly for flower bouquets and the yellow Arthur Bell Rose. Finally, Sean Corrigan who mastered the intricate electronics and the film screen donated by the very generous late Kieran Keenaghan. (Eddie Alford)
Via CC/Magazine (Spain), we have discovered the exhibition I Set Out, I Walked Fast by Katharine Grosse at the White Cube Bermondsey (April 22-May 31). The title of the exhibition comes from Chapter XXV of Jane Eyre: Ideas of time pervade the arrangement of the exhibition and its title, ‘I Set Out, I Walked Fast’, which is drawn from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847). Re-reading the novel while working in her New Zealand studio, Grosse was struck by Jane’s continuous movement and action as a woman of her time, noting that merely by walking she propels the story forward. Similarly, the exhibition brings together paintings from different periods of Grosse’s practice into a single, interconnected environment, allowing her to traverse swathes of time and register change: an effect that ‘almost repaints’ the works. Across the three spaces of the gallery, each work functions as a ‘plot’ point or ‘node within a spider’s web’ that constantly ‘generates new strands of activity’. In some cases, this process is made literal: canvases painted in previous in-situ installations are brought into the exhibition, carrying ‘the structure and thought of that past show’ with them. Parade announces that Wuthering Heights is the most-read classic on Goodreads in 2026: A stormy, emotionally charged literary classic is having a major moment in 2026. According to Goodreads’ latest data on the most-read classics in the last few months, readers have been gravitating toward one famously debated novel above all others so far this year: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. It’s probably no surprise that the 19th-century novel is topping the list. A new film adaptation released in February has reintroduced the story to audiences, sparking fresh discussion around its famously polarizing characters and bleak emotional landscape. (Devon Forward)
La Cadera de Eva (in Spanish) suggests a reading guide to know the Brontës (using a very questionable image without warning or context). La Vanguardia (Spain) reviews the most recent novel by John Irving, Queen Esther: El arco se extenderá hasta que, tres décadas después, Esther dará a luz a un niño, Jimmy, o el auténtico protagonista, siguiendo el modelo de madre subrogada (y tatuada con un extracto de Jane Eyre que sirve de lema existencial) tras un pacto con la mujer asexual para la que antes ha ejercido de au pair (el territorio irvingniano), ya que su proyecto vital estará en la construcción del futuro Estado de Israel. (Antonio Lozano) (Translation) The tattooed quote is "I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself".
ABC (Australia) features Shaun Micallef's book De'Ath Takes a Holiday- "When I wrote this book, I was just being all the characters," Micallef says. "To get into their heads, I had to know how they sounded and how they thought." But Micallef did need to change his methods slightly. He couldn't get a laugh with a funny face, voice or act-out — but he could make oblique references to everything from ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. (Hannah Story and Claire Nichols)
American Songwriter recommends '3 Kate Bush Songs To Listen to if You Love “ Running Up That Hill”' and one of them is “Wuthering Heights” If you love “Running Up That Hill”, it’s likely you’ll also be fond of this song, which Bush wrote when she was just 18. “Wuthering Heights” was Bush’s debut single and made her the first female to reach No. 1 with an entirely self-written song. It’s also sung from the perspective of Catherine Earnshaw, a character in Emily Brontë’s novel. “It was a subject matter that had been going around in my head for a long time,” Bush shared in an interview. “I’d originally seen the end of a TV series in England, and it had really stuck in my head. And, uh, I read the book last year, and after reading that I just had to write [Wuthering Heights].” (Kat Caudill)
The Times has several suggestions for what to watch on TV this week and here's one for Thursday: Driving Amazing Trains C4, 8pm Paul Merton goes from Ravenglass to Dalegarth in the Lake District and then, after Windermere and Brontë country visits, travels from Pickering to Whitby. It’s pleasing stuff, and his journey sheds light on an intractable problem of rail travel: leaves on the line. “A classic railway issue,” he says as the train driver uses a mechanical dropper to put sand in front of the wheels to add traction and stop them slipping down the hill. (Helen Stewart)
The Times also lists '15 of the best family-friendly Airbnbs in the UK'. One of them is 3. Lakeside Lodge, Damems, West Yorkshire Perhaps not suitable for younger children because of its waterside location, this smart lodge nonetheless has real wow factor. Glass doors and a panoramic deck provide views over the water, beckoning you for a spin in the rowing boat or a spot of fishing. Families can enjoy wildlife watching, as well as train spotting — with steam engines passing by on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. It’s handy for the Brontë sisters’ home town of Haworth too, which can be reached from nearby Damems station (a request stop) for an excellent family outing. (Oliver Berry)
Lydia Macpherson won the Crashaw Prize for her debut collection Love Me Do (Salt, 2014). She now lives in the last inhabited house before Top Withens, the ruined moorland farm widely identified as the model for Wuthering Heights, and her five-times-great-grandfather Jonas Sunderland farmed that same land during the Brontës' lifetimes. The biographical circumstances are not incidental: they are the ground the poems stand on.
The Heights, published by Calder Valley Poetry in 2026 and launched at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, is the work that comes out of that position. It is a pamphlet rooted in a specific place, a specific family history, and a specific literary inheritance by Lydia MacPherson Calder Valley Press April 2026
Wuthering Heights, Emerald Fennell‘s take on the classic Emily Brontë novel starring Margot Robbie an d Jacob Elordi, is set to premere on HBO Max on Friday, May 1, debuting on HBO linear the following day at 8:00 p.m. ET. A version with American Sign Language will also stream exclusively on HBO Max, performed by ASL Dubbers Leila Hanaumi and Giovanni Maucere, and directed by Justin Jackerson. (Kennedy French)
A contributor to Afar celebrates ' Wuthering Heights Fever With a Literary-Inspired Tour of Brontë Country' As I climbed into the four-poster bed of my regency-styled bedroom, I had to remind myself this was real. Tonight, I was sleeping in a room where members of the Brontë family had slept some 200 years ago, in the building where Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—the literary sisters who gave the world Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall respectively—were born. As a travel writer, I’ve slept in many wonderful places, but this felt particularly surreal. Having joined a new wave of Brontë-curious readers in the wake of Emerald Fennell’s recent Wuthering Heights film adaptation, my stay at the Brontë Birthplace—a museum that offers overnight board—in the small English village of Thornton was one part of a literary tour readers can string together to explore the homes, landscapes, and inspirations behind the sisters’ novels. The county of Yorkshire in northern England is both their, and my, childhood home. I wanted to delve deeper into the lives they led and explore their connection to this familiar moorland scenery. My drive to the Brontë Birthplace, which sits on the outskirts of the city of Bradford (the United Kingdom’s city of culture in 2025), seemed unremarkable until I reached Thornton’s historic center. Here, lanes became narrower and buildings noticeably older, dating from the late Georgian to the early Victorian eras. Tiny “snickets” (lanes) ran between them. Faded shop facades echoed the former community where the Brontë siblings’ father, Patrick, worked as a perpetual curate (a type of parish priest in the 19th-century Anglican church). A short walk from their Market Street home led me to the ruined Chapel of St. James—or the Bell Chapel—where the famous siblings were baptized. Beside an ivy-strewn bell tower, a section of the original church wall was etched with the words: “Thornton: my happiest years 1815–1820” followed by Patrick’s name. One of the most distinctive Brontë-themed walks in the area is a nine-mile route marked by four “Brontë Stones.” Created by novelist and poet Michael Stewart, the trail links Thornton with Haworth, where the family spent most of their lives. Three of the commemorative stones are dedicated to each sister and one is dedicated to the three siblings collectively. Each is inscribed with a bespoke verse from famous writers such as poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and singer Kate Bush. Traveling to Haworth by car from Thornton will take you less than 20 minutes and, once you’re there, the village’s streets are well worth exploring if you’re not put off by their steep inclines. The soot-blackened gritstone buildings and mélange of converted mills speak to the region’s textile manufacturing past. When the Brontë sisters were alive, Haworth’s cobbled Main Street would have had everything from blacksmiths and joiners to stone masons and grocers. I passed a former tea merchant that once sold writing paper to Charlotte, plus the Barraclough clockmakers (now the Hawthorn restaurant) who crafted the family’s grandfather clock. The Haworth Old Post Office, now a curio-filled café with an original Victorian counter, was where the sisters sent off their manuscripts to London under the pen names Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily), and Acton (Anne) Bell. The parsonage where the Brontës lived from 1825, was among the most enthralling stops I made. Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey were all written in the home, which is now a museum. Seeing the sofa on which Emily Brontë died was a somber moment. The parsonage’s rooms showcase writing desks, clothing, and jewelry owned by the sisters, plus sketches by brother Branwell. Beside their creativity—encouraged by their enthusiastic, story-telling father—there was much darkness in the Brontës’ lives. Branwell fell into alcohol and opium addiction, and this once poorly sanitized village brimmed with reminders of death. One museum member told me that Haworth’s water supply “passed through the graves of 42,000 bodies.” Rambling across Haworth’s surrounding heather moorland brought me close to the sentiment of Wuthering Heights. The popular 4.5-mile Brontë Connection route starts in the village of Stanbury, reachable via the “Brontë Bus.” It follows the outskirts of the disused quarry site of Penistone Country Park and follows the rocky path that leads to the frothing Brontë waterfall, named after the family, which descends into Sladen Beck. Keen walkers might want to go as far as Ponden Kirk, the gritstone outcrop that inspired Emily’s depiction of Penistone Crags in the novel, before rejoining the road that leads back to Stanbury to pass Ponden Hall (the farmhouse that may have inspired her Thrushcross Grange). The description in the original Wuthering Heights novel by housekeeper Nelly Dean of “temporary brooks [crossing] our path, gurgling from the uplands” couldn’t be more fitting of the sodden, peaty bogs I’d experienced. Yet now, as I paused to take in the panoramic views, the clouds parted to reveal a bright blue sky. (Lucy McGuire)
A contributor to The Age has also been touring Haworth and Top Withens. Ordinarily, I’d object to the howling, bone-chilling wind on Haworth Moor. It turns a refreshing country walk into a test of tenacity. On the hike to the ruined Top Withens farmhouse, however, that icy wind feels fittingly atmospheric. A sunny idyll wouldn’t be very Wuthering Heights – the moody, weather-beaten setting is a key part of what makes Emily Bronte’s only published novel. This unforgiving but handsome slice of West Yorkshire moorland is likely to get many more boots trudging across it in 2026. The Emerald Fennell-directed movie, Wuthering Heights, starring Aussies Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, is likely to have a whole new generation setting off in search of Heathcliff’s windswept, isolated home. Bronte fans have long since adopted Top Withens as the real-life location, even though a plaque on the wall of the ruined farmhouse wall admits it may not be. “The buildings, even when complete, bore no resemblance to the house she described,” it reads. “But the situation may have been in her mind when she wrote of the moorland setting of the Heights.” Architectural layouts be damned. Top Withens embodies the spirit of Wuthering Heights. It is bleakly beautiful, built on one floor into the hillside and guarded by a pair of spindly sycamore trees. The moorland landscape hasn’t changed much since Bronté’s only novel was published in 1847, with the reservoir and wind turbines being very much on the horizon, rather than disturbing the lonely, heather-swathed foreground. Crucially, Top Withens stands apart and alone. There is no building in sight that could pass muster as a neighbour. There is little doubt that the author would have walked here. She was born in the outer Bradford suburb of Thornton – where the Brontë Birthplace reopened as a small museum in 2025 – but lived for the vast majority of her life at the parsonage in Haworth. Her father, Patrick, was the perpetual curate at St Michael’s Church, on the other side of the graveyard from the Bronte family’s honey-stoned home. The sheep paddocks and moors start at the back of the parsonage, and Top Withens is nearly six kilometres away on foot. The most popular route also passes Brontë Falls, a small waterfall that was given its name post-literary fame. While the moorland is the best place to get a sense of Wuthering Heights’ setting, the Brontë Parsonage Museum gives much more insight into the author’s life. Emily Bronte’s personal tale is lapped by great waves of tragedy. Her mother, Maria, died within 18 months of moving to Haworth. Two of her elder sisters died of tuberculosis while away at school, and her brother, Branwell – a mildly talented painter – was a troubled alcoholic and opium addict. Branwell died in September 1848, three months before Emily died of tuberculosis, aged 30. Patrick Bronëe outlived all six of his children, and his character is most pervasive throughout the museum. An Irish immigrant, he was unusually well-educated, having studied at Cambridge. His poems were published, and the children grew up surrounded by books bearing their family name. The most memorable room of the parsonage is the dining room, and not just because Emily is widely believed to have died on its couch. This is the room where the three Bronte sisters would write, regularly flitting around the table to check on their siblings’ progress. Emily’s Wuthering Heights, Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Anne’s Agnes Grey were put together at the same time, around the same wooden table. Haworth village is no longer quite as the Brontes would have remembered it, although Branwell’s old haunts, the Old White Lion and the Black Bull, still stand. The hilly, pedestrianised main street is now lined with restaurants and literary-leaning gift shops, the result of an overnight success that was sustained long after the sisters died. The moorland, however, is still the same wild, brooding place that inspired Emily’s masterpiece. (David Whitley)
More on adaptations as Mirror recommends Jane Eyre 2006 after watching The Other Bennet Sister.For many, classic English novels are regarded as untouchable works of literature, and adaptations can often face considerable scrutiny - yet this particular TV series appears to capture the 19th century with remarkable authenticity. Originally broadcast in 2006, this rendition of Jane Eyre brings Charlotte Brontë's beloved novel to life, chronicling the journey of its titular character as she navigates orphanhood while striving to carve out a better existence for herself. Spanning four episodes, the series delivers a breathtaking retelling of this timeless tale, with Ruth Wilson taking on the lead role alongside Toby Stephens as Edward Rochester. (Emily Malia)
The Free Press Journal has an article on Jane Eyre and 'Why The Classic Still Resonates In A Modern Feminist Lens'. More Recent Articles
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