A new production of Jordi Mand's Brontë: The World Without in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada:
by Jordi Mand Directed by Helen Juvonen Jul 16, 2026 - Aug 2, 2026 Guild Festival Theatre, 201 Guildwood Pkwy, Scarborough, ON M1E, Canada,
Brontë: The World Without offers a glimpse into the lives of the three famous sisters, presenting an intimate look at their relationships, their artistic struggles, the pressure of family responsibilities, and the sisterhood that helped them achieve greatness. The play illuminates how their experiences echo those of the heroines who live on in their beloved and unforgettable novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. A must-see for Brontë fans, Brontë: The World Without is an unflinching portrait of family, artistry, and what it means to strive for success in a world that often denies women the right to dream. This play is based on the real lives of the Brontë sisters, which includes references to real events in their lives, such as mentions of death, suicide, and substance abuse. Please visit the box office if you would like more details on the content of the show.
Two Brontë alerts. One in Haworth and the other in Banagher, Ireland:
Bradford Heritage Festival Brontë Parsonage Museum Thu 16 Jul 11:00am /2:00pm
The year is 1848. Join Tabbitha Ackroyd (Brontë servant and confidante) and John Brown (grave digger and tippler) for their tour of Haworth. See the sights and get the gossip. Be introduced to doctors and lady novelists, maiden aunts and sewage inspectors. Keep your eyes peeled and you might spot a Brontë… This event brings history to life through characters and stories the Brontës knew. It is an outside promenade performance beginning at the Brontë Parsonage Museum and taking place in the churchyard and the top of Main Street. This performance will last approximately 50 mins and is suitable for all ages.
The Banagher Brontë Group is holding a social gathering on Thursday week, July 16, in Corrigan's Corner Pub at 9pm. The evening will begin with a special showing of 'Arthur & Charlotte: A Victorian Romance Remembered' which was performed in Tullamore in December 2019 by the Banagher Martello Tower Players.
The performance, which relates the romance between Arthur Bell Nicholls and his wife Charlotte Brontë, was filmed by Maebh O' Regan and features many well known Banagher faces.
Two eminent Brontë scholars, Ann Dinsdale and Sharon Wright will be in attendance as they are paying a short visit to Banagher en route to the Killkee Brontë Festival the following weekend.
Last call for this coming Friday night’s Banagher Brontë Group annual quiz in Seán Corrigan’s Corner Pub at 9 p.m. Ray Flannery has prepared an array of interesting, humorous and challenging questions so it will be a night to enjoy. Tables for teams of four are €40 each. Many thanks to Nigel West who has donated a print of the Thornton Brontë Birthplace, value €125 for our raffle.
The Guardian talks about the community free-enter scheme in Chatsworth House:
When Kate, a 47-year-old contract worker came face to face with Charlotte Brontë’s handwriting while visiting Chatsworth House, the avid reader, who counts Jane Eyre as her favourite book, struggled to contain her excitement. “I had a little bit of a moment,” she said. “I just thought: ‘Wow, that was actually Charlotte Brontë’s writing there on that page.’ That was pretty special.” (Aamna Mohdin)
That sense of personal connection appears again in a letter from Elizabeth Gaskell to the 6th Duke of Devonshire, written after her visit to Chatsworth in 1857. In it, she thanks the Duke for his hospitality and encloses as a gift a letter she had received from Charlotte Brontë, which she described as the most interesting she had ever received from her. It was not something she would have parted with lightly.
We can only speculate on what they discussed, but the Duke had strong literary interests and only the previous month had made a visit to see Patrick Brontë in Haworth. Gaskell’s famous biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë had appeared earlier in 1857. It was received with much praise, but Gaskell also faced a barrage of complaints from people who felt they had been misrepresented in the book – and in two cases legal action was threatened. She had therefore spent a stressful summer revising it for a new, third edition. From the outset, her biography provoked fascination with the lives of Charlotte Brontë and her sisters, and in subsequent years more and more literary tourists made the journey to Haworth to see where they had lived and written their novels. It seems the Duke of Devonshire was amongst the earliest of these literary pilgrims – probably prompted by Gaskell’s book. The morning after their dinner, Gaskell sat down in her room to write the letter in which she so vividly described her visit, using ‘a delicious pen’. She confessed that she had no idea where she was supposed to go for breakfast ‘in this wilderness of a palace of a house’. However, she and Meta successfully made their way home in the end, and Gaskell wrote a thank-you letter to the Duke for his hospitality; she also thanked him for his ‘sympathizing words’, suggesting she confided in him some of the troubles she had experienced over her biography of Charlotte Brontë. Enclosed with the letter was a precious gift for the Duke: ‘I have the greatest pleasure in the world in sending you the enclosed letter from Charlotte Brontë to me [which] I have chosen out as being, in my opinion, the most interesting I ever received from her, and consequently the one I like best to offer to your Grace.’
“4 Janes” is a reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel “Jane Eyre.” In this version there are four different parallel lives that the titular character might have had if she had taken another path. These alternate possibilities span space and time taking Jane to India, Burma (now Myanmar) and Vietnam. Over the wider geography, each thread remains rooted in the original character’s maternal love and grief. While the literary classic takes place on the weather-torn moors of Northern England, the inspiration for “4 Janes” was born on a trip to Vietnam. In Huế, a city in the center of the country, Yee and her husband came across a bookstall where the shopkeeper was intently focused on a novel. “What was so interesting was that she was reading an abridged copy of ‘Jane Eyre’ to teach herself English,” says Yee. “I was so interested in that very unexpected juxtaposition, because Jane Eyre is this iconic Western classic and I didn’t expect to see it in central Vietnam in this context.” From there, the possibilities seemed endless. By resetting the novel within a global framework, Yee is able to examine the complex history between East and West as well as the internal turmoil experienced by Jane. (...) The early feminist angle of “Jane Eyre” also makes it primed for reinterpretation. “People often think of her as a kind of a proto-feminist before feminism as a term came up,” says Yee. “She’s this very resilient, very strong, very courageous person and she’s had a difficult life but she manages to overcome her difficulties through her own intelligence and her wits.” (...) Yee hopes her novel inspires readers to pick up the original “Jane Eyre” and to explore the themes of empowerment that extend through both books. They serve as a reminder that classical literature, including Brontë’s novel, still have much to teach modern audiences. Yee says, “I hope readers take away the inspiration of a heroine who learns to rely on herself, regains independence, learns resilience, respects herself and her decisions and takes life on her own terms, including her love life.” (Celina Colby)
New Humanist meets novelists exploring "sexual fantasies of midlife women": Even Cathy, the teenage heroine of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights has been recast as mid-30s Margot Robbie in a lust-fest fever dream directed by 40-year-old Emerald Fennell. (Nicola Cutcher) Expansión (Spain) recaps the Brontë story with particular focus on talent recognition: Durante años hemos repetido casi automáticamente que falta talento. Sin embargo, el informe Hidden Workers elaborado por Joseph Fuller y su equipo en Harvard Business School plantea preguntas incómodas: ¿y si el problema no fuera la ausencia de talento, sino nuestra incapacidad para reconocerlo? ¿Y si nuestros propios procesos de selección, promoción y desarrollo estuvieran dejando fuera a personas perfectamente capaces de aportar valor simplemente porque no responden al perfil esperado? Las hermanas Brontë nos recuerdan que el talento necesita disciplina, curiosidad y trabajo. Pero también ecosistemas donde crecer, personas que crean en él y líderes capaces de mirar más allá de los prejuicios. (Adela Balderas) (Translation) La Razón (Spain) centers on Charlotte Brontë's biography and how her work, particularly Jane Eyre, reflects it. Pity, the umlaut is in the wrong place. Releyendo estos días «Jane Eyre», uno de esos novelones a los que el tiempo no consigue envejecer, no puedo evitar evocar la figura de su autora, Charlotte Brontë. Saber quién fue, asomarse a su vida y conocer las heridas que la acompañaron permite regresar a sus páginas con otros ojos. Charlotte Brontë medía poco más de metro cuarenta; sus vestidos, guantes y zapatos conservados hoy en Haworth parecen casi los de una niña. Pero dentro de aquel cuerpo diminuto había una voz que la Inglaterra victoriana no estaba preparada para escuchar. (...) (José María Zavala) (Translation) The Economic Times (India) announces the OTT release of Wuthering Heights 2026 in India. BookClub publishes an AI article about novels everyone knows, and few people read; the LLM model includes Jane Eyre in the list.
More Yorkshire Festivals events, both happening in Haworth: Part of the Bradford Heritage Festival and taking place in the Brontë Parsonage Museum:
Wed 15 July, 10am-4pm The Servant's Room, Brontë Parsonage Museum
Listen to Sophia Hatfield’s entertaining take on local stories and folklore - with music, costume and props! Drop in during your Museum visit!
And part of the Haworth Festival and taking place in the Old School Rooms, just across the street of the Parsonage, a new chance to watch Pauline Vallance's What the Brontës did at the Fringe:
July 15 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm The Old School Rooms, Church Street, Haworth, BD22 8DR
The world famous Brontë Sisters cope with nightclubs, TV adaptations and life events - with original songs and a kicking bonnet. This show "brings Charlotte to life" in the very place where she had her wedding reception! It imagines her coping with the modern day Edinburgh Fringe, yet also deals with real life events, all illustrated with original songs, accompanied by harp. Written and performed by singer/songwriter and lifelong Brontë fan Pauline Vallance, this show has been described as "having heart as well as laughs" and "the highlight of my trip to Haworth". It has been presented in Haworth, at the Morecambe, Dundee and Wandsworth Fringes and at Patrick Brontë's Homeland.
A contributor to The New Zealand Herald has travelled to Brontë Country and written all about it. Ghosts are a prominent theme in the Brontë sisters’ work, so perhaps it’s fitting that my first evening in their birthplace is spent listening for creaks on the staircase. Like Jane Eyre lying awake in Thornfield Hall, it’s almost too easy to visualise spirits lurking somewhere in the shadows beyond my phone charger. I am lucky enough to spend two nights at Brontë Birthplace, the character homestay in Thornton, located on the western edges of Bradford. The restored Georgian home also doubles as a museum and cafe. Once the home of Patrick and Maria Brontë, the sisters and their brother Patrick Branwell are thought to have all been born here before the family moved to Haworth in 1820. Anna and Mark, the custodians of the property and passionate history buffs, greet guests with infectious energy. Painstaking effort has been put into furnishing the space with genuine antiques, including a four-poster bed, chaise lounge, and a chamber pot discreetly tucked under the bed. Mark gently asks me not to use it, and I very considerately oblige. My tour of the birthplace is full of the kind of detail that collapses the space between history and adaptation. A life-size cut-out of Jacob Elordi has become a particular favourite of Mark’s, he explains. Hidden behind doors, the 6′4 heartthrob is perfect for startling unsuspecting guests - an apparition many would perhaps long to encounter at the end of a dark corridor. At curry house El Manzil, a few doors down, I marvel at the unique ways locals have reinvented the family’s legacy. Anna had described the sisters as “yassified”, and looking at their affectionately irreverent depictions on the menu, I’m inclined to agree. Located 10km northwest of Thornton is Haworth. Shrouded in a careful negotiation between Gothic romanticism and ordinary village life. In describing the town as quaint, I risk underselling it. The cobblestone streets and preserved shopfronts are both atmospheric and startlingly lived-in. On a springtime Saturday morning, it’s bustling with day-trippers and locals in hair rollers, and a craft fair is being held in the old parsonage. I buy a merino beret and gloves for £13 (NZ$30) in a vague attempt to look as though I belong here, to no avail. The Brontë Parsonage Museum is meticulously laid out with artifacts and scholarship in every room, each object arranged with a care that humanises three women who have become mythic figures. Unique exhibitions, like Layla Khoo’s recreation of the manuscript for Wuthering Heights, showcase the collective storytelling that keeps their memory alive. Each sentence of the novel is in the hand of a different person who felt tethered to someone long dead, an example of how literature builds an unlikely intimacy between strangers.The cemetery next to the parsonage has an eerie kind of beauty, the headstones unevenly reclaimed by the earth. Several members of the family are buried in a vault beneath St Michael and All Angel’s Church, below where patriarch Patrick would have given sermons to the village. Lunch at the Haworth Old Post Office is a highlight, offering refined dining in a building that still feels somewhat like it has letters to sort. The original counter has been kept, and the owners are kind enough to show me the Victorian cash drawer; its century-old compartments still intact. Salomon’s weren’t launched until 1947, so I set off in boots and a long skirt to maintain historical accuracy. Trudging along through the brush, the idea wanes slightly in romanticism, replaced by the more immediate feeling that Victorian women were much hardier than I, and probably cold most of the time. For Kiwis, the scenery of the north is not altogether unfamiliar: sloping banks of green teem with livestock, patchwork farmland that at times resembles Waikato. But this, of course, doesn’t make the moorland any less breathtaking. Mossy, jagged rocks and dry-stone walls cut through the hillsides, some engraved with words that aren’t fit for publication. It somehow deepens the historic character of the whole walk, like the landscape itself has become an archive over time. The Keighley and Worth Railway offers its own panoramic views of the countryside, the standing corridors packed with visitors jostling for the best window position. As we loop around, trackside onlookers film the vintage carriage, a continuation of the British infatuation with trains, I find both endearing and inexplicable. Later that evening, I indulge another English obsession - Spain - by ordering a tapas selection at Pave, where locals balance sangrias al fresco. People pass and chat throughout the village, the narrow streets assuming renewed energy as dusk falls. Parting with the birthplace itself is more difficult than I expected, despite a fair few more bumps in the night. I get the sense I, like so many before me, have left my own mark here without even realising it. (Imogene Bedford)
Still in New Zealand, The Post, RNZ and others announce that The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever Pōneke is taking place at the Wellington Botanic Garden's SoundShell on Sunday, 26 July.
A columnist from The Irish Times discusses reading as a child in general and reading The Little House on the Prairie series as a child in particular. I read everything from the Chalet School series to Jane Eyre, focusing – I see now – on girls’ experiences. Consuming two or three books a day, rereading constantly, I liked a series, and I liked the gentle pace and complex prose of 19th- and earlier 20th-century writing. Growing up in an unpredictable household, I enjoyed fictional domestic routines, but growing up hiking and travelling a lot, I also liked landscape, adversity and exertion. (Sarah Moss) A columnist for the Newark Advocate also writes about reading when young and then rereading the same stories later in life. Perhaps having a high schooler and feeling slightly nostalgic is what has pulled me back, this summer, to those days of summer reading assignments – and not just any reading, but specifically mid-to-late 19th-century literature. What I’ve found is that there’s something really special about reading, with grown-up eyes, the same pieces of literature I was assigned as a teenager. I have the same copy of "Jane Eyre" that was mine in 1999, and have found myself equally impressed and embarrassed by some of the notes 15-year-old Abbey wrote in the margins: “Why don’t they just get together?!?” I see things now that I did not before: what my 15-year-old self would have classified as stubbornness in a character, my 41-year-old self deeply admires as strength; what my 15-year-old self blindly accepted as true love, my 41-year-old self questions as a possible lapse in judgement but also allows for different societal norms. I read “Wuthering Heights” for the first time because it somehow bypassed me three decades ago, and to be honest, I didn’t love it. (Can I say that?) But I’m glad to be able to check it off my “To Be Read” list. Regardless of questionable familial relationships and flawed heroes, I’ve come to appreciate century-old literature for the way it makes me think, the way it takes time for me to flip a switch in my brain that takes me from 2026 to 1840-something. (Abbey Roy)
More Recent Articles
|
%20(1).v1.jpg)
