An alert for today, August 19, at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:
Wed 19 Aug, 11am - 3pm
Join us for drawing made easy - following the shadows of plants and flowers to begin making your own artwork. The Brontës were inspired by all the nature around them and this workshop celebrates that.
ScreenRant thinks that Wuthering Heights is an overrated book and, for some weird reason, thinks that Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca is a better book (as if they were similar in anything other than being written in the same language):
Wuthering Heights is often celebrated as one of literature's greatest romances, though this reputation is misleading. Emily Brontë's novel is certainly passionate, but its central relationships are defined by cruelty, obsession, revenge, and emotional destruction. Its influence is enormous, but its place as one of the most iconic romances ever put to page does not necessarily match the unpleasant reality of its characters. Many readers finish Wuthering Heights unsure if they’ve just read a tragic love story or a gothic thriller. Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel Rebecca provides a more accessible alternative for readers drawn to the gothic atmosphere and psychological intensity of Wuthering Heights. Its unnamed narrator marries the wealthy Maxim de Winter and moves into Manderley, where she becomes increasingly haunted by the memory of Maxim's first wife, the titular Rebecca. Like Brontë's novel, du Maurier's story is concerned with obsessive relationships, but it leans harder into mystery and psychological manipulation, giving Rebecca a much clearer identity. (Tom Russell)
BuzzFeed has a quiz that matches opening lines to books. Jane Eyre is one of them. The Banbury Guardian announces the performances of Jane Eyre (adapted by Nick Young and Ross Muir) at Theatre Chipping Norton.
An online alert for today, August 18:
Zoom, Tuesday 18 August 2026, 18.30 UK time
Composer Courtney Caitlin Phillips wrote an 8-piece chamber music series for each of the Brontë sisters’ novels, including Charlotte’s unfinished Emma. Though its April 2020 live premiere was cancelled due to the pandemic, she was thrilled to resurrect her work and celebrate the legacy of the Brontës in a world premiere of her compositions at the Kilkee Brontë Festival in Ireland in September 2025. She is now delighted to be able to share her work with the Brontë Birthplace, Thornton. Her talk will include some brief, personal vignettes of how she was first introduced to the Brontës, how her connection to them has deepened over the years, and how they continue to inspire her creativity. She will also share excerpts and analyses of the chamber music series, show how each piece connects with its respective novel, and reveal a few Easter eggs hidden in the scores.
The play’s premise sounds like a gimmick, and it is: Three real-life Victorian sisters who became renowned for their novels — Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë (authors of, respectively, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) — have been consigned by a witch to purgatory, where they are required to throw nightly parties until they attain “The Point of Celebratory Reverence” (a never-specified transcendent state of being). The sisters have thus dutifully partied on — more than 5,000 times — so far without success. We, the audience, are their guests as they try once again. Will they or won’t they reach that vague “Celebratory Reverence”? That’s essentially the suspense that sustains all the storytelling that follows. (...) This is not a play with a story arc that unfolds with revelation after revelation, nor does it attain the euphoric buzz of a good bash. In fact, the script functions more like a loopy lineup for an off-the-wall variety show, with an assortment of monologues, scenelets, and set pieces (some hits, some misses). A question one might have going in is whether Brontë Sister House Party will make any sense if one knows nothing of the historical characters’ backstories or literary output. Be assured, the playwright doesn’t assume we all will fill that in; there’s plenty of contextualizing exposition (though Brontë buffs will likely recognize easter eggs along the way). (...) Brontë Sister House Party culminates in feel-good sisterhood closure, but the play’s episodic structure feels random and aimless until then (though director Kathleen Barth manages the many tonal shifts with admirable aplomb). Moreover, on opening night, execution was uneven, with the sort of uncertainty more excusable in a preview. Still, the admittedly gimmicky premise is intriguing; the characters, both as written and as performed, are appealingly quirky; and the musical interludes are fun. A satisfying Brontë-esque saga it’s not, but its sentiments, silliness, and celebratory aspirations have modern merit. (John Stoltenberg )
Southwark Playhouse has released another clip of their upcoming Jane Eyre. The Musical production: Charlie Burn performing Sweet Liberty (via Broadway World).
#8: Much spicier than the classic novel it’s based on, what ’26 movie has been dubbed “50 Shades of Brontë”? A: “Anna Karenina” B: “Wuthering Heights” C: “Middlemarch”
D: “Mansfield Park”
An AI has listed classic books worth reading at least once in BookClub. The list includes Jane Eyre. AnneBrontë.org posts about Charlotte Brontë's 1850 letter to Ellen Nussey recounting Mrs. Atkinson's tragic undiagnosed pregnancy and death from consumption. An alert for tomorrow, August 17, in Haworth: Tue 18 Aug, 10:00am Brontë Event Space in the Old School Room
This workshop series explores the Brontë siblings' relationship to the Gothic. We’ll explore the Gothic influences that shaped their fiction, dive into their juvenilia and its use of Gothic elements from murder to necromancy to tragic ghosts, and look at how they changed the Gothic forever. The day also includes a visit to the Museum's Research Library to examine collection materials. It is worth noting that the Museum will be closed on this day.
| 10 - 11am |
Introducing the Juvenilia: In this session we’ll explore Charlotte’s accounts of their fantastical imaginary world’s construction. We’ll also use extracts from Branwell and Charlotte to explore how the siblings constructed different versions of the same world. |
| 11am - 12pm |
Influencing the Brontës Juvenilia: In this session, we’ll explore some of the authors and works that inspired the Brontës’ juvenile writing: from Edinburgh magazines, to Gothic novels, to Byron’s poetry, to contemporary geographies, and the Arabian Nights. We’ll look at the tiny magazines that the siblings produced in their imaginary world and what they reveal about the wide-ranging interests and reading of all the Brontë children. |
| 12 - 1 pm |
Lunch break |
| 1 - 2pm |
Introducing Our (Anti-)Heroes: In this session, we’ll dive into the interlocking worlds of the juvenilia by exploring some of the key figures and their ever-changing and evolving stories. |
| 2 - 3pm |
Evolving from the Juvenilia: In this final session, we’ll explore the ways in which story points, themes and characters that are famous from the Brontës’ later work come out of the juvenilia. We’ll trace the development of ideas and question some of our assumptions about the novels and what influenced them by looking at how very early several tropes and concerns appear. |
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