On Saturday, November 28 there will be an event with several Brontë-related talks. The Offaly Independent says The Banagher Brontë Group will bring its 2025 programme to a close this Saturday, 29 November, with a series of cultural events celebrating the town’s links to the Brontë fa a wreath at the grmily.
The day will begin at 2pm with the traditional laying ofave of Arthur and Mary Anna Bell Nicholls in St Paul’s Churchyard. Arthur Bell Nicholls, Charlotte Brontë’s husband, spent his later years in Banagher.
At 3pm, the Long Room in Crank House will host the launch of Dr Michael O’Dowd’s new book, Charlotte Brontë: A Medical Casebook.
The launch will follow an interview with Dr Maebh O’Regan, offering attendees insight into the medical themes that shaped Charlotte Brontë’s life and writing.
Events will conclude with an intimate recital by the Banagher Brontë Ensemble in the Parlour Room of Simon and Mary Lyons’s public house.
Supported by an Arts Grant from Offaly County Council, the recital will feature musical pieces interspersed with readings from and about the works of the Brontë family, performed by members of the Banagher Brontë Group and invited guests.
The London Review of Books has an article on the exhibition Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World.For a long stretch of her long life, Jean Rhys was thought to be dead: drowned in the Seine, they said. For some of it she was thought to be a fraud. In 1949 a neighbour in Beckenham who knew her by the name of her husband (who was a real fraud) accused her of impersonating the famous author Jean Rhys. ‘I feel rather tactless being still alive,’ she wrote to her daughter. She often said she felt like a ghost, and sometimes like a ghost’s technological equivalent: ‘A writer is only a telephone.’ Hilton Als, who has curated exhibitions inspired by Joan Didion and James Baldwin, has now created one about Rhys. Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World, recently on display at London’s Michael Werner Gallery, does not try to cover all Rhys’s glimmers in and out of vivacity. Nevertheless there is a spectral quality to this ‘collective portrait’, which includes no actual portrait of Rhys herself. Paintings, sculptures, photographs – and one dress – from the 18th to the 21st century are shown alongside extracts from Rhys’s writing, without further explanation. Als has said he wanted to make ‘an emotional transcription of how she makes me feel’. Which raises the question of who this exhibition is about, whose postures these are. [...] There is a thin line between the tangential and the bafflingly oblique. Celia Paul’s simmering portrait of Charlotte Brontë – eyes down, mouth set, raw-boned, wary, building to thunder – is a hot line to the person who created Bertha Mason. (Susannah Clapp)
The Spectator reviews Queen Esther by John Irving., which features 'a solitary, determined heroine, who – Jane Eyre-like – is a moral force unbound by conventionalities'. Esther’s unconventionality is expressed in two striking ways. First, she wants a tattoo. Not just any old tattoo, but a quotation from Jane Eyre: ‘The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.’ This is, you will agree, a lot better than ‘No regrets’, but it’s pretty unusual for pre-second world war America. (Esther was born in 1905.) (Nicholas Lezard) Times Now News has an article on '2026's biggest book adaptations', including Wuthering Heights.
A new thesis with Jane Eyre as subject: by María Cabezas Hernández Universidad de Valladolid, 2025
Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre is one of the most distinguished works of all time. This dissertation analyzes the personal development that its protagonist, Jane Eyre, experienced throughout the course of her life. In order to achieve that, the analysis is divided into five sections, which are framed according to the five locations she lived in, each one of them corresponding to a different stage of the protagonist´s life. Among these, the most transcendental moments from Jane’s life will be analyzed in order to establish the influence they had over her future behavior and character and to describe how most of those core moments and Jane’s learning are a reflection of Charlotte Brontë’s own development.
Jane Eyre 2006 is having a well-deserved moment. Digital Spy sings its praises. If you're looking for a Brontë adaptation to whet your appetite ahead of Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights next year, a modern classic has just resurfaced on BBC iPlayer. Starring Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens, Jane Eyre first aired in 2006 to critical acclaim, even picking up BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. Following a reunion between its lead stars, the four-part adaption has captivated new audiences on iPlayer and can be found on the streaming service's 'New and Trending' section. Wilson stars as the titular character from Charlotte Brontë's 1847 gothic novel with Stephens taking on the role of the mysterious Mr Rochester. Viewers were just as enamoured as critics with the adaptation, with one fan on IMDB calling it "a true masterpiece". Another user called it: "A lavish production in all the right ways (script, cast, direction, location, details), this is a perfect literary adaptation - very much in the heritage of the BBC's 1996 Pride and Prejudice, but perhaps even better." While a third added: "Surely this is the version against which all others must be judged? Outstanding performances by the two leads." Just last week, Wilson and Stephens reunited for iPlayer's Remembers... series where they discussed the adaptation. Wilson revealed that, nearly 20 years on, she still has people coming up to her to talk about her performance, with young girls telling her: "You're my favourite Jane Eyre." The actor only had one screen credit to her name prior to being cast in Jane Eyre and admitted she was "excited and terrified at the same time" when she got the call that she'd been cast. (Stephanie Chase)
RadioTimes sums up all that is known about Chalie xcx's soundtrack for Wuthering Heights 2026. The New York Times includes Chains of Love on a list of '8 New Songs You Should Hear Now'. 1. Charli XCX: “Chains of Love” Wisely, Charli XCX will be following “Brat” with something completely different: a full-album soundtrack to Emerald Fennell’s upcoming take on “Wuthering Heights.” The two singles she has released from it are a far cry from the confessional club classics of her 2024 breakout album — a moody, melodramatic collaboration with John Cale (who, to be fair, is brat) and this lush, reverb-drenched pop ballad that brings me back to the best moments of her 2013 debut album, “True Romance.” If “Brat” wasn’t your thing, give this one (and what I hear as its companion piece, her great 2011 single “Stay Away”) a try. (Lindsay Zoladz)
Esquire lists 'The 8 Men's Haircut Trends That Will Be Huge in 2026, From the Baby Mullet to the Army-Grade Buzzcut' and one of them is Mutton Chops No, but seriously. If you haven't seen the trailer for Wuthering Heights, you might not know where we're coming from. If you have seen the trailer for Wuthering Heights, which drops in February 2026, hear us out. In it Jacob Elordi has 17th Century mutton chops. Big, ol' side burns and a shaggy head of hair up top. All his own. Grown out especially for the film, sure, but we weren't mad at him for sporting them throughout 2024. "You'll want long, squared sideburns below the jawline with a soft and natural length on top," says Mills. "Keep it loose, romantic, and slightly wild." (Zak Maoui)
The BookClub has an AI-generated list of '7 Books With the Best Love Stories Ever' which includes both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Rather silly to have AI do what humans have been doing for years on the internet.
An alert for tomorrow, February 27, in Houghton-le-Spring:
Thursday 27 November 2025 at 6:30PM Houghton Library, 74 Newbottle Street. Houghton-le-Spring
Culture House Sunderland is delighted to host a conversation with author Karen Powell about her fascinating historical novel, Fifteen Wild Decembers.
Karen is an author living in North Yorkshire. She read English Literature at Cambridge University as a mature student and now writes full-time. She is currently working on a new novel set in Italy.
Fifteen Wild Decembers is a creative re-imagining of the short life of Emily Brontë, one of England’s greatest writers.
Isolated from society, the Brontë children spend all their time inventing elaborate fictional realms or roaming the wild moors above their family home in Yorkshire. Emily appears taciturn and unexceptional; but beneath the surface her mind is in a creative ferment, ready to burst forth to create a masterpiece that will change the literary world forever.
More Recent Articles
|
%20(1).jpg)
