Teenage fans of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series have sent Wuthering Heights, the favourite novel of the books' hero and heroine - soaring to the top of the classics bestseller charts.

A new edition of the novel, repackaged in a similar style to Meyer's Twilight books - black cover, white flower, tagline "love never dies" - was released in May this year, and has already sold more than 10,000 copies in the UK, nearly twice as many as the traditional Penguin Classic edition, making it Waterstone's bestselling classic.

"Love the Twilight books? Then you'll adore Wuthering Heights, one of the greatest love stories ever told," gushes the book chain's synopsis of Emily Bronte's novel. "Cathy and Heathcliff, childhood friends, are cruelly separated by class, fate and the actions of others. But uniting them is something even stronger: an all-consuming passion that sweeps away everything that comes between them. Even death!"

Meyer's human heroine Bella and her vampire hero Edward cite the 1847 novel as their favourite book; Bella even quotes Cathy speaking about Heathcliff, saying of Edward that "if all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger".


more...

Monday, February 1, 2010

Another "Jane Eyre" audio book at Audio Book Treasury - apparently Jane is the most popular of their audio books.

The audio quality not very good and read by a variety of voices. But free is free.

Here is chapter 12 which includes Jane's first encounter with Rochester.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Last year, the National Center for the Performing Arts had two runs of Jane Eyre. It dawned on me this tale really strikes home today. Jane is not beautiful, she is not rich, the man who is willing to marry her has a castle. Yet she walks away from the wedding because he has a wife.

Now, contrast it with Dwelling Narrowness, a recent TV show so popular it was banned - a woman uses her beauty to become a concubine for the sole purpose of getting a decent apartment. What would she think of Jane Eyre? Nuts, probably. Edward Rochester could have got a full house of concubines.

You see, Jane Eyre is poignant because it is a perfect counterpoint to Dwelling Narrowness and the harsh reality it depicts. In both Avatar and Jane Eyre, you can detect the real issues that grip China - an emerging middle-class, made up of those in their late 20s and early 30s, blocked out from affordable housing, and an army of property owners in a losing battle against developers and the interests they represent. More irony: The latter group is robbed so that more houses can be built and the former gourp has to buy them at prices so high they are essentially robbed, for life.

With house prices skyrocketing across the country, housing is such a big problem that even a domestic release was reinterpreted through this prism. The Founding of a Republic, an epic made to celebrate the 60th anniversary of New China, was ruthlessly dissected by irreverent young writer Han Han. He pointed out that Madame Soong Ching-ling's support of the Communist Party hinged on her ability to retain her mansion in downtown Shanghai, a point partly supported by a line in the movie that a Communist leader said she could keep her house.

from China Daily

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Book review:

"Becoming Jane Eyre," by Sheila Kohler, is a tale of the creation of Charlotte Bronte's 1847 novel, "Jane Eyre."

The story begins with Bronte sitting vigil by her father's sickbed. She uses the long, silent hours to craft an amalgam of experience and imagination, dreams and disappointments, which becomes "Jane Eyre."

Kohler also crafts an amalgam of fact and imagination. In her story, Bronte is beset - with financial concerns, with an addicted sibling and with the quest for a distant parent's affection.

"Jane Eyre" won acclaim for its unstudied tone; Kohler's story pays homage to its predecessor in atmosphere and cadence, but the lack of artifice -
of structure - here is not without cost.

more...

An interview with Kohler

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Interesting web site called Television Tropes, which, in spite of the name, deals with most story-telling media, including literature. There is a section devoted to Jane Eyre. I found that I could read the hidden spoilers by highlighting them.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Apparently the recording of Jane Eyre at Librivox is the fourth most-downloaded work, behind "Return of the Native" and "The Swiss Family Robinson" but ahead of "Aesop's Fables," "Ann of Green Gables," "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" AND "Pride and Prejudice" - take that Jane Austen!

Thursday, December 24, 2009

The producers of the latest Bronte projects are targeting the Twilight audience with younger casts than previous versions and scripts that emphasise the sensational gothic elements alongside a contemporary psychological realism.

Wuthering Heights, directed by Peter Webber, will star 22-year-old Ed Westwick, a British actor best known from the American teen TV series Gossip Girl, as an unusually youthful Heathcliff. Gemma Arterton, 23, will play Cathy.

Jane Eyre, meanwhile, will be directed by Cary Fukunaga who, in the pursuit of authenticity on his last film Sin Nombre, got arrested for riding illegally on the roof of a cargo train. Jane Eyre stars the 20-year-old Mia Wasikowska, soon to be seen in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, opposite Michael Fassbender as Mr Rochester (who was at one point lined up for Heathcliff in the other film).

Dominic Murphy, the British director who made his debut this year's with the harrowing White Lightnin', is writing an untitled project about the imaginative worlds invented by the Brontes as adolescents, isolated in their Haworth parsonage.

more...

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Due to the continuing bad economy this production of JANE EYRE is postponed until further notice. This web site will continue to be updated occasionally and once it is feasible for Mergatroyd Productions to produce it, that will be announced here. Thanks.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

A: She was a voice and a sensibility - a kind of young everywoman, I believed, at least.

Q: Did you find it easy to sustain her voice?

A: Well, sustaining her voice, when she is the narrator, is simply writing the novel. And, of course, as with all novels there were good days and bad days. But mostly, once I got going, I felt I knew her pretty well and enjoyed spending time with her. I felt sad to leave her at the end, frankly.

Q: The nanny is a stock literary figure. Were you conscious of the pitfalls in creating such a heroine?

A: There are pitfalls? Uh-oh. Now you tell me! I think the nanny/governess is a kind of tried and true narrative device. And, of course, I wanted to allude to “Jane Eyre’’ a little bit while writing this. So I feel I was operating in a kind of tradition, rather than employing a stock character.

more Moore

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Adapted by Alice Katsavou

Jane Eyre: ...A light shone through the keyhole and from under the door; a profound stillness pervaded the vicinity. Coming near, I found the door slightly ajar; probably to admit some fresh air into the close abode of sickness. I put it back and looked in. My eye sought Helen, and feared to find death. Close by Miss Temple's bed, and half covered with its white curtains, there stood a little crib. I saw the outline of a form under the clothes, but the face was hid by the hangings. I advanced; then paused by the crib side: my hand was on the curtain, but I preferred speaking before I withdrew it. I still recoiled at the dread of seeing a corpse.

more here

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Take the SparkNotes Jane Eyre Quiz

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Due to the present dismal state of the economy, the upcoming production of JANE EYRE has been postponed until December 2009

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Tickets for the 2009 JANE EYRE production are on sale now at TheaterMania:
http://www.theatermania.com/new-york/shows/jane-eyre_155211/

Tickets are $18 - but only $15 for visitors of this blog! Use discount code WSJE for the lower price.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

This article suggests either Timothy Dalton or William Hurt.

One thing that you must have to do the romance between Jane and Rochester right is explained in this statement from the article:

What's so right about Wilson's Jane and Toby Stephens' virile, tormented Rochester is that their mutual erotic charge is matched by the teasing, bantering rapport of intellectual equals.

The teasing and bantering aspect which is in the book, is often completely missing from many adaptations - such as the Polly Teale adaptation.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Charlotte wrote to her publisher William Smith Williams about a review of JANE EYRE:

...He says 'if "Jane Eyre" be the production of a woman - she must be a woman unsexed.'

In that case the book is an unredeemed error and should be unreservedly condemned. 'Jane Eyre' is a woman's autobiography - by a woman it is professedly written - if it is written as no womn would write - condemn it - with spirit and decision - as it is bad - but do not first eulogise and then detract. I am reminded of the 'Economist.' The literary critic of that paper praised the book if written by a man - and pronounced it 'odious' if the work of a woman.

To such critics I would say - 'To you I am neither Man nor Woman - I come before you as an Author only - it is the sole standard by which you have a right to judge me - the sole ground on which I accept your judgment.'

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Rochester:

Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh yes, I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary ground, will you agree to let me hector a little? Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary; therefore, keep to yourself, and don't venture on generalities of which you are intensely ignorant. However, I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner. No, on the contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded misapprehension of one's meaning are the usual rewards of candour. Not three in three thousand raw school-girl-governesses would have answered me as you have just done. But I don't mean to flatter you: if you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it. And then, after all, I go too fast in my conclusions: for what I yet know, you may be no better than the rest; you may have intolerable defects to counterbalance your few good points. I have plenty of faults of my own, of course -- I know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you. God wot I need not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself. I started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right course since: but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you -- wiser -- almost as stainless. I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure -- an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not? I was your equal at eighteen -- quite your equal. Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one of the better kind, and you see I am not so. You would say you don't see it; at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, by-the-bye, what you express with that organ; I am quick at interpreting its language). Then take my word for it, -- I am not a villain: you are not to suppose that -- not to attribute to me any such bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try to put on life. Do you wonder that I avow this to you? Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances' secrets: people will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations. I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were writing my thoughts in a diary. You would say, I should have been superior to circumstances; so I should -- so I should; but you see I was not. When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level. I wish I had stood firm -- God knows I do! Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some one to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden steps the 'boots' placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced, and to see some description of carriage waiting to convey me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Apparently Katherine Hepburn was in a stage production of JANE EYRE early in her career.

another production photo at Bronteana

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Jane has a page on Facebook now

A cover of Kate Bush's song "Wuthering Heights" which is based on Emily Bronte's novel, by brilliant musician and total cutie Kris Shred.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Currer, Ellis and Acton were the deliberately masculine-sounding pen names chosen by Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, respectively.

They can be read here.

Here is a poem by Charlotte:

STANZAS.

If thou be in a lonely place,
If one hour's calm be thine,
As Evening bends her placid face
O'er this sweet day's decline;
If all the earth and all the heaven
Now look serene to thee,
As o'er them shuts the summer even,
One moment—think of me!

Pause, in the lane, returning home;
'Tis dusk, it will be still:
Pause near the elm, a sacred gloom
Its breezeless boughs will fill.
Look at that soft and golden light,
High in the unclouded sky;
Watch the last bird's belated flight,
As it flits silent by.

Hark! for a sound upon the wind,
A step, a voice, a sigh;
If all be still, then yield thy mind,
Unchecked, to memory.
If thy love were like mine, how blest
That twilight hour would seem,
When, back from the regretted Past,
Returned our early dream!

If thy love were like mine, how wild
Thy longings, even to pain,
For sunset soft, and moonlight mild,
To bring that hour again!
But oft, when in thine arms I lay,
I've seen thy dark eyes shine,
And deeply felt their changeful ray
Spoke other love than mine.

My love is almost anguish now,
It beats so strong and true;
'Twere rapture, could I deem that thou
Such anguish ever knew.
I have been but thy transient flower,
Thou wert my god divine;
Till checked by death's congealing power,
This heart must throb for thine.

And well my dying hour were blest,
If life's expiring breath
Should pass, as thy lips gently prest
My forehead cold in death;
And sound my sleep would be, and sweet,
Beneath the churchyard tree,
If sometimes in thy heart should beat
One pulse, still true to me.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Fans of the novel "Jane Eyre" write their own Jane-related stories here.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

MERGATROYD PRODUCTIONS announces its 2009 production of JANE EYRE opening July 18 2009.

The show will be performed at the Penny Templeton Studio for 12 performances from July 18 to August 9 2009. Watch this space for more information.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The title of this post is a query seen more and more frequently from visitors to this web site. Most likely they are not asking about our upcoming theatre production of Jane Eyre but rather the planned movie starring Ellen Page, which was reported by the Bronte Blog and others back last May and there's been hardly a peep about it since then.

Finding the perfect Rochester may be even more difficult than finding the right Jane. He has to be attractive but not classically handsome; gruff and masculine but sensitive; and able to laugh as well as brood.

So who will play Rochester for the new movie? Nobody knows yet. Here is a list of men who have played him in past movies and television series.

But what about this production? Our JANE EYRE 2008 Rochester, Greg Oliver Bodine, will not be playing the role again for Mergatroyd Productions and so the search is on. Who indeed will be playing Mr. Rochester in JANE EYRE 2009? Time and auditions will tell.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Friday, February 13, 2009

Stay tuned - news about Mergatroyd Productions 2009 JANE EYRE - new dates, the venue, discount code, etc. - coming soon.

STRESS AND THE CITY, eight 10-minute plays by N. G. McClernan, the author of this adaptation of "Jane Eyre" is currently playing in New York.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato.

- from Charlotte Bronte's Villette

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Mr. Rochester has a thoughtful nature and a very feeling heart; he is neither selfish nor self-indulgent; he is ill-educated, misguided, errs, when he does err, through rashness and inexperience: he lives for a time as too many other men live - but being radically better than most men he does not like that degraded life, and is never happy in it. He is taught the severe lessons of Experience and has sense to learn wisdom from them - years improve him - the effervescence of youth foamed away, what is really good in him remains - his nature is like wine of a good vintage, time cannot sour - but only mellows him. Such at least was the character I meant to pourtray.

Heathcliff, again, of 'Wuthering Heights' is quite another creation. He exemplifies the effects which a life of continued injustice and hard usage may produce on a naturally perverse, vindictive and inexorable disposition. Carefully trained and kindly reared, the black gipsy-cub might possibly have been reared into a human being, but tyranny and ignorance made of him a mere demon. The worst of it is, some of his spirit seems breathed through the whole narrative in which he figures: it haunts every moore and glen, and beckons in every fir-tree of the 'Heights.'

- August 14, 1848

Thursday, January 8, 2009

From her letter to Ellen Nussey, January 1, 1833;

Accept my congratulations on the arrival of the 'New Year' every succeeding day of which will I trust find you wiser and better in the true sense of those much-used words. The first day of January always presents to my mind a train of very solemn and important reflections and a question more easily asked than answered frequently occurs viz: How have I improved the past year and with good intentions do I view the dawn of its successor? these my dearest Ellen are weighty considerations which (young as we are) neither you nor I can too deeply or too seriously ponder...

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Asks The Daily Mail:

He pouts, broods and beats his way into our hearts, riding around the moors in leather boots and furry coats, looking ripe for rescue by our Jane.

He is clever, tortured and besotted, and Jane follows him around the house and calls him 'Sir' and 'Master' in scenes which, if I were not so well bred, I would consider rude.

A typical one goes like this: "You examine me, Miss Eyre," said he. "Do you find me handsome?" Jane has a ponder and comes back (no pushover she): "No, Sir".

It's a struggle, a battle, an epic; and when he finally declares his love to her (after naughtily pretending he was going to marry someone else), a tree gets struck by lightning in the garden. (This doesn't happen in my love-life, although I dearly wish it would). But ? and most people forget this ? Jane Eyre is a fantasy too rich for one hero. Charlotte wrote us two.

After she leaves Thornfield (to nearly die of exposure), she meets St John Rivers, who is later revealed to be her cousin. (In some ways, Jane Eyre is a lot like Dynasty.)

St John is a prim, sexy blond. (She probably cut a third hero, a red-head this time, from an early draft.) And, sometimes - particularly on winter Sunday afternoons - I find him more beguiling even than Rochester.

St John is a priest - a "cold hard man" he tells Jane - but he falls for Jane like an orange rolling off a fridge. She fancies him, too, watching him admire a picture of a beautiful girl and drooling: "He breathed low and fast; I stood silent."

That's two-love to lonely Miss Bronte. How spoilt she was in her head. But it's back to Rochester and his marvellous flaws, and the beautiful cry: "Reader," - say it with me - "I married him." Aaah.

That is when I collapse prostrate on the floor, like a piece of toast waiting for some Rochester-flavoured jam.

In Rochester, Charlotte wrote a hero no real man can ever touch. Jane Eyre should be subtitled Revenge Of The Parson's Daughter because she spoilt real love for us all.

He is the man in every film, book or TV series you ever wanted; the dark darling you can save from himself. Plus Thorn-field would be fab to redecorate.

And Jane is so ordinary, "poor, obscure, plain and little", that anyone could get him. He chucks the glamourous beauty Blanche for Jane. He falls, like a god, into our laps.

What about Jane Austen, you may squeak. What about Pride And Prejudice? Shaddap is my answer. Charlotte herself sneered that Jane Austen "ruffles her readers with nothing vehement" (ouch!) and tidy Miss Austen is a pastel to Bronte's lustrous crimson.

She's John Lewis to Charlotte's Selfridges. Who wants to hear about the city of Bath when you can have the wilds of Yorkshire? Who wants drippy Darcy ? a man so wet you could do backstroke in him ? when you can have Rochester and Rivers?

So Jane Eyre isn't the first book in the canon of love-starved fantasy. It is the canon. The only thing I can say against it is that it is indirectly responsible for Dame Barbara Cartland getting published.

Monday, December 22, 2008

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