World-shaping stories

BBC has announced the '100 stories that shaped the world'.

BBC Culture asked writers around the globe to pick stories that have endured across generations and continents – and changed society. [...]
It’s not a definitive list. This is just a starting point, aiming to spark a conversation about why some stories endure; how they continue to resonate centuries and millennia after they were created. And why sharing those stories is a fundamental human impulse: one that can overcome division, inspire change, and even spark revolutions.
Top 100
The list was determined via ranked ballots and first placed into descending order by number of critic votes, then into descending order by total critic points, then alphabetically (for 73 to 100, the titles listed are tied). [...]
19. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë, 1847) [...]
28. Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys, 1966) [...]
38. Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847)

We are disappointed not to see Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, as it's definitely a 'world-shaping' story.

The Pan MacMillan Blog features writer Lena Andersson.

Lena Andersson on . . .  her literary inspiration
Plato is a very big inspiration for my thinking. For my style I have been inspired by such writers as Georges Simenon, Graham Greene, Albert Camus and a few Swedish 20th century authors. Concerning the love theme I have been inspired by Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre) and some others.

India New England interviews artist and poet Poppy Charnalia.

INE: What are your favorite books
PC: Poetry – ‘Saaye Mein Dhoop’  by  Dushyant Kumar
The Solitary Reaper- Poem by William Wordsworth.
Biography – ‘Lust for Life’ by Irving Stone  (about Vincent Van Gogh)
Autobiography- ‘Satya Ke Prayog’ (My Experiments with Truth) by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Fiction – ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brontë

The Argus features an event which took place within the Charleston Festival.

The discussion of feminism past and present was a lively, informed and inspiring one, skilfully chaired by journalist Arifa Akbar, and built on an earlier talk by Lyndall Gordon whose group biography Outsiders links five iconic female novelists – Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Olive Schreiner and, appropriately given the setting, Virginia Woolf.
Chaired with warmth and consummate professionalism by veteran broadcaster Joan Bakewell, this was fascinating on how all these authors were motherless during crucial periods of their writing development.
They underwent haphazard education and were supported by enlightened men who were crucial to their progress and exposure.
Their necessarily unconventional lives were examined and their incredible courage applauded in a very enjoyable morning session.
It felt not only a treat to be immersed in the lives of all these pioneers of the past at the two talks but important too to be reminded of their bravery as the fight for women’s rights very much still goes on in the troubled era of the #MeToo and Time’s Up campaigns.
The Bloomsbury group made it their mission to search for truth and provoke debate and the Charleston Festival succeeds so well in keeping that questioning spirit alive. (Susan Gilson)

Film School Rejects picks up the story of the TV series based on The New York Times' 'overlooked' obituaries and adds:

The featured women and cast that will bring Overlooked to life haven’t been announced yet, but we have some suggestions. Carey Mulligan and Priyanka Chopra would be excellent as Sylvia Plath and Madhubala, respectively. Regina Hall (who actually has a master’s degree in journalism from NYU) would also be a great choice to play Ida B. Wells for both her background and her looks. And, while we’re at it, why not recommend Carrie Coon as Charlotte Brontë, Emily Warren Roebling, or any other woman on the Overlooked list (TV just really needs more Carrie Coon). (Sophia Stewart)

Apparently yesterday was World Goth Day and so Metro discussed who the first Goth had been.

The first ever usage of the term ‘gothic’ came in 1764, when Horace Walpole was describing his novel, The Castle of Otranto. [...]
His creepy story then inspired a huge wave of Gothic literature, that included works like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. (Olivia Waring)

Newsweek has an article on the historical research behind the TV show The Terror.

“We spent a lot of time perfecting the language of the show,” Kajganich told Newsweek. Research into how people talked in the 1840s began with period literature: William Thackeray, Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers, the Brontë sisters and Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers. They were especially interested in literature written a decade or two after [Sir John Franklin’s 1845 expedition to the Northwest Passage], but set before, offering insight into how the authors understood the idioms and social mores of earlier times, and what society had distilled from that decade. (Andrew Whalen)

My Jane Eyre Library features a scribbled 1999 copy of Jane Eyre with an unusual cover.