A precedent of risk-taking, independence and entrepreneurship

Comicosity has an enthusiastic review of Aline Brosh McKenna's Jane.

Brosh McKenna, Perez, Kniivila and Bennett bring Brontë’s classic, Jane Eyre, to comics with the new original graphic novel Jane. I’m going to say straight out of the gate that I have never read the original Jane Eyre or seen any film adaptation or any other piece of media referencing the original, so if you’re hoping for an analysis of how this version interprets the original work, this is not the place to look. What I will talk about, though, is how this creative team wove a tale that hooked me with the first five pages and never let go.
Brosh McKenna has extensive experience writing in the worlds of film and TV and it shows with this OGN. This story could leap to the screen with next to no effort, and it would be interesting in that medium as well. That’s not to say this feels like a project that isn’t meant for comics or like Jane is a pilot work as some comics tend to be, but rather that the drama in Jane unfolds in a similar way that you’d find in a film or TV series. That Jane is an OGN works well for the story, as being chopped into monthly instalments would have hurt the way this story unfolds. Part romance, part mystery, this tale is brilliantly paced as the relationships build and questions start being answered.
The writing is strong and the masterful work of Ramón K. Pérez elevates the script into brilliance. I had huge expectations when I saw his name attached to this project and I was not disappointed. There is a reason why he is an Eisner award winner and his expressive artwork shows that in Jane. Action is not the name of the game here as much of this tale is about relationships and emotional ties, but Perez sells the story in every single panel. You can feel chemistry between Jane and every single character in this story, which is why I found the story so compelling. You won’t find a stiff character in the bunch and Kniivila does a great job giving Perez’s pencil work an extra punch with the colours. She works brilliantly with Perez’s fabulous shadow work throughout the graphic novel and the artwork throughout is simply fabulous.
While I cannot comment on the ties to Bronte’s original work, I found Jane to be a completely engrossing tale and an excellent read. Brosh McKenna, Perez, Kniivila and Bennett deliver top tier work that deserves your attention and a place on your bookshelf.
The Verdict: 10/10 (Aaron Long)

Medium jokes about 'Millennial Women [...] Killing the Classic Heterosexual Romance Plot'.

Millennial Jane Eyre just accepts Rochester’s weird attic mancave sight unseen because at least this one wants to commit, you know? (Holly Wood, PhD)

The Dartmouth has an article on the rise of the novel.

[English and creative writing professor Andrew McCann] explained that the “novel” as we know it today is a “narrative that’s imaginative” and “fictional” and emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries. McCann, who specializes in British Romanticism and Victorian literature, notes how writers such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and George Elliot played important roles in the development of the novel as one of most widespread literary genres.
“They focused the novel on everyday life in the 19th century, and this is also a big part of the genre,” McCann said. “It tells a kind of democratizing ethos. It seems to focus on the lives of ordinary people, ordinary settings.” (Marie-Capucine Pineau-Valencienne)

Movie Pilot discusses book-to-film adaptations and looks back to its origins:

And the trend took off indeed. Just about every film up for an Academy Award in 1939 was an adaption (Of Mice and Men, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, The Wizard of Oz and Wuthering Heights), and by 1977, three fourths of awards for Best Picture at the Oscars went to adaptations. (Brittany K. King)

The Quebec edition of The Huffington Post reviews the film Lady Macbeth.

Pour détourner l'attention, il choisit un décor romantique, une comédienne au regard triste et doux, un paysage qui rappelle Les Hauts de Hurlevent entre la passion et la folie. Ou Les Sœurs Brontë, le film d'André Téchiné en 1979 avec Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert et Marie France Pisier, même atmosphère de plaines et de vent. William est avant-gardiste. Sa force, c'est de ne ressembler à personne. (Minou Petrowski) (Translation)

A few days ago, an article praised Anne Brontë for being the 'Yorkshire visionary who inspired female entrepreneurs' and today we have a similar nod to Mary Taylor's hard work during her time in New Zealand on Business Insider (Australia).

On 24 July 1845, 28-year-old Englishwoman Mary Taylor disembarked from a ship in Wellington harbour. Her brother William Waring Taylor had already settled there and despite a comfortable middle class life in the old world, she travelled out to the fledgling colony – a dangerous months-long sea journey in those days — to start anew at a place where women had opportunities to control their own destiny.
Taylor opened a general store on Cuba Street, itself named after the settler ship the Cuba. Her cousin Ellen Taylor joined her from the United Kingdom in August 1849 and the business flourished, according to FL Irvine-Smith’s Wellington history book Streets Of My City.
Mary Taylor reportedly even wrote articles for English newspapers and worked on a novel while running the shop on Cuba Street. But after Ellen died of tuberculosis in 1851, she started to miss her acquaintances in England, including her close friend Charlotte Bronte.
“It is apparent from her letters that in New Zealand she missed the literary associations of her friends, and felt isolated, mentally and physically, especially when the mails brought from her beloved Charlotte such ‘incredible’ achievements as Jane Eyre and Shirley, with news of their repercussions,” Irvine-Smith wrote.
While Mary Taylor returned to England in 1859 or 1860 to live out her remaining years, she had set a precedent of risk-taking, independence and entrepreneurship on Cuba St that remains to this day.
“Cuba Street is Wellington’s centre of creativity and cool,” said Mark Clare, managing partner at Clare Capital, a corporate finance advisory firm in Wellington. (Tony Yoo)

We are pretty sure that she would be immensely proud to be remembered that way.

The new Valentino collection is described as follows by The Guardian:

Meanwhile at Paris fashion week, the signature Valentino look has exerted a powerful slow-burn influence on fashion in the five years it has defined the house. Long, fluid, with a slender shape that hints at the body but doesn’t cling, it is a romantic silhouette – part Brontë heroine, part Renaissance principessa – that has proved catnip to modern party girls bored of LBDs. (Jess Cartner-Morley)

The Spectator discusses how 'Pragmatic women have cross-dressed throughout history – but it doesn’t make them transgender' and mentions the Brontës' use of pseudonyms. Geo (Pakistan) recalls the fact that Jane Eyre was one of the books removed from the Punjab University’s library and burned during the 1980s.

It was Ask a Curator day yesterday, and the Brontë Parsonage Museum Twitter offered followers the chance to ask Principal Curator Ann Dinsdale and Curator Sarah Laycock questions about the collection. You can read the thread here.