Death of a School Girl (The Jane Eyre Chronicles #1) by Joanna Campbell Slan

Another day, another book inspired by the Brontës; reader, I love Brontë inspired fiction. Death of a School Girl is a 2012 novel by Joanna Campbell Slan which is inspired by my favourite novel of all time, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847). It's always exciting to discover a new interpretation of Jane's story, or one that imagines her…

Beyond the Brontë Juvenilia: Discovering More Child Authors

When setting up Brontë Babe Blog it was my intention to introduce readers to the Brontë juvenilia in the hope of inspiring people to actually read texts from Charlotte and Branwell’s Glass Town/Angrian saga. Sadly most of Emily and Anne’s writings have been lost to time and what remains is difficult to piece together and…

5 Overlooked Brontë Women

The Brontë sisters created some of the most memorable characters in literary history, many of them female, which may perhaps be why their work still seems refreshing today. However, dig beneath the surface a little and you will find there are more inspiring and intriguing female characters in their works. I thought it might be…

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

I have many literary passions but right at the top are things such as the works of the Brontë family, detective stories, and science fiction. An eclectic mix, I agree, so you can imagine my delight when I came across The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde which promised to combine all three. I admit that I bought…

Re-Discovering Jane Eyre: Reader, I Love It

Reader, it's no secret that my favourite author of all time is Charlotte Brontè, and that my favourite novel of all time is her 1847 masterpiece, Jane Eyre. It might therefore seem strange that I've never dedicated a post to it, but perhaps that's simply because I love it so much and there is so much I…

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, Caroline Vernon? Charlotte Brontë, Joyce Carol Oates, and the Adolescent Female

For a long time I've been wanting to write a post on Charlotte Brontë's 1839 novella, Caroline Vernon. It's one of my absolute favourite works by Charlotte. The penultimate extant text from her juvenilia/Glass Town and Angrian writings, it tells the story of a teenage girl named Caroline who lives with her unstable mother in exile,…

Reading Challenge 2021

Happy New Year all! Let's hope for a much better 2021 and the less said about most of 2020, the better. I have no resolutions other than my reading challenge however I will follow Charlotte Brontë's advice and see where it gets me - “I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to…

Reading Challenge 2020: The Results

What a year 2020 has been. It's safe to say that nobody was expecting anything quite like it. At the start of the year I had a lot of resolutions for 2020; things to do, places to see etc., however, like most bookworms I also had some reading resolutions. Following a mainly successful 2019 Reading…

The Enfant by Charlotte Brontë

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything exclusively on the Brontë juvenilia or an in-depth look at one of Charlotte or Branwell's early Glass Town Tales. In the past I've gone right back to the beginning and looked at texts such as Charlotte's Two Romantic Tales. I thought it would be nice, and perhaps…

How the Brontës Pulled Me Through 2020

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... That's a phrase you may have heard a lot recently, and it's true. Now we're into December, there is a sense of Christmas in the air. Like so many others, this year I chose to put my Christmas tree up and dust off the fairy lights a…