Wow, you know -- I read this book very uncritically when I was 13; it's probably due for a reread. I've seen the movie more recently, but I know they change the murder to an accident, which changes the story a lot.

So is the world ready for Rebecca's POV?

re: Jane Eyre, wasn't it George Eliot who complained that Charlotte Bronte should have been protesting the divorce laws rather than building a melodrama around them? Then, I'm with you on preferring Wuthering Heights, and being a much bigger fan of Emily's than Charlotte's.

Do you know Villette? I read a great essay -- it might have been the preface to the Signet edition -- talking about that book as the already-famous Charlotte writing self-conscious meta about her own life. (Which is the only way I find it readable!)

And speaking of authors punishing women for being "unconventional" (going back to Rebecca) -- I was rather surprised on rereading "Pride & Prejudice" to find that Lydia's actually pretty appealing. I mean, she's not the brightest bulb in the box (but, come on, Wickham fools everybody, including the shrewed judge of character, Elizabeth, who only gets the goods on him from Darcy -- and then doesn't bother to tell anybody!) but most of the "awful" things she does consist of having high spirits and chasing boys. In the 1930s, she would have been the heroine, with her boring older sisters as the sticks in the mud. For that matter, I'm not sure that married life with Wickham wouldn't be more fun than family hour with the Darcys (and certainly with the Knightleys!)