Interesting that you both think so! The impression I got in general was that people watched the '80's miniseries (?) and found all that passion romantic, and that other people liked to mock it, like in the Thursday Next books. I just read it as an earlier version of some of the romance tropes I'm less comfortable with (personal taste), only perhaps more extreme and with less of the disturbing-sweet reassurances that it is indeed romantic. It's interesting to think of it as intentional, as a horror story. I don't think I've heard that before.

Huh, what intrigues you in Nelly?

The Brontes really do write some messed up relationships. Even Anne!

Oh no! I haven't read anything by her yet, but that comic put her on my list of "perhaps"...

In one of her books, the hero horse-whips another dude into a coma because he is jealous of him. And he still gets the girl.

Wow, that's... yeah.