Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel, considered a classic of English literature. It tells the story of passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, set on the harsh Yorkshire moors. Mr. Earnshaw brings home the orphan Heathcliff to live with his children Catherine and Hindley at Wuthering Heights. Catherine and Heathcliff form an intense bond, though their relationship is turbulent like the moors themselves. The novel explores themes of love, revenge, and the wildness of nature and human nature.
Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel, considered a classic of English literature. It tells the story of passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, set on the harsh Yorkshire moors. Mr. Earnshaw brings home the orphan Heathcliff to live with his children Catherine and Hindley at Wuthering Heights. Catherine and Heathcliff form an intense bond, though their relationship is turbulent like the moors themselves. The novel explores themes of love, revenge, and the wildness of nature and human nature.
Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel, considered a classic of English literature. It tells the story of passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, set on the harsh Yorkshire moors. Mr. Earnshaw brings home the orphan Heathcliff to live with his children Catherine and Hindley at Wuthering Heights. Catherine and Heathcliff form an intense bond, though their relationship is turbulent like the moors themselves. The novel explores themes of love, revenge, and the wildness of nature and human nature.
W uthering Heights is the only novel by Emily Brontë,
considered one of the finest writers of the nineteenth century. A haunting story of love and revenge, it takes place at Wuthering Heights, a house on the wild and beautiful Yorkshire moors. (The word ‘wuthering’ refers to violent winds on the moors.) Heathcliff begins his life as a homeless orphan, taken to Wuthering Heights by Mr Earnshaw to live with his children, Catherine and Hindley. The fiercely passionate Catherine and Heathcliff fall in love with each other, but their relationship is dark and stormy, like the moors. Wuthering Heights was published in December 1847 under the pen-name Ellis Bell. Richly imaginative and intensely emotional, it was noted for its unusual structure but received mixed reviews. About a year after Emily Brontë’s death in 1848, her sister Charlotte (author of Jane Eyre) revealed the truth of the novel’s authorship. The novel later came to be considered a classic. It has been filmed several times.
About Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë (1818–1848) was an English writer best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, first published under the pen-name Ellis Bell. Not much is known directly of her; almost everything that is known about her comes from the writings of others, especially her sister Charlotte (who later wrote Jane Eyre). Emily was born in Yorkshire, northern England, into a clergyman’s family. She was the younger sister of Charlotte Brontë and the fifth of six children. The family lived in Howarth, a West Yorkshire village in the middle of the moors. After their mother died in 1821, four of the sisters Introduction vii
were sent to a boarding school, where living conditions were
so bad that two of them died. After that, the remaining children stayed at home and educated themselves by reading widely. To escape their unhappy childhood, they wrote stories, plays and poems to amuse themselves. Their daily environment—the wild, remote moors that Emily loved— became the setting of Wuthering Heights. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre was published in 1847 (also under a pen-name) and became an immediate success. Emily’s Wuthering Heights, with its complex story and descriptions of passionate love and cruelty, appeared the same year and received mixed reviews, though today it has become a classic of English writing. Emily died of tuberculosis in 1848, having caught a cold at her brother’s funeral. 1 The Earnshaws of Wuthering Heights Heathcliff’s arrival
B efore I came to live here at Thrushcross Grange, I, Ellen
Dean, was nearly always at Wuthering Heights. My mother was employed there as a children’s nurse, and I was allowed to play with the two children, Hindley and 5 Catherine. I liked to do small jobs, too, and waited around the farm, ready for anything that anybody would give me to do. One fine summer morning at the beginning of the harvest, in 1771 I think it was, Mr Earnshaw, the old master, came downstairs dressed for a journey. First he told Joseph, the 10 servant, what was to be done during the day. Then he turned to Hindley and Catherine. Speaking to his son, he said, ‘Now, my young man, I’m going to Liverpool today. What shall I bring back for you? You may choose what you like, but it must be small, for I shall walk there and back. It’s sixty miles 15 each way, and that’s a long distance.’ Hindley chose a toy violin. Then the master asked Miss Catherine. She was not quite six years old, but she could ride any horse in the stable, and so she chose a whip. He did not forget me, for, although he was rather strict sometimes, he 20 had a kind heart. He promised to bring me some apples and pears. Then he said goodbye to his wife, kissed his children and set off. It seemed a long time to us all—the three days that he was away. Little Catherine often asked when her father would be 25 home. Mrs Earnshaw expected her husband by supper time on the third evening. Although we ate our meal late, there was no sign of him coming. The children asked if they could stay up and wait for him. Then, at last, at about eleven o’clock, 30 the door opened quietly and the master stepped in. He threw himself into a chair. He looked happy, and glad to be home,