Wuthering Heights (1847), Emily Brontë's only novel, tells of the passionate and destructive bond between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling brought to a farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors, and of the revenge that he takes on two families over two generations. Shocking to its first readers, it is now regarded as one of the most original novels in English.
The story
In 1801 Mr Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, visits his landlord Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights and spends a disturbing night there. The housekeeper, Nelly Dean, then tells him the story of the house: how old Mr Earnshaw brought home a dark-skinned orphan from Liverpool, who grew up with his daughter Catherine.
Catherine marries the refined Edgar Linton instead of Heathcliff, who disappears and returns rich, to take revenge on the Earnshaws and the Lintons. After Catherine's death he gains control of both houses and of the next generation, until the love of the young Cathy and Hareton Earnshaw breaks the cycle.
A novel of the moors
Emily Brontë drew on the landscape around Haworth, where she spent almost all her life. The word wuthering, as the novel explains, is a Yorkshire term describing the tumult of the wind on high, exposed ground.
The story is told by two narrators, Lockwood and Nelly Dean, who report the words of others, so that the reader sees the passions of the characters through witnesses who do not fully understand them.
Publication and reputation
The novel was published in December 1847 by Thomas Cautley Newby, in a three-volume set whose last volume contained Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey. It was signed Ellis Bell, and the edition was full of printing errors.
Many critics found it savage and disturbing. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited a new edition in 1850, with a biographical notice revealing the identity of the Bell brothers. Its reputation grew steadily, and it has been filmed many times, most famously in 1939 with Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff.
Anecdotes
Top Withens
A ruined farmhouse on the moors above Haworth, Top Withens, is often said to have inspired the setting of Wuthering Heights, and walkers still make the pilgrimage to it. A plaque placed there in 1964 notes that the buildings bear no resemblance to the house described in the novel.
A song at number one
In 1978 the English singer Kate Bush, then nineteen, reached number one in Britain with her first single, Wuthering Heights, sung in the voice of Catherine's ghost. She had written it after seeing a television adaptation, and she shares her birthday, 30 July, with Emily Brontë.
Frequently asked questions
When was Wuthering Heights published?
In December 1847, by Thomas Cautley Newby in London, under the pen name Ellis Bell.
Who narrates Wuthering Heights?
Mr Lockwood, a tenant of Heathcliff, and Nelly Dean, the housekeeper who tells him most of the story.
What does wuthering mean?
It is a Yorkshire word for the roaring of the wind in stormy weather, as the novel itself explains.