Summary of Wuthering Heights
“Wuthering Heights” is a classic 19th-century Gothic novel, set around the year 1800, which tells the tragic story of two families: the Earnshaws, who live at Wuthering Heights, and the Lintons, who reside at Thrushcross Grange, in the moorlands of West Yorkshire. At the heart of the novel lies the doomed love between Catherine Earnshaw and her foster-brother Heathcliff, a foundling, taken in by the Earnshaw family. As a boy, Heathcliff was indulged by his adoptive father, but following the father’s death, he suffered cruel treatment by his foster-brother Hindley. Although Catherine loves Heathcliff deeply, she chooses to marry Edgar Linton. Wounded by her rejection, Heathcliff leaves, returning years later as a wealthy man determined to take revenge upon both the Earnshaws and the Lintons.
Reasons to read Wuthering Heights
Now regarded as one of the great classics of English literature, “Wuthering Heights” was first published in 1847 under Emily Brontë’s pseudonym ‘Ellis Bell’. At the time, its depictions of passion and violence were considered morally shocking. It is a darker and arguably more challenging book than “Jane Eyre” by the author’s sister Charlotte Brontë, for its frank portrayal of all-consuming emotions, themes of vengeance, supernatural elements (including ghosts of the dead haunting the living), and the constant struggle between the forces of nature and civilisation. “Wuthering Heights” was Emily Brontë’s only novel; she died at the age of 30, just a year after its publication. It has been adapted for film many times, notably the 1939 version starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier, and the 1992 film featuring Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes.
Setting: Yorkshire (England, UK)
The novel is set on the West Yorkshire moors in Northern England. The farmhouse of Wuthering Heights is thought to have been inspired by Top Withens, an isolated farm near the Brontë’s home village of Haworth, or by High Sunderland Hall near Halifax, where Emily Brontë briefly worked as a governess.
Original title: Wuthering Heights
Year of publication: 1847
Nr of pages: 416
