Emily Brontë’s timeless, classic gothic tale of obsession, betrayal, and a love that is stronger than death
“My greatest thought in living is Heathcliff. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be. . . . Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure . . . but as my own being.”
Rescued from the streets of Liverpool by a wealthy gentleman, young orphan Heathcliff quickly forms a deep bond with the man’s daughter, Cathy. Yet Cathy’s brother, resentful and jealous of Heathcliff, subjects him to violent bouts of abuse and humiliation. Despite the wild, passionate connection between Cathy and Heathcliff throughout the years, she decides that she must marry for social status and weds another man instead. What follows is a masterful, haunting narrative of unfulfilled desire and excruciating sorrow that echoes across generations, infused with the raw intensity and untamed spirit of the Yorkshire moors.
The only novel by Emily Brontë, who died a year after its publication at the age of thirty, Wuthering Heights is a fierce vision of metaphysical passion in which heaven and hell, nature and society, and dynamic and passive forces are powerfully juxtaposed. Unique, mystical, with a timeless appeal, it has become a classic of English literature.
Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
Author
Emily Bronte
Emily Jane Brontë was the most solitary member of a unique, tightly-knit, English provincial family. Born in 1818, she shared the parsonage of the town of Haworth, Yorkshire, with her older sister, Charlotte; her brother, Branwell; her younger sister, Anne; and her father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë. All five were poets and writers, and all but Branwell would publish at least one book. Fantasy was the Brontë children’s one relief from the rigors of religion and the bleakness of life in an impoverished region. In 1845, Charlotte Brontë came across a manuscript volume of her sister’s poems. At her sister’s urging, Emily’s poems, along with Anne’s and Charlotte’s, were published pseudonymously in 1846. An almost complete silence greeted this volume, but the three sisters, buoyed by the fact of publication, immediately began to write novels. Emily’s effort was Wuthering Heights; appearing in 1847, it was treated at first as a lesser work by Charlotte, whose Jane Eyre had already been published to great acclaim. Emily Brontë’s name did not emerge from behind her pseudonym of Ellis Bell until the second edition of her novel appeared in 1850.
Learn More about Emily Bronte