Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Val Penny ♦ January 23, 2014 ♦ Leave a comment

Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë, written between October 1845 and June 1846, and published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. It was her first and only published novel: she died the following year, at age 30.  Still, if you are only going to publish one novel, what a novel!  There have been several film adaptations of the book.

Wuthering Heights is the name of the farmhouse on the Yorkshire moors where the story unfolds. The book’s core theme is the destructive effect that jealousy and vengefulness have, both on the jealous or vengeful individuals and on their communities. It has been.

I had read this book many years ago as a child and again as a teenager.  So when it was the recommendation for my book group’s reading I remembered it as a romantic novel.  I think I may have been remembering individual scenes from the book because Wuthering Heights remains one of literature’s most disturbing explorations into the dark side of romantic passion. I seemed to have forgotten all the difficult bits.

The story is set amid the wild and stormy Yorkshire moors.  Wuthering Heights is an unpolished and devastating epic of childhood playmates who grow into soul mates, is widely regarded as the most original tale of thwarted desire and heartbreak in the English language.  However, the main characters, Heathcliff and Cathy believe they are destined to love each other forever, but when cruelty and snobbery separate them, their untamed emotions consume them.

If you have not read this book since you were a child, or indeed, have not read it at all: I recommend it to you.  It is a book that will take you to a different time and place.  It will inspire your imagination.