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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Wuthering Heights
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(1847)
The only novel by Emily *Brontë, a turbulent story set among the Yorkshire moors and one of the most powerful late works of the *Romantic movement. Dark deeds are discovered in flashbacks narrated by two characters more prosaic than the events they describe – Mr Lockwood, a visitor to the district, and the housekeeper Nelly Dean. The tragic story involves two generations of two families, the passionate Earnshaws in Wuthering Heights, a wind-buffeted house on the hill, and the gentler Lintons in Thrushcross Grange. The relationship which provoked the tragedy was between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling from Liverpool brought into their home by Catherine's father.
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The childhood friendship between these two develops into adult passion, of a wildness reflected in the rocky moorland setting. Catherine will not marry him, for reasons of class, and Heathcliff leaves. He returns, three years later, rich – only to find Catherine married to Edgar Linton. In his revenge Heathcliff dominates and largely destroys both families. His activities hasten the death of Catherine, with whom he is still obsessed; and soon he owns the two houses. He is the brooding, sullen inhabitant of Wuthering Heights from whom Mr Lockwood rents a cottage.
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The dark complexities of the book are impossible to attempt in the cinema, but a famous film version of the first half of the story was directed in 1939 by William Wyler, with Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as Catherine.
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