Wuthering Heights

Published in 1847 under the pseudonym of Ellis Bell, Wuthering Heights was the only novel of Emily Bronte. It relates the complex history of the love between an adopted son, Heathcliff and his notional sister Catherine Earnshaw. The narrative is heavily influenced by the landscape around Haworth and transfers the harshness of the natural landscape into the relations of its characters. Heathcliffe, alongside Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre, is thought to be heavily influenced by Emily’s brother Branwell. It is a violent and in some ways a sadistic novel, but it also very modern novel that was ahead of its time and distinctly out of place within the other Bronte works. At the time it wasn’t that well received, the violence putting off many critics, but subsequent reviews have highlighted the precedents Emily Bronte set in writing the novel. In plotting, structure, characterisation and for the writing, Wuthering Heights is a highlight in the history of English literature.