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Emily Brontë · 1847
Wuthering Heights
The story of Emily Brontë’s novel in a few minutes: what happens, who is who, what it means, and its most famous lines.
- Author
- Emily Brontë
- Published
- 1847
- Setting
- The Yorkshire moors
- Genre
- Gothic novel, tragedy
Summary
Mr Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights brings home a dark, ragged orphan boy, Heathcliff. Heathcliff and Earnshaw’s daughter Catherine grow inseparable, but her brother Hindley hates him and, after their father dies, treats him as a servant. Catherine, though she loves Heathcliff, marries the gentle, wealthy Edgar Linton of Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff overhears part of her reasons and leaves.
He returns years later, rich and set on revenge. He gains Wuthering Heights from the drunken Hindley, marries Edgar’s sister Isabella to hurt the Lintons, and Catherine dies after giving birth to a daughter, Cathy. Heathcliff’s revenge reaches into the next generation, until, haunted by Catherine, he loses his will for it and dies. The young Cathy and Hindley’s son Hareton, at last, find love. The story is told to a tenant, Mr Lockwood, by the housekeeper Nelly Dean.
Main characters
| Heathcliff | the orphan whose love turns to revenge |
| Catherine Earnshaw | wild and proud, torn between Heathcliff and Edgar |
| Edgar Linton | Catherine’s gentle husband |
| Nelly Dean | the housekeeper who tells most of the story |
| Cathy Linton and Hareton Earnshaw | the next generation |
Themes
- Love that goes beyond death
- Revenge and its cost
- Nature and the wild moors
- Class and social ambition
Read it free
Wuthering Heights is out of copyright. The whole novel can be read or downloaded free from Project Gutenberg.
Quotes
Famous quotes from Wuthering Heights
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
Nelly, I am Heathcliff!
Questions
About the novel
What is Wuthering Heights about?
The fierce love of Heathcliff and Catherine, and the revenge Heathcliff takes on two families after she marries another man.
Who narrates Wuthering Heights?
Mainly Nelly Dean, telling the story to Mr Lockwood.
Did Emily Brontë write other novels?
No. Wuthering Heights is her only novel; she died in 1848.