Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights was published 150 years ago this month

First posted 6/16/2020; updated 7/5/2020.

Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë

First Publication: December 1847 Category: gothic novel/tragedy Sales: 1 million

Accolades:

About the Book: Emily Brontë’s only novel is “a masterpiece of imaginative fiction” AZ which is “one of literature’s most disturbing explorations into the dark side of romantic passion.” BN “Considered lurid and shocking by mid-19th-century standards,…[it] was initially thought to be such a publishing risk that…Brontë…was asked to pay some of the publication costs.” AZ “The book proved to be one of the most enduring classics of English literature.” AZ It “remains as poignant and compelling today as it was when first published” AZ and “is widely regarded as the most original tale of thwarted desire and heartbreak in the English language.” BN It is “an unpolished and devastating epic of childhood playmates who grow into soul mates,” BN “set amid the wild and stormy Yorkshire moors.” BN “The turbulent and tempestuous love story of Cathy and Heathcliff.” AZ They “believe they’re destined to love each other forever, but when cruelty and snobbery separate them, their untamed emotions…consume them.” BN The story “spans two generations – from the time Heathcliff, a strange, coarse young boy, is brought to live on the Earnshaws’ windswept estate, through Cathy’s marriage to Edgar Linton and Heathcliff’s plans for revenge, to Cathy's death years later and the eventual union of the surviving Earnshaw and Linton heirs.” AZ Resources and Related Links: AZ Amazon BN Barnes & Noble