Welcome, Readers! Much in the same vein as my Spotlight on Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and Greg Bear’s Eon we are delving into the literary archives to pull up a classic! In fact, this is easily the oldest book we’ve taken the time to examine here at Nerd News Social. The new movie based on this book is receiving some pretty good reviews and so I figured, before watching it myself, I could do a little extra homework and revisit a work I remember enjoying when I first read it in high school.
So, does Bronte’s gothic novel about love, revenge and social awkwardness hold up in this, the year 2026? Let’s find out together!
Book Stats
- Author: Emily Bronte (Or Ellis Bell, though I suspect if you own a version with this name as the authorial credit, it’s worth a lot of money).
Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle and Audible.
Price: This is an older book so there are many, many different editions and versions available all with their own unique prices, but the Kindle version is $1.70 and Audible is $14.95 and has multiple versions available for about the same price.
Length: They vary somewhat but about 313 pages or 12 hours and 32 minutes in audio format.
Number of books in the series: It’s a standalone work.
Basic Premise
Mr. Lockwood is a strange and kind of tragic fellow. He’s looking to spend time somewhere remote and as far from society as possible while maintaining at least some semblance of civilized life. As it’s 1801 he doesn’t go camping or backpacking or anything barbaric like that – he rents a giant manor in the English countryside! Complete with a maid and a neighbor, who also happens to be his landlord. The home he’s renting, Thrushcross Grange, is a short ride from his landlord’s home; the titular Wuthering Heights. As a show of respect, he rides over to introduce himself.
Lockwood fled the city after a failed attempt at love. He fell for a pretty young lady and she seemed to like him as well but the unfortunate thing about Mr. Lockwood is that he’s painfully socially inept. He truly loves this woman but he’s apparently sending signals so completely mixed that this girl decides to convince her mother to take he family and leave town entirely, leaving Lockwood loveless and with a reputation for being hard-hearted in the extreme. It’s not true, but it does cause him to want some solitude for at least a brief time.
It’s not such a surprise then that upon meeting the painfully reserved Heathcliff, he finds some joy in the idea that maybe he’s found a kindred spirit. Someone who, like himself, wants little to do with people in general. Heathcliff doesn’t offer to shake hands, instead shoving his balled up fists deeper into his pockets. He doesn’t offer a grandiose welcome; he simply says “Walk in.” and once Lockwood is inside, he finds a cast of characters that’s just as inhospitable! Everyone here, from the servants to the lord of the home seems to dislike Lockwood’s very presence. Even the many and varied dogs don’t rush up to greet him!
Perfect.
Not so perfect, though, is the weather. A snow storm whips up making it quite impossible for him to leave and so he’s given a guest room for the night. At a loss for something to do to while away the hours, he finds a journal written by someone named Catherine. After falling asleep he’s given terrible nightmares of this same lass trying to enter in through the window. He’s so upset that he wakes up screaming. This rouses Heathcliff who, rather than being upset by Lockwood’s outburst, is instead made distraught by the mention of Catherine. There’s apparently a history, there.
Lockwood heads back to Thrushcross and gets somewhat under the weather. His housekeeper, Nelly, is actually a transplant from Wuthering Heights and as they get to talking, he finds out that the history between Heathcliff and the area is a long and detailed one. Nelly grew up with Heathcliff, and she has all the information anyone could possibly want to know about the family.
It was thirty years ago when the prior lord of the manor, Mr. Earnshaw, returned from town with a dark haired, dark skinned orphan who he’d decided to keep and raise as his own. This was upsetting for his biological children, Catherine and Hindley. They did not take kindly to their adoptive brother, especially not because he seemed to get preferential treatment from their Father. (Nelly was there too and also a child at the time, hence her particular level of insight.) Hindley, Earnshaw’s first-born son feels particularly slighted and is especially cruel to Heathcliff. Catherine, though, comes around and develops a soft spot for her adoptive sibling, and he for her. A very soft spot. Let’s not dwell too much on the fact that they’re technically brother and sister even if not by blood… it’s a different time.
But nothing lasts forever – how will Heathcliff’s situation change when Earnshaw dies and Hindley becomes lord of the manor? Where is Hindley thirty years in the future, when Mr. Lockwood comes a’calling? How does Catherine pass away and do she and Heathcliff ever get a chance to be happy?
Spoilers for a novel that’s one hundred and seventy seven years old… but no. Exactly how that shakes out, though, you’ll have to read to find out! (Or watch the movie.)
My Take
Like I said in my preamble, I very much enjoyed Wuthering Heights when I read it for the first time at about age fifteen. It was actually a suggestion from my Mom who I can only assume was kind of sick of seeing me only ever read science fiction and fantasy stuff. Not to say that many of those books aren’t classics, but I think she felt as though my head was in the clouds too often and something a little more… I hesitate to use the word ‘mundane’ but herte we are, would do me some good. (And I only mean mundane in the sense that Wuthering Heights contains no dinosaurs, aliens, elves, talking dogs, demons, sunken continents, talking rabbits or werewolves. There’s a little supernatural element throughout, but it’s not really overt.) Anyway. Good ol’ Mum wanted me to broaden my horizons a little bit. I mean, she wasn’t wrong. It was probably the most grounded book I’d ever really sunk my teeth into at the time and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it and how much love it would spark within me for Gothic novels as a whole. The sense of scale and history was what I remember appreciating the most; Wuthering Heights, as in the house, was constructed in the 1500s and I’m assuming the various other manors were built around the same time. I had never seen anything built in the 1500s at that time in my life so the idea of something from almost three centuries ago (The book was set in 1801, remember.) still being in use and functional kind of blew my mind a little bit. The descriptions of isolation and harsh weather were like stepping into another world of endless cold and pretty lonliness.
I also immediately enjoyed the character of Mr. Lockwood as I, too, was incredibly socially awkward. Like him meeting Heathcliff, I kind of felt like I was coming across a kindred spirit of sorts!
The book was published in 1847 and Emily Bronte initially put it out under the nom-de-plume of Ellis Bell. She did this to protect her privacy as she was actually quite shy herself. The true authorial credit was only revealed after her death a mere few years later. She passed in 1849 and her sister, Charlotte (The author of Jane Eyrie! Quite the literary family!) let slip that her sister was the author in 1850 when a newer edit was published. Many folks at the time were kind of surprised that something so violent and filled with sexual imagery could have been written by -GASP- a woman! (Oh, how far we’ve come! We still have a ways to go. But still.) Despite being considered a classic now, the book was actually perceived as a little low-brow back in the midst of the up-tight Victorian Era.
All in all, if you’re looking for a companion piece to the newer movie, or you just want something classic and interesting to get into, Wuthering Heights is a fantastic book to check out!
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