Nelly Dean: A Return to Wuthering Heights

by Alison Case

Overview

A gripping and heartbreaking novel that re-imagines life at Wuthering Heights through the eyes of the Earnshaws’ loyal servant, Nelly Dean.

Young Nelly Dean has been Hindley’s closest companion for as long as she can remember, living freely at the great house, Wuthering Heights. But when the benevolence of the master brings a wild child into the house, Nelly must follow in her mother’s footsteps, be called "servant" and give herself to the family completely.

But Nelly is not the only one who must serve. When a new heir is born, a reign of violence begins that will test Nelly’s spirit as she finds out what it is to know true sacrifice.

Nelly Dean is a wonderment of storytelling, a heartbreaking accompaniment to Emily Bronte’s adored work. It is the story of a woman who is fated to bear the pain of a family she is unable to leave, and unable to save.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781605989617
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	02/08/2016
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Alison Case received her B.A. from Oberlin College and her Ph.D. in English Literature from Cornell University. Case is a professor at Williams College and is the author of two books and several articles on Nineteenth-century British fiction and poetry. She lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts. This is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

"Alison Case has cracked open Wuthering Heights and inserted into the gaps her own richly imagined story. In doing so she manages to pay homage to Emily Brönte without copying her. I never thought I needed more Wuthering Heights. Now I wonder how I could have been satisfied with only the original telling."

Tracy Chevalier

"[An] enthralling first novel. Reading Nelly Dean is like having a long, romantic, tempestuous and thrilling dream. I did not want this dream to end."

Shore News

"Case knows her Brontës. This audacious novel talks to all three sisters’ books. But there’s nothing mustily lit-critical about it. It’s a page-turner, about the things we do to people we love and the secrets and lies that corrode us, told in sinewy, visceral prose. It also has the makings of a feminist classic."

The Independent

"Case propels us headlong into the gripping tale of familial turmoil and thwarted passion and created a world so real, so grounded in visceral detail, that no prior knowledge of the Brontë classic is required. However I suspect Nelly Dean will entice many (including this reviewer) to reread the original, with fresh and knowing eyes."

The Irish Independent

"Whether you've read Wuthering Heights a hundred times or never picked it up, you are going to like this book. Nelly's story is heartbreaking and courageous and simply lovely."

Historical Novels Review

"Both an interesting critique of Wuthering Heights and an absorbing, convincing, and historically sensitive novel."

Kirkus Reviews

"The inhabitants of Wuthering Heights are reborn in this new view of the Brontë classic. Instead of the gothic drama and passion of Brontë, Case’s first novel provides an emotionally balanced account, filling in some gaps and featuring strong, smart Nelly, who is her own woman despite living by the mores of her time. A fast-moving pleasure, this novel is a likely draw for book clubs and a must for Brontë fans."

Booklist

2015-11-05
Housekeeper Nelly Dean tells a multigenerational saga of wild weather and impossible love at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Wait, didn't Emily Brontë already write that book? Most retellings of Great Novels at least change the narrator. Not this one: it's still the down-to-earth Nelly, still bending the ear of Mr. Lockwood, this time in a letter explaining that she left out a few things the first time around. Once you get past the artificiality and hubris of the setup and an awkward first chapter or two, though, you'll find both an interesting critique of Wuthering Heights and an absorbing, convincing, and historically sensitive novel. In this version, Case's debut, Nelly has relatively little time for Heathcliff and Cathy Earnshaw, the star-crossed lovers of the original. Instead, it's her own story that absorbs her: her childhood at the Heights, her position as something between a servant and a child of the house, her education, the tragic passion that grows between her and Cathy's drunken brother, Hareton, and the burden that falls on her—as the only sober, intelligent, and capable member of the household—to keep the Earnshaw family from falling into ruin. Case explores every permutation of pregnancy and motherhood, populating Nelly's story with illegitimate, abandoned, miscarried, adopted, and aborted babies and fetuses. Her central and final revelation—about the shared parentage of important characters—is an interesting gloss on the original story, but she hints about it so strongly at the start that by the end it's no surprise. Themes of violence, drunkenness, incest, and the supernatural evoke Emily Brontë—as you'd expect in a book that borrows its outline and setting from hers—but Nelly's combination of competence and passionate self-restraint can seem more like something out of a novel by her sister Charlotte. Although its obvious audience is Brontë lovers, this well-written historical novel brings enough depth and new material to stand on its own.

Kirkus Reviews

"This novel rips the original novel open to fill in all the gaps. Case burrows into the character’s psyches to reveal a further layer of family secrets."

The Times (London)

"The inhabitants of Wuthering Heights are reborn in this new view of the Brontë classic. Instead of the gothic drama and passion of Brontë, Case’s first novel provides an emotionally balanced account, filling in some gaps and featuring strong, smart Nelly, who is her own woman despite living by the mores of her time. A fast-moving pleasure, this novel is a likely draw for book clubs and a must for Brontë fans."

Booklist (starred review)

"As she recasts her story, Nelly fills gaps in the original and draws a portrait of her own life of caretaking and sacrifice."

The New York Times Book Review

"Leisurely paced. Highly ambitious. Passionate fans of Brontë’s masterpiece will find much to admire in Case’s richly textured novel."

Publishers Weekly

"A gripping piece of literature that tells the story of Wuthering Heights through the eyes of the Earnshaw family's youngest servant."

The Oregonian

"This engrossing story of loyalty, love and sacrifice is so good it deserves to be a classic in its own right."

Good Housekeeping (U.K.)

"Case’s talents and imagination are well on display in her homage to the gothic classic. Compelling, exciting, and satisfying."

Bust

"A masterly reimagining of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Brontë fans and readers who delight in literary fiction fashioned as 19th-century novels will eagerly snap up this book—and may be tempted to reread Wuthering Heights just for the pleasure of comparing the two novels."

starred review Library Journal