Wuthering Heights (DK Classics)

by Emily Brontë

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

The one and only from Emily Brontë, and it is a gut punch. A tragic story of class divides and revenge, Wuthering Heights is a classic tale of the power of love, and the devastation of love lost.

A beautiful deluxe gift edition of Emily Brontë’s extraordinary masterpiece with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, and a silk ribbon bookmark.

“May you not rest, as long as I am living. You said I killed you - haunt me, then.”

Wuthering Heights is the tale of two families both joined and riven by love and hate. Cathy is a beautiful and wilful young woman torn between her soft-hearted husband and Heathcliff, the passionate and resentful man who has loved her since childhood. The power of their bond creates a maelstrom of cruelty and violence that will leave one of them dead and cast a shadow over the lives of their children.

Originally published in 1847, Emily Brontë's novel remains a stunningly original and shocking exploration of obsessive passion.

This hardback is part of DK CLASSICS, a luxurious series of classic titles, thoughtfully crafted for collectors and fans of beautiful special editions. Each complete, unabridged book features sumptuous design and the highest quality finishes. Discover timeless classics beautifully bound for every bookshelf.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798217136490
Publisher:	DK
Publication date:	09/02/2025
Series:	DK Classics
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.37(w) x 8.12(h) x 1.31(d)

About the Author

Emily Brontë was born on July 30, 1818. Her father was curate of Haworth, Yorkshire, and her mother died when she was five years old, leaving five daughters and one son. In 1824 Charlotte, Maria, Elizabeth, and Emily were sent to Cowan Bridge, a school for clergymen's daughters, where Maria and Elizabeth both caught tuberculosis and died. The children were taught at home from this point on and together they created vivid fantasy worlds which they explored by writing stories. Emily worked briefly as a teacher in 1938 but soon returned home. In 1846, Emily’s poems were published alongside those of her sisters, Charlotte, and Anne, in Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. The following year, Wuthering Heights was published. Emily Brontë died of consumption on December 19, 1848.

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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations     viii
About Longman Cultural Editions     ix
About This Edition     xi
Introduction     xv
Table of Dates: The Life of Emily Bronte     xxvi
The Chronology of Wuthering Heights     xxx
Wuthering Heights     1
Volume 1     3
Volume 2     141
Contexts     299
Biographical     303
Biographical Sketch     303
Emily Bronte in Elizabeth Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857)     308
Writings   Emily Bronte     313
from "Diary Papers" (1834-1845)     313
"The Cat" (translation) (1842)     319
Charlotte Bronte's Selection of Poems by Ellis Bell (1850)     320
Charlotte Bronte on Ellis Bell     329
from "Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell" (1850)     330
from "Editor's Preface" (1850)     335
Historical, Social, and Legal     339
Heathcliff and the Unsettled Classes     339
Nomads of City and Country     341
Henry Mayhew, from London Labour and the London Poor (1861)     341
Self-Made Men and Luddites     343
Samuel Smiles, from Self-Help (1859)     343
Women's Rights and Roles     348
Ellis Bell and Sarah Stickney Ellis     348
Sarah Stickney Ellis, from The Women of England, Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits (1839)     349
Harriet Martineau, from "On Female Education" (1823)     352
Wills, Women, and Property     355
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, from A Brief Summary, in Plain Language, of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women (1854)     355
A Tale of Two Houses: Interiors and Servants     357
Interiors     358
John Ruskin, from "The Nature of Gothic," The Stones of Venice (1851-1853)     359
Domestic Servants     361
Isabella Beeton, from The Book of Household Management (1861)     362
Regional and Popular     366
Where Are the Brontes From?     366
Ireland, Heathcliff, and the Brontes     367
William Wright, from The Brontes in Ireland (1893)     368
Yorkshire: Regionalism, Dialect, and Ballads     374
Regionalism     374
Elizabeth Gaskell, from The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857)     375
Dialect     377
Richard Blakeborough, from Wit, Character, Folklore and Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire (1898)     377
Ballads      380
Anonymous, "The Ghaist's Warning" (1812)     382
Pilgrims to Haworth     387
Matthew Arnold, from "Haworth Churchyard, April 1855" (1877)     387
Claude Meeker, from "Haworth; Home of the Brontes" (1895)     390
Virginia Woolf, from "Haworth, November 1904" (1904)     393
Shifting Literary Honors and the Beaten Track     395
Critical and Artful     398
Reviews of Wuthering Heights, 1848-1851     399
from Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper (January 1848)     399
from Atlas (January 1848)     400
G. W. P[eck], from "Wuthering Heights," The American Review (June 1848)     401
[E. P. Whipple], from "Novels of the Season," North American Review (October 1848)     403
[George Henry Lewes], from The Leader (December 1850)     404
[Sydney Dobell], from Eclectic Review (February 1851)     405
Early Criticism     406
Algernon Charles Swinburne, from "Emily Bronte" (1883)     406
Angus M. MacKay, from The Brontes: Fact and Fiction (1897)     407
Mary A. Ward [Mrs. Humphry Ward], from "Introduction," Wuthering Heights, Haworth Edition (1900)     409
May Sinclair, from The Three Brontes (1912)     410
Virginia Woolf, from "Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights" (1916)      412
Sites and Resources on the Brontes     413
Exhibits     413
Selected Web sites     415
Adaptations and Translations     415
Performances     415
Film/Television Adaptations     417
Some Translations     418
Some Sequels, Pendants, and Biographical Fiction     422
Further Reading     425
General Resources and Biographical Studies     425
Popular Reception and Travels to Bronte Country     430
Selected Criticism Since 1995     430

What People are Saying About This

Charlotte Bronte

Wuthering Heights was hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of homely materials... And there it stands colossal, dark, and frowning, half statue, half rock; in the former sense, terrible and goblin-like; in the latter, almost beautiful, for its colouring is of mellow grey, and moorland moss clothes it; and heath, with its blooming bells and balmy fragrance, grows faithfully close to the giant's foot.

Reading Group Guide

1. To what extent do you think the setting of the novel contributes to, or informs, what takes place? Do you think the moors are a character in their own right? How do you interpret Bronte's view of nature and the landscape?

2. Discuss Emily Bronte's careful attention to a rigid timeline and the role of the novel as a sober historical document. How is this significant, particularly in light of the turbulent action within? What other contrasts within the novel strike you, and why? How are these contrasts important, and how do they play out in the novel?

3. Do you think the novel is a tale of redemption, despair, or both? Discuss the novel's meaning to you. Do you think the novel's moral content dictates one choice over the other?

4. Do you think Bronte succeeds in creating three-dimensional figures in
Heathcliff and Cathy, particularly given their larger-than-life metaphysical passion? Why or why not?

5. Discuss Bronte's use of twos: Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange; two families, each with two children; two couples (Catherine and Edgar, and Heathcliff and Isabella); two narrators; the doubling-up of names. What is Bronte's intention here? Discuss.

6. How do Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Dean influence the story as narrators? Do you think they are completely reliable observers? What does Bronte want us to believe?

7. Discuss the role of women in Wuthering Heights. Is their depiction typical of Bronte's time, or not? Do you think Bronte's characterizations of women mark her as a pioneer ahead of her time or not?

8. Who or what does Heathcliff represent in the novel? Is he a force of evil or a victim of it?How important is the role of class in the novel, particularly as it relates to Heathcliff and his life?

Foreword

1. To what extent do you think the setting of the novel contributes to, or informs, what takes place? Do you think the moors are a character in their own right? How do you interpret Bronte's view of nature and the landscape?

2. Discuss Emily Bronte's careful attention to a rigid timeline and the role of the novel as a sober historical document. How is this significant, particularly in light of the turbulent action within? What other contrasts within the novel strike you, and why? How are these contrasts important, and how do they play out in the novel?

3. Do you think the novel is a tale of redemption, despair, or both? Discuss the novel's meaning to you. Do you think the novel's moral content dictates one choice over the other?

4. Do you think Bronte succeeds in creating three-dimensional figures in
Heathcliff and Cathy, particularly given their larger-than-life metaphysical passion? Why or why not?

5. Discuss Bronte's use of twos: Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange; two families, each with two children; two couples (Catherine and Edgar, and Heathcliff and Isabella); two narrators; the doubling-up of names. What is Bronte's intention here? Discuss.

6. How do Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Dean influence the story as narrators? Do you think they are completely reliable observers? What does Bronte want us to believe?

7. Discuss the role of women in Wuthering Heights. Is their depiction typical of Bronte's time, or not? Do you think Bronte's characterizations of women mark her as a pioneer ahead of her time or not?

8. Who or what does Heathcliff represent in the novel? Is he a force of evil or a victimof it? How important is the role of class in the novel, particularly as it relates to Heathcliff and his life?

Editorial Reviews

This abridged presentation of a classic brings to life Bronte's gothic romance and provides a powerful reading by Martin Shaw, whose voice perfectly captures this dark story of the moors. Those reluctant to read the full classic will find this audio version compelling and hard to quit listening to.
—Internet Book Watch

Internet Book Watch

“Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book—baffling all regular criticism; yet it is impossible to begin and not finish it; and quite as impossiple to lay it aside afterwards and say nothing about it...We strongly recommend all our readers who love novelty to get this story, for we can promise them that they never have read anything like it before.”

Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper (January 1848)

If the rank of a work of fiction is to depend solely on its naked imaginative power, then this is one of the greatest novels in the language.”

G. W. Peck

[A] classic tale of possessive and thwarted passion…There is something magnificent about the depth and intensity of their love…It is hard not to listen in awe when Catherine cries out, ‘I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind; not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”

500 Great Books by Women Erica Bauermeister

Search no further. A masterful vocal talent has found a masterpiece of world literature to perform…Kitchen’s intoxicatingly rich voice is the perfect medium for Brontë’s romantic lyricism…His interpretation is so precise and intelligent that it’s hard not to feel pity for the possessed Heathcliff. Michael Kitchen has given a long-awaited voice to a timeless classic.”

AudioFile

It is as if Emily Brontë could tear up all that we know human beings by, and fill these unrecognizable transparencies with such a gust of life that they transcend reality.”

Virginia Woolf

Retelling the gothic novel with intelligently charming humour and a live band, this is a bold and ingenious production.” —The Guardian

“Emotionally epic entertainment.” —The Times

“Unleashes the fire and fury of Brontë's genius. Wild and exhilarating - it all works beautifully.” —Daily Telegraph

“Theatrical magic.” —The Stage

From the Publisher