Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
"My greatest thought in living is Heathcliff. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be... Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure... but as my own being." Wuthering Heights is the only novel of Emily Bronte, who died a year after its publication, at the age of thirty. A brooding Yorkshire tale of a love that is stronger than death, it is also a fierce vision of metaphysical passion, in which heaven and hell, nature and society, are powerfully juxtaposed. Unique, mystical, with a timeless appeal, it has become a classic of English literature.
Book Description
Cambridge Literature is a series of literary texts edited for study by students aged 14-18 in English-speaking classrooms. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is edited by Richard Hoyes, Head of English and Media Studies, Farnham College, Surrey.
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Customer Reviews: Read 494 more reviews...
 Love Among The Damned February 25, 2005
161 out of 170 found this review helpful
Published in 1847, WUTHERING HEIGHTS was not well received by the reading public, many of whom condemned it as sordid, vulgar, and unnatural--and author Emily Bronte went to her grave in 1848 believing that her only novel was a failure. It was not until 1850, when WUTHERING HEIGHTS received a second printing with an introduction by Emily's sister Charlotte, that it attracted a wide readership. And from that point the reputation of the book has never looked back. Today it is widely recognized as one of the great novels of English literature.
Even so, WUTHERING HEIGHTS continues to divide readers. It is not a pretty love story; rather, it is swirling tale of largely unlikeable people caught up in obsessive love that turns to dark madness. It is cruel, violent, dark and brooding, and many people find it extremely unpleasant. And yet--it possesses a grandeur of language and design, a sense of tremendous pity and great loss that sets it apart from virtually every other novel written.
The novel is told in the form of an extended flashback. After a visit to his strange landlord, a newcomer to the area desires to know the history of the family--which he receives from Nelly Deans, a servant who introduces us to the Earnshaw family who once resided in the house known as Wuthering Heights. It was once a cheerful place, but Old Earnshaw adopted a "Gipsy" child who he named Heathcliff. And Catherine, daughter of the house, found in him the perfect companion: wild, rude, and as proud and cruel as she. But although Catherine loves him, even recognizes him as her soulmate, she cannot lower herself to marry so far below her social station. She instead marries another, and in so doing sets in motion an obsession that will destroy them all.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS is a bit difficult to "get into;" the opening chapters are so dark in their portrait of the end result of this obsessive love that they are somewhat off-putting. But they feed into the flow of the work in a remarkable way, setting the stage for one of the most remarkable structures in all of literature, a story that circles upon itself in a series of repetitions as it plays out across two generations. Catherine and Heathcliff are equally remarkable, both vicious and cruel, and yet never able to shed their impossible love no matter how brutally one may wound the other.
As the novel coils further into alcoholism, seduction, and one of the most elaborately imagined plans of revenge it gathers into a ghostly tone: Heathcliff, driven to madness by a woman who is not there but who seems reflected in every part of his world--dragging her corpse from the grave, hearing her calling to him from the moors, escalating his brutality not for the sake of brutality but so that her memory will never fade, so that she may never leave his mind until death itself. Yes, this is madness, insanity, and there is no peace this side of the grave or even beyond.
It is a stunning novel, frightening, inexorable, unsettling, filled with unbridled passion that makes one cringe. Even if you do not like it, you should read it at least once--and those who do like it will return to it again and again.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
 Wuthering Indeed! January 13, 2000
39 out of 62 found this review helpful
Well as if the Nineteenth Century weren't bad enough we now have Penguin shoving it down our maws every other day with another re-issue of some tepid "classic." Miss Bronte has done it again and wielded her magic pen as a wand and cast her net of sleep on the unsuspecting reading public of America. The only consolation the non-preteen girl reader can get form this sack of slumber is the final realisation that "wuthering" is British slang for "your eyelids are getting heavy, why don't you just nod off?" I really have to say to Miss Bronte that I did not find Garfield's antics convincing in the least.
 It's got a certain.... something August 1, 2000
35 out of 45 found this review helpful
And it must be a fine something indeed, for it kept me, a fairly discerning reader, going all the way through despite the dated language, occasional impenetrable dialect, and characters who as grown adults behaved precisely the way I remember behaving when I was about 16.Part of the 'something', I think, is the surprisingly modern psychological insight underlying the book. Today we all know the people who cry 'I'm in love' while inflicting only pain on the loved one, or who destroy children and families because of some perceived wrong. But at the time this book was written, it was not common to focus a novel on a pair of lovers with the understanding that those lovers were, in fact, jerks. The way Bronte alternately panders to 'romance' conventions with craggy Heathcliff and wayward Catherine and then spits in the face of those conventions by showing the effeminate, willowy Edgar to be the closest thing to a decent adult character in the book is refreshing for those of us who are tired of the dominance of the alpha male. In passing, I must also mention that between the stormy moors, the borderline necrophilia, and the grandiose tooth-gnashing spurned-lover angst, this is a very goth book, which never hurts from my point of view. The other part of the equation is that (despite the protestations of certain reviewers) Bronte keeps the suspense high throughout the book. Between worrying about the fate of young Cathy, waiting for the ghost to make another appearance, and eagerly anticipating the moment when Heathcliff gets his, there's hardly a slack moment. I must say that the ending was not, in my opinion, as strong as it could have been, but I'll speak of it no more so as not to spoil it. Hence, only four stars.
Dysfunction without fun June 13, 2006
26 out of 44 found this review helpful
I'm not ashamed to admit that a good half of my personal library is comprised of classical novels and plays and that I read them because I genuinely LIKE them.
You heard me right. I LIKE them. I read them for ENTERTAINMENT, not because they were assigned reading in classes (although I've made "friends" with a great title or two via that route as well).
The Bronte sisters' novels enjoy love and hate from readers. I don't think there's a soul who just feels lukewarm about their works. I've read a couple and liked and kept most of them.
"Wuthering Heights" stands out to me as one of the WORST novels I've ever read in my ENTIRE LIFE. Given the number of novels I've read in my entire life that's saying a lot.
WH is very well-written. Emily Bronte CAN write. Style/technique isn't the issue. What is the issue is her abysmal failure to engage the reader because of her deplorable characters.
Heathcliff and Catherine are frequently cited as one of the "power couples" of literature along with Rhett & Scarlett, Romeo & Juliet, Antony & Cleopatra, etc. They may be kindred spirits but there is none of their behaviors ever signifies they know a thing about love.
Catherine Earnshaw isn't even an interesting character. She is a charming, selfish and silly young woman who fulfills the Victorian stereotype of choosing "a good match" over wild love on the moors with Heathcliff. This may have been the sanest thing she did. Maybe she recognized H's bizarre fixation on her as unwholesome and knew she'd never live up to it in reality.
A lot of women get swooney over Heathcliff as a sort of alpha-male anti-hero. I'm female and I CAN'T STAND this guy! He isn't alpha, he's WEAK as skimmed milk.
How psychologically disturbed is he, let me count the ways. Inferiority complex, obsessive attachment to uninterested female (Cathy turned him down whatever her "real feelings" might have been) that borders upon incest (they're not blood kin but they are raised together); inability to "forget the one that got away" and MOVE ON; child abuse/neglect with clearly murderous intentions; wife/spousal abuse; kidnapping and coerced marriage and even theft of personal assets...
Give me a break this is no alpha male, this is a psychopathic CRIMINAL!
If you sigh and say, "Oh but he did this all because he LOVED Catherine!" I will slap you. Truly I will.
A REAL alpha male would be broken-hearted by the rejection of his "true love"...then he would have moved forward and continued with his life and discovered "true love" (as in love that was returned to him without bizarre psychological games).
Heathcliff is a loser in every sense of the word. If Heathcliff were alive today he'd be in jail or hospitalized as "criminally insane".
Not for the "immature" reader... April 25, 2000
25 out of 31 found this review helpful
I read what the self-proclaimed "immature" reader wrote, and I beg to differ. I love this book not because I'm supposed to, but because I just do. The austerity of the language, which you term "dull", is what sets the whole tone for such a troubling work. I doubt that Bronte set out to write a classic romance; I believe she was denouncing the sins of her characters. This novel is multi-faceted with its never-ending parallels: two houses (Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange), two love stories, two heroes, two heroines, two narrators, etc. The inexplicable love that two heartless people like Heathcliff and Catherine share is fascinating to say the least. When Catherine cries out, "Nelly, I AM Heathcliff," I'm sure many a girl's heart has thudded in her chest. This book sweeps you away to a place and time far removed from us and gives us a view into a harsh and distant world. You don't have to like the book. But don't be so dumb or immature as to assume that no else does either. The longer you study literature, the more you'll see that some books have passed the test of time, because, well, they're just that damn good.
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