Full Description
Over a hundred and fifty years after its initial publication, Emily Brontë's turbulent portrayal of the Earnshaws and the Lintons, two northern English households nearly destroyed by violent passions in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, continues to provoke and fascinate readers. Heathcliff remains one of the best-known characters in the English novel, and Catherine Earnshaw's impossible choice between two rivals retains its appeal for contemporary readers. At the same time, the novel's highly ambivalent representations of domesticity, its famous reticence about its characters and their actions, its formal features as a story within a story, and the mystery of Heathcliff's origins and identity provide material for classroom discussion at every level of study.
The introduction and appendices to this Broadview edition, which place Brontë's life and novel in the context of the developing "Brontë myth," explore the impact of industrialization on the people of Yorkshire, consider the novel's representation of gender, and survey the ways contemporary scholarship has sought to account for Heathcliff, open up multiple contexts within which Wuthering Heights can be read, understood, and enjoyed.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Emily Brontë: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Wuthering Heights
Appendix A: A Selection of Emily Brontë's Essays and Poems
["The Cat"]
["Portrait: King Harold before the Battle of Hastings"]
["The Butterfly"]
Poems
"Faith and Despondency"
"Stars"
"The Philosopher"
"Remembrance"
"Song"
"Anticipation"
"To A.G.A."
["No Coward Soul"]
Appendix B: Some Literary Influences
From George Gordon, Lord Byron, Manfred (1817)
From Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
Appendix C: Currer Bell's [Charlotte Brontë's] Prefatory Essays for the 1850 Edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey
Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell
Editor's Preface to the New Edition of Wuthering Heights
Appendix D: Contemporary Responses to the Novel
The Spectator (December 1847)
The Athenaeum (25 December 1847)
Tait's Edinburgh Magazine (1848)
Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper (15 January 1848)
The Examiner (8 January 1848)
The Britannia (15 January 1848)
The Atlas (22 January 1848)
Peterson's Magazine (June 1848)
The American Review (June 1848)
The Palladium (September 1850)
The Examiner (21 December 1850)
The Leader (28 December 1850)
Appendix E: On Geographical Remoteness and Cultural Difference
From William Howitt, The Rural Life of England (1838)
From Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857)
William Wordsworth, "Gipsies" (1807)
Appendix F: On "Brain Fever"
Appendix G:Women in Marriage
Appendix H: Maps
Appendix I: Genealogical Table of the Earnshaw and Linton Families
Works Cited and Select Bibliography
