Context
Wuthering Heights was published in 1847 by the 29-year-old Emily Bronte. It was her only published novel, and appeared under the pseudonym Ellis Bell in the same year that her sister Charlotte published her own masterpiece, Jane Eyre, under the name of Currer Bell. The book received very mixed reviews, with many readers and critics appalled by the apparent lack of morality in the novel, where violence and cruelty are depicted without authorial comment or castigation. A second edition of the novel was edited and published by Charlotte after Emily’s death in 1848.
Plot
The novel begins in 1801, with the arrival of Lockwood, one of the book’s two main narrators, at Thrushcross Grange. He spends the night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord Heathcliff, and has a dream in which he is apparently visited by the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw, asking to be let in the window. He is curious about the residents of the house, and asks the housekeeper Nelly Dean to tell their story.
Nelly begins her story thirty years earlier, when the child Heathcliff is rescued from the streets of Liverpool and brought to Wuthering Heights by the then-owner, Mr. Earnshaw. Heathcliff becomes close to Earnshaw’s daughter Catherine, but receives only cruelty from her jealous brother Hindley.. Mr. Earnshaw dies three years later, and Hindley takes over the estate and persists in ostracising Heathcliff. Catherine becomes friends with the Linton family of Thrushcross Grange, particularly the son Edgar.
Heathcliff’s Revenge
A year later, Hindley's wife Frances dies after giving birth to a son, Hareton, and after a further two years Catherine marries Edgar. However, Heathcliff has overheard her tell Nelly that she could never degrade herself by marrying Heathcliff, and disappears for three years. When he returns, he is intent on getting revenge on all those who have hurt him, beginning with Hindley, from whom he tricks ownership of Wuthering Heights by taking advantage of his increasing drunkenness. He also marries Edgar’s sister Isabella so that he may inherit Thrushcross Grange upon Edgar's death.
Catherine dies after giving birth to a daughter also named Catherine, or Cathy. Isabella runs away from her abusive husband a month later, and gives birth to a son, Linton. Heathcliff, now owner of Wuthering Heights, continues to exact vengeance by bringing up Hindley’s son Hareton in a rough, degrading manner.
Twelve years later, the dying Isabella asks Edgar to raise her and Heathcliff's son, Linton, but Heathcliff finds out about this and takes the child so that he may use him as part of his revenge, attempting to persuade Cathy to marry Linton. When she refuses, Heathcliff kidnaps her and forces the marriage, but soon after both Edgar and Linton die. This is the point at which the story began: Cathy now lives unhappily at Wuthering Heights with Hareton and Heathcliff, whom she treats with contempt. She eventually comes to care for him, and the love between them breaks Heathcliff’s spirit: he dies with his plans for revenge abandoned and is buried alongside Catherine and Edgar, with Cathy and Hareton eventually married.
