Publisher's Synopsis
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847 under her pseudonym "Ellis Bell". Brontë's only finished novel, it was written between October 1845 and June 1846. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited a posthumous second edition in 1850. Although Wuthering Heights is now a classic of English literature, contemporaneous reviews were deeply polarised; it was controversial because of its unusually stark depiction of mental and physical cruelty, and it challenged Victorian ideas about religion, morality, class and woman's place in society. Wuthering Heights was influenced by Romanticism including the novels of Walter Scott, gothic fiction, and Byron, and the moorland setting is significant. The novel has inspired many adaptations, including film, radio and television dramatisations; a musical; a ballet; operas; and a hit song.