A truly excellent edition of this strangest and strongest of English novels, hauntingly beautiful in its impassionate poetry,
a novel that reads us instead of the other way round, more about important questions than too trivial answers.

Don't miss the very first page (the one about Emily Brontë life),
then read Lucasta Miller's preface, skip both the excellent Pauline Nestor introduction and the controversial "Charlotte's materials" (the Biographical Notice and the Preface to the New), and -giving an attentive glance to the Genealogical Tree- go to the text (perusing the notes).

Afterwards you will do well to read the previously skipped material, and, perhaps some months later, to peruse the escellent Bibliography. Have a haunting, unforgettable read!

Wuthering Heights is truly the definitive "epic" novel. The animated, wild mental scenery, the perplex love/hate relationships, and the extended tale of two generations. Its story is so dramatic and wrenching it almost borders a soap opera, but luckily Emily Bronte's writing skills and character dynamics protect it from ever being comparable. I
The plot revolves around a possessive, yet unconsummated relationship between the two main characters, a gypsy boy named Heathcliff and the daughter of a respected family, Catherine Earnshaw, and branches off into the consequences of a love too wild and profound to be controlled. A love triangle ensues involving a wealthy neighbor who wishes for Catherine's love and her hand in marriage as opposed to Heathcliff's instability. Her choice influences all the events to come and lives are ruined in the midst of the storm created by a passion too deep to renounce. With its dark themes and violent characters it is considered by many to be the original Gothic Romance novel.
Upon its first publishing, the story was considered too harsh and the characters vile, and was rejected by many readers in the early 19th Century. Emily Bronte, having been born and raised amongst the moors and the people bred of it knew no other way of life at the age of seventeen when she wrote this novel.
Ultimately, it is the wild and uncontrollable nature that makes the novel so affecting and believable, capturing your heart and your emotions. It drives you into feeling what the characters experience with it's descriptive writing and you then know what is the essence of the story. The book is a work of art made from minimal environmental resources, with the mind and the soul sculpting it into a true representation of love's ability to conquer hate.

I read this book aloud to my wife 23 years ago. At the time, I was working as an apprentice at a winery on the Rhine River. There was an old medeival castle across the river from our room. It was the perfect setting, as we two were the only English speaking people in the town. I think now is the right time to review the book, because I can only recall the feelings left behind by this powerful work of literature. Most of the plot and many of the characters have been long forgotten, leaving only the residue of strong emotion. I have read many works of powerful fiction by the world's great authors since then. But not one of them affected me emotionally the way this extraordinary tale did. I remember one gray German morning finishing the chapter where Heathcliff digs up the body of his beloved Catherine because he has gone mad in his desire to hold her close once more. And then off to the Altenkirch Schwanenkellerei I went. I spent the rest of the day working quietly in the cellars of the winery, deep inside the mountain with mold hanging all about, and brooding over the maniacal behavior of these highly romantic, insane characters. I've never been able to shake the feeling entirely. There is something so entirely timeless about this work, as though it were a piece of ancient literature, old far beyond the 1840s setting, something so utterly classical and piercingly primordial, it's as though you already had the genesis of this material in your DNA and it only required this story to bring it back to life within you. You recognize the spell it weaves because it speaks to the humanity in you so clearly, it is as though you have been secretly drugged. The English language has rarely been utilized as well as it has here, and I dare say you would need to go back to Shakespeare to find its parallel. Romanticism reached its high water mark with this novel. Ms. Brontë has now become immortal because of her creation, and in the Pantheon of world literaure, she stands among the Titans. If you are a native speaker of the English language, you can hardly consider yourself educated if you have not read this astounding novel of romantic love and uncontrollable passion.

Rather than delve on the contents of this strangest and strongest of English novels, so intensely poetic in its haunting darkness and otherness, I'll comment briefly on the best editions available for a good first contact:
1. Oxford World's Classics: authoritative text, good annotation,
excellent introduction.
2. Penguin's Classics: same as above, everything looks a little shorter but is excellent nonetheless.
3. Norton's Fourth Edition: OK, the text is still a little idiosyncratic,but the notes are much improved, and so is everything else (with the anthology of poems, and the critical essays). A fine study edition but also suitable for a first contact.
4. Hoeveler(New Riverside) and Heywood (broadview) are worse choices: Riverside annotation (I suppose inherited from the former edition) isn't very good, and Heywood is too much idiosyncratic and controversial.

Sue Lonoff has done a tremendous job in collecting, transcribing and translating the Belgian Essays of Emily and Charlotte Bronte. The essays are represented first in their original/French version, including M.Hegers corrections, then in translation. The comments Lonoff made are very instructive, however, this book will mostly attract the scientific Bronte enthusiast. After all it has to be admitted that school essays, however elaborate they may be, cannot be regarded at as literature.

Patsy Stoneman has painstakingly investigated how the Brontes' works (specifically Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights) have been perceived and transformed over time. The research she's done is remarkable. She investigates the implications in each film, stage, or musical version. She also dips a bit into how the Brontes themselves have been perceived over time--this part of the book could be expanded. I also think a similiar work investigating the works of Branwell and Anne Bronte is needed.

I thought that Bloom's The Brontes was a great book to use when researching the Brontes, especially Charlotte. For my AP English class I had to find critisms on Jane Eyre and background information on Charlotte Bronte. This book provided me with the materials to produce three pages of research on Charlotte Bronte.

I wonder both how it is that I'm the first to review it and why it has gone out of print! Have we got our senses? This is, by far, the best SHORT "literary live" ever written. A classic in the sense that, being easy to read, every word is important and fits its unique place: you can only add or detract one word off this little marvel so much for the worse. It links beautifully what we KNOW about the life of Emily and Charlotte with their lasting work. Many Brontë students will find that this is enough for them. If not, there is always CHITHAM and GERIN full-scale biographies (and I'm thinking mostly about Emily).

If you don't have any collection of articles about Emily Brontë or her work (or have only the Bloom's little book, or the selection in Norton Edition or Linda Peterson's one) this is one of the best to own (the other alternative being the TWO Macmillan Casebooks on Wuthering Heights). But this book, like the old Anne Smith (ed.) one, has also important studies on the life and religion (so to speak) of Emily, and covers also an often neglected field: her poems! OK, it's hardcover and it's not cheap, but is something of a must.

This is a truly beautiful book of poetry. Towards the end there is a set of poems based on the life of Emily Bronte which is enchanting and heart-breaking at the same time. There is some very powerful music in this poetry, and it is infuriating to see that both of Newsom's books are no longer in print. If you are are a lover of gorgeous words I reccomend going to great lengths to find this book.

After many years of placing "Jane Eyre" at the top of my "favorite stories of all time" list, I was glad when my husband gave me this book so I could read some of Bronte's other novels.

What I found was that I liked "Villette" even more than "Jane Eyre" - and, although it was arduous at first, I found "Shirley" was better yet.

"Jane Eyre", for anyone who hasn't read it, is a wonderful gothic romance, moralistic and spiritual, a very good read and fascinating tale.

"Villette" is more mature. The author explores a deeper sort of love - not based on mere physical attraction or infatuation, but based on deep, abiding friendship and respect. This story, too, has its lessons.

The character development in "Villette" was more complete than in any other novel I've ever read. I became fascinated by the unattractive little professor, and by other characters as well.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of French in this story, and what appeared to be the most pivotal moments were written in French... dialogue that I really wanted to understand was just lost on me. That was truly unfortunate. I'll have to find someone to translate for me sometime.

"Shirley" is the best of all. The beginning is arduous. I had to use my dictionary throughout, but the beginning is particular difficult. Shall I say.. boring, even. I found that, once I forced myself through the beginning, I was very much rewarded.

This story is a gem. The female heroines - Shirley and Caroline - were wonderful to get to know. Shirley is not the sort of female I would have thought Bronte had had occasion to know, so this was enlightening for me.

Truly an eye-opening look at 19th century feminism! And incorporated into these wonderful romance stories.

"The Professor" was a bit more dry than the others, although it was fun to read a romance story strictly from the male viewpoint. For a first novel, this was really incredibly well written.

As for "Wuthering Heights", it's been a number of years since I've read the story, so I won't attempt a review here.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes "Wuthering Heights" or "Jane Eyre". All these stories are wonderfully written, with complex characters and interesting plots. The work of true genius.

This novel was written as a looking glass into the life of one Jane Eyre. Welcome to her thoughts, her advice, and descriptions of her beliefs. But before you venture off, keep on the look-out for the contrast that exist in her thoughts compared to your own. By finding contrast you will observe some of the similiarities in her thinking to your own. "listen, then, JaneEyre, to you sentence: to-morrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faith-fully, without softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity, write under it, "Portrait of a Governess, Disconnected, poor, and plain." In the novel you come to understand Jane as a strong person with even stronger beliefs that she lives by. You now get a feeling of the contrast of her life. By re-reading the line notice the way she judges and punishes herself for what she finds fualty in her life. An entire novel is created around these constraints and contradiction. You may come to understand a small portion of yourself through Jane's contrasting life.

I thought it was a good book