Les Hauts de Hurlevent est un grand roman romantique anglais publié en 1847. L’histoire d’une famille déchirée par des jalousies, des incompréhensions et de violentes vengeances a choqué ses lecteurs à sa parution, d’autant plus que son auteur, Emily Brontë, est une jeune femme qui vit dans un petit village, loin des cercles littéraires de l’époque. Ce roman est aujourd’hui un incontournable du patrimoine britannique.

Classic novel of consuming passions, played out against the lonely moors of northern England, recounts the turbulent and tempestuous love story of Cathy and Heathcliff. A masterpiece of imaginative fiction, the story remains as poignant and compelling today as it was when first published in 1847.

The sole novel of Emily Brontë, who died a year after its publication at the age of thirty, Wuthering Heights is one of the most original classics in the canon of English literature. Set amid the wild and stormy Yorkshire moors, it is the tale of childhood playmates who grow into soul mates, and whose tempestuous natures and obsessive love eventually destroy them and those around them.

High on a windy hill, the old gothic manor of Wuthering Heights is the ancestral home of the lordly Earnshaw family. When kind Mr. Earnshaw adopts Heathcliff, a wild child from the slums, he unwittingly sets in motion a cycle of love and revenge that will possess his family for a generation. Heathcliff is despised and abused by Earnshaw’s son and heir, Hindley, who views him as a rival. But Heathcliff’s tempestuous nature finds its match in Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine, and the two become inseparable.

When Hindley becomes master of the estate, he forces Heathcliff to work as a degraded hired hand. Cathy, now divided from Heathcliff by social status, decides to marry the civilized Edgar Linton in hopes of gaining leverage to protect Heathcliff from her brother. To her despair, Heathcliff disappears; but he returns a few years later, now a wealthy gentleman, intent on using his new power to ruin Hindley, Edgar, and anyone who dared to drive a wedge between him and Cathy.

Fraught with psychological tension and supernatural atmosphere, Wuthering Heights is a haunting tale of the exalted heights and destructive depths of human passion.

“After a moment he smiled a teasing smile. ‘I still think it would be a better story if either of them had one redeeming quality.’
‘I think that may be the point,’ I disagreed. ‘Their love is their only redeeming quality.'”
—Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer
 
Perhaps the most haunting and tormented love story ever written, Wuthering Heights is the tale of the troubled orphan Heathcliff and his doomed love for Catherine Earnshaw.

Published in 1847, the year before Emily Bronte’s death at the age of thirty, Wuthering Heights has proved to be one of the nineteenth century’s most popular yet disturbing masterpieces. The windswept moors are the unforgettable setting of this tale of the love between the foundling Heathcliff and his wealthy benefactor’s daughter, Catherine. Through Catherine’s betrayal of Heathcliff and his bitter vengeance, their mythic passion haunts the next generation even after their deaths. Incorporating elements of many genres—from gothic novels and ghost stories to poetic allegory—and transcending them all, Wuthering Heights is a mystifying and powerful tour de force.

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.
The English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, although an admirer of the book, referred to it as “A fiend of a book – an incredible monster
The action is laid in hell, – only it seems places and people have English names there.”
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 and even a ballet

Perhaps the most haunting and tragic love story ever written, Wuthering Heights is the tale of Heathcliff, a brooding, troubled orphan, and his doomed love for Catherine Earnshaw. His desire for her leads him to madness when Catherine is made to marry a wealthy lord, sending Heathcliff on a lifelong quest to avenge himself upon those who stole his only love and his life.
In this gripping chronicle of the never-ending conflict between the heart and the mind-and the pain and passion of true romance-Emily Bronteuml; created an unforgettable classic saga of love, desperation, vengeance, and forgiveness. Published just one year before Bronteuml;’s death in 1848 at the age of thirty, Wuthering Heights endures as one of the world’s greatest love stories and a classic of English literature.

When it was first published in 1847, Wuthering Heights was considered highly controversial for its blunt portrayal of domestic abuse, alcoholism, and the dismissal of Christian values by some of its characters. Today, this gothic novel is considered one of the greatest in English literature.

Generational conflict persists between two families living on properties in a remote area of Yorkshire—the Earnshaws and the Lintons. When the sinister and powerful Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by the Earnshaws, develops a passionate attachment to his step-sister Catherine, she chooses instead (for practical reasons) to marry the mild-mannered Edgar Linton, despite her affections for Heathcliff. When Catherine dies after giving birth to a daughter, the naturally surly Heathcliff becomes deeply embittered. He plans his vengeance on members of both families who he believes have wronged him.

The action is narrated by Nelly Dean, who has spent a life in service to members of both families. A subsidiary narrator is Lockwood, a young man who becomes a tenant on Heathcliff’s property.

Emily Bronte’s world is one of dark romance and suspense, but it also has an underlying tone that can be found in her work about nature.

Wuthering Heights is the famous, all-encompassing, passionate, but ultimately doomed love story between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and the people around them.

Today, considered a classic of English literature, Wuthering Heights was met with mixed reviews when it first appeared, mainly because of the narrative’s stark depiction of mental and physical cruelty. This novel is set against Bronte‚Äôs classic backdrop of crime and punishment and will have you tantalized by nature’s beauty–until it becomes clear that love can never be trusted.

Explore a world in Wuthering Heights where the criminal justice system is its own worst enemy, bringing in new meaning to ‚Äúproof beyond reasonable doubt.”

Wuthering Heights is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with Earnshaw’s adopted son, Heathcliff. It was influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction.
Wuthering Heights is now considered a classic of English literature, but contemporaneous reviews were polarized. It was controversial for its depictions of mental and physical cruelty, and for its challenges to Victorian morality, and religious and societal values.
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney’ and ‘Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison’. Dasa can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken-word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. He is also a well-known movie actor.