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Wuthering Heights is a fictional location in
Many Gothic houses and manors have claimed or had claimed for them the title of Brontë's inspiration in creating the Heights. The best known of these is
How Wuthering Heights got its name
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Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë (, commonly ; 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet who is best known for her only novel, ''Wuthering Heights'', now considered a classic of English literature. She also published a book of poet ...
's 1847 novel of the same name. A dark and unsightly place, it is the focus of much of the hateful turmoil for which the novel is renowned. It is most commonly associated with Heathcliff, the novel's primary male protagonist, who, through his devious machinations, eventually comes into ownership both of it and of Thrushcross Grange. Although the latter is by most accounts a far happier place, Heathcliff chooses to remain in the gloom of the Heights, a home far more amenable to his character.
The first description of Wuthering Heights is provided by Mr Lockwood, a tenant at the Grange and one of the two primary narrators:
Possible inspiration
Many Gothic houses and manors have claimed or had claimed for them the title of Brontë's inspiration in creating the Heights. The best known of these is Top Withens
Top Withens () (also known as Top Withins) is a ruined farmhouse near Haworth, West Yorkshire, England, which is said to have been the inspiration for the location of the Earnshaw family house Wuthering Heights in the 1847 novel of the same nam ...
, a ruined farmhouse near Haworth
Haworth () is a village in the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, in the Pennines, south-west of Keighley, west of Bradford and east of Colne in Lancashire. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhope. Nearby villages inc ...
in West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...
which Brontë's biographer
Biographers are authors who write an account of another person's life, while autobiographers are authors who write their own biography.
Biographers
Countries of working life: Ab=Arabia, AG=Ancient Greece, Al=Australia, Am=Armenian, AR=Ancient Rome ...
Winifred Gérin
Winifred Eveleen Gérin , née Bourne, (7 October 1901 – 28 June 1981) was an English biographer born in Hamburg. She is best known as a biographer of the Brontë sisters and their brother Branwell, whose lives she researched extensively. ' ...
seems to favour primarily because of its name: the word "Top" suggests "Heights", while "Withens" sounds very much like "Wuthering". An informational sign at the ruines of the house (destroyed by lightning in 1899) acknowledges that the setting is similar, although the building itself bears no resemblance to the house as described in the book.Dexter 2008. The latter is actually synonymous with "willows": as Dexter notes, "it seems that Emily was inspired by nothing less than the wind in the willows".
See also
*Brontë Parsonage Museum
The Brontë Parsonage Museum is a writer's house museum maintained by the Brontë Society in honour of the Brontë sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne. The museum is in the former Brontë family home, the parsonage in Haworth, West Yorks ...
, home of the Brontë family
References
*Dexter, Gary:How Wuthering Heights got its name
(''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'', 12 September 2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
).
* Brontë, Emily: ''Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
'' (Oxford World's Classics
Oxford World's Classics is an imprint of Oxford University Press. First established in 1901 by Grant Richards and purchased by OUP in 1906, this imprint publishes primarily dramatic and classic literature for students and the general public. I ...
, 1998).
Notes
Fictional buildings and structures originating in literature Fictional elements introduced in 1847 Fictional houses Wuthering Heights {{fict-location-stub