"Wuthering Heights" is the only novel of English author Emily Brontë (1818-1848). It was first published in 1847, though under the author´s pen name Ellis Bell. ------ Mr. Earnshaw finds a presumably orphaned boy on the streets of Liverpool and takes him to Wuthering Heights. There the boy, who is named Heathcliff then, grows close with Earnshaw´s daughter Catherine. When they have become young adults, there is a deep love between them. But one day Edgar Linton, a young man of higher social status, proposes marriage to Catherine. The young woman makes a fatal decision. ------ Although contemporary critics considered the novel controversial because of its mental and physical cruelty, nowadays "Wuthering Heights" is a classic of 19th century literature. Some argue that the novel is even superior to "Jane Eyre", which is also one of the most-loved novels ever. There are several dramatic adaptations of "Wuthering Heights", including film, radio, TV, opera and music. ------ “A fiend of a book — an incredible monster [...] The action is laid in hell, — only it seems places and people have English names there.” (Dante Gabriel Rossetti) ------ “A monument of the most striking genius that nineteenth-century womanhood has given us.” (Clement Shorter) ------ “The greatest work of fiction by any man or woman Europe has produced to date.” (Anthony Ludovici) ------ “Emily was inspired by some more general conception. […] She looked out upon a world cleft into gigantic disorder and felt within her the power to unite it in a book.” (Virginia Woolf)

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