Wuthering Heights - by Emily Bronte - AudioBook CD
Unabridged, 10 CDs Read by Michael Kitchen
Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before: of the intense passion between the foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and her betrayal of him. As Heathcliff?s bitterness and vengeance is now visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past. .
About the Author Emily Bronte
Emily Brontë was born in Thornton, near Bradford in Yorkshire to Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell. She was the younger sister of Charlotte Brontë and the fifth of six children. In 1824, the family moved to Haworth, where Emily's father was perpetual curate, and it was in these surroundings that their literary oddities flourished. In childhood, after the death of their mother, the three sisters and their brother Patrick Branwell Brontë created imaginary lands, which were featured in stories they wrote. Little of Emily's work from this period survived, except for poems spoken by characters (The Brontës' Web of Childhood, Fannie Ratchford, 1941).
In 1842, Emily commenced work as a governess at Miss Patchett's Ladies Academy at Law Hill School, near Halifax, leaving after about six months due to homesickness. Later, with her sister Charlotte, she attended a private school in Brussels run by Constantin Heger and his wife, Claire Zoé Parent Heger. They later tried to open up a school at their home, but had no pupils.
It was the discovery of Emily's poetic talent by Charlotte that led her and her sisters to publish a joint collection of their poetry in 1846, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. To evade contemporary prejudice against female writers, the Brontë sisters adopted androgynous first names. All three retained the first letter of their first names: Charlotte became Currer Bell, Anne became Acton Bell, and Emily became Ellis Bell. In 1847, she published her only novel, Wuthering Heights, as two volumes of a three volume set (the last volume being Agnes Grey by her sister Anne). Its innovative structure somewhat puzzled critics. Although it received mixed reviews when it first came out, the book subsequently became an English literary classic. In 1850, Charlotte edited and published Wuthering Heights as a stand-alone novel and under Emily's real name. One of Emily's biographers Juliet Barker has claimed that Charlotte destroyed the manuscript of a second novel following her death.
Emily's health, like her sisters', had been weakened by the harsh local climate at home and at school. She caught a cold during the funeral of her brother in September which led to tuberculosis. Consequently, having refused all medical help, she died on 19 December 1848 at about two in the afternoon. She was interred in the Church of St. Michael and All Angels family capsule, Haworth, West Yorkshire, England.
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