EXPERIENCE WUTHERING HEIGHTS
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontė published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontė's novel Jane Eyre. It was finally printed under the pseudonym Ellis Bell; a posthumous second edition was edited by Charlotte.
Many people, generally those who have never read the book, consider Wuthering Heights to be a straightforward, if intense, love story Romeo and Juliet on the Yorkshire Moors. But this is a mistake. Really the story is one of revenge. It follows the life of Heathcliff, a mysterious gypsy-like person, from childhood (about seven years old) to his death in his late thirties. Heathcliff rises in his adopted family and then is reduced to the status of a servant, running away when the young woman he loves decides to marry another. He returns later, rich and educated and sets about gaining his revenge on the two families that he believed ruined his life.
No building is more associated with Emily Brontė than the parsonage at Haworth where she lived most of her life. It is the site of the Brontė Parsonage Museum and has probably more reference material on Emily and her works than anywhere else. She moved to the parsonage when she was less than two years old and, apart from relatively short periods at school or teaching, rarely left it. She died (reputedly) on the sofa in the dining room and is interred in the church opposite the parsonage
Haworth would be pretty much unknown outside of the local area if it were not for the Brontė family and the higher area of the town is very much tailored to tourism. Brontė-related sites are all at the top of the town which sits at the end of a very steep, cobbled road (Main Street). If you have the time and energy, it is worth visiting Haworth by climbing this road which gives you some feeling of how the town must have seemed to the Brontės when they arrived in 1820.