Wuthering Heights

Abrams, M.H., ed. “The Victorian Age (1830–1901).” In The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 2, 891–910. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.

This historical context essay provides a short overview of the major historical and cultural shifts that occurred during the Victorian era, when Emily Brontë was writing. It includes a discussion of industrialization, imperialism, shifting gender roles, and the impact of Queen Victoria’s reign. 

Armstrong, Nancy. “Emily Brontë: In and Out of Her Time.” In Brontë, Emily, Wuthering Heights, ed. William M. Sale, Jr., Norton Critical Edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), 365–377. First published in Genre XV (Fall 1982): 243–264.

This short critical essay discusses how Wuthering Heights falls outside of the typical literary genres (realism, romance, regional novels, etc.) and argues that understanding its status as a mixture of genres is crucial to understanding the novel.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2007.

This collection of critical essays includes works by Virginia Woolf and contemporary scholars. Topics cover many aspects of Brontë’s novel, including the use of poetic language, feminist interpretations, and literary allusions.

Eagleton, Terry. “Wuthering Heights.” In Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontës, 97–121. London: Palgrave Macmillan, revised edition 2005.

This chapter in a single-authored book of literary analysis provides an interpretation of Wuthering Heights through the lens of class and power dynamics.

Jones, Judy and William Wilson. “A Bedside Companion to the Nineteenth-Century English Novel.” In An Incomplete Education, 216–240. New York: Ballantine, 1987.

This chapter in a wide-ranging guide focuses on the major traits and characteristics of the Victorian novel, including the significance of marriage, inheritance, and representation of social class.

Kermode, Frank. “A Modern Way with the Classic.” New Literary History 5 (1974): 415–434.

In this essay, originally delivered as a lecture, Kermode uses Wuthering Heights as a case study to explore the idea of what it means for a work of literature to be considered a “classic.”

Kiely, Robert. “Wuthering Heights: Emily Brontë.” In The Romantic Novel in England, 233–251. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972. Miller, J. Hillis. “Emily Brontë.” In The Disappearance of God: Five Nineteenth-Century Writers, 157–211. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.

This chapter in a single-authored book analyzes Wuthering Heights by exploring the tension between an effort to depict reality and an effort to show the intensity of emotional and psychological experiences.

Miller, J. Hillis. “Emily Brontë.” In The Disappearance of God: Five Nineteenth-Century Writers, 157–211. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.

This chapter in a single-authored book provides an analysis of Brontë’s novel focused on understanding how the absence of God impacts the plot and characters. 

Pool, Daniel. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist—The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

This guidebook provides a helpful context for vocabulary, social customs, and historical details that can help readers understand literature written in the nineteenth century.