Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights has been called the most beautiful, most profoundly violent love story of all time. At its center are Catherine and Heathcliff, and the self-contained world of Wuthering Heights, Thrushcross Grange, and the wild Yorkshire moors that the characters inhabit. "I am Heathcliff," Catherine declares. In her introduction Janet Gezari examines Catherine's assertion and in her notes maps it to questions that flicker like stars in the novel's dark dreamscape. How do we determine who and what we are? What do the people closest to us contribute to our sense of identity?
The Annotated Wuthering Heights provides those encountering the novel for the first time-as well as those returning to it-with a wide array of contexts in which to read Bronte's romantic masterpiece. Gezari explores the philosophical, historical, economic, political, and religious contexts of the novel and its connections with Bronte's other writing, particularly her poems. The annotations unpack Bronte's allusions to the Bible, Shakespeare, and her other reading; elucidate her references to topics including folklore, educational theory, and slavery; translate the thick Yorkshire dialect of Joseph, the surly, bigoted manservant at the Heights; and help with other difficult or unfamiliar words and phrases.
Handsomely illustrated with many color images that vividly recreate both Bronte's world and the earlier Yorkshire setting of her novel, this newly edited and annotated text will delight and instruct the scholar and general reader alike.
Industry Reviews
Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights makes a splendid addition to the [Harvard University Press annotated] collection. Like all the other volumes in the Harvard series, it excels in visual elements that are not only stunningly produced and presented but useful as well... The editor of this annotated volume, Janet Gezari, presents a model introduction to Emily Bronte's work. Gezari is wonderfully hospitable in finding ways to welcome readers, new and old, into what can be an extremely formidable text by providing clear mapping of both the novel and the scholarship that surrounds it... If there were no other reason to buy this edition, Gezari's textual work would still make this a necessary purchase... Janet Gezari's edition of Wuthering Heights finds myriad ways to help us see anew Emily Bronte's masterpiece; this is a Wuthering Heights the reader will want to return to for many trips. -- Jennifer L. Holberg * Books & Culture *
[A] beautiful volume... Devotees of the work will beam with happiness at all the care and excess Gezari and her collaborators have lavished on Emily Bronte's weird, howling book. There are beautiful color photos on almost every page, everything from the faithful Bronte dog to Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, and there are meaty discussions about every single aspect of the world of Wuthering Heights... Every fan of the book, new or old, will want to own it. -- Steve Donoghue * Open Letters Monthly *
The Annotated Wuthering Heights provides those encountering the novel for the first time-as well as those returning to it-with a wide array of contexts in which to read Bronte's romantic masterpiece. Gezari explores the philosophical, historical, economic, political, and religious contexts of the novel and its connections with Bronte's other writing, particularly her poems. The annotations unpack Bronte's allusions to the Bible, Shakespeare, and her other reading; elucidate her references to topics including folklore, educational theory, and slavery; translate the thick Yorkshire dialect of Joseph, the surly, bigoted manservant at the Heights; and help with other difficult or unfamiliar words and phrases. Handsomely illustrated with many color images that vividly recreate both Bronte's world and the earlier Yorkshire setting of her novel, this newly edited and annotated text will delight and instruct the scholar and general reader alike. * San Francisco Book Review *
This is a superb edition. The annotations bring the text to life in a new way, and, with its many illustrations, it is a pleasure to look at and to have in one's library. -- Beth Newman, Southern Methodist University
