Wuthering Heights
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First U.S. edition, 1848First publication
1847 in England
Literary form
Novel
Genres
Literary
Writing language
English
Author's country
England
Length
Approx. 116,000 words
Notable lines
1801.—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow!
— First lines
Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last.
From preface to second edition
Terror made me cruel; and finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes; still it wailed, "Let me in!" and maintaining its tenacious grip, almost maddening me with fear.
"For shame, Heathcliff!" said I. "It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive."
"No, God won't have the satisfaction that I shall," he returned.
"It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."
"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff—he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself—but as my own being...."
"I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself."
"He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
"The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him, they crush those beneath them."
"I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething; and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain."
I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
— Last lines
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