Wuthering Heights

In the late winter months of 1801, a man named Lockwood rents a manor house called
Thrushcross Grange in the isolated moor country of England. Here, he meets his dour landlord,
Heathcliff, a wealthy man who lives in the ancient manor of Wuthering Heights, four miles away
from the Grange. In this wild, stormy countryside, Lockwood asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean,
to tell him the story of Heathcliff and the strange denizens of Wuthering Heights. Nelly consents,
and Lockwood writes down his recollections of her tale in his diary; these written recollections
form the main part of Wuthering Heights.
Nelly remembers her childhood. As a young girl, she works as a servant at Wuthering Heights for
the owner of the manor, Mr. Earnshaw, and his family. One day, Mr. Earnshaw goes to Liverpool
and returns home with an orphan boy whom he will raise with his own children. At first, the
Earnshaw children—a boy named Hindley and his younger sister Catherine—detest the dark-
skinned Heathcliff. But Catherine quickly comes to love him, and the two soon grow inseparable,
spending their days playing on the moors. After his wife’s death, Mr. Earnshaw grows to prefer
Heathcliff to his own son, and when Hindley continues his cruelty to Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw
sends Hindley away to college, keeping Heathcliff nearby.
Three years later, Mr. Earnshaw dies, and Hindley inherits Wuthering Heights. He returns with a
wife, Frances, and immediately seeks revenge on Heathcliff. Once an orphan, later a pampered
and favored son, Heathcliff now finds himself treated as a common laborer, forced to work in the
fields. Heathcliff continues his close relationship with Catherine, however. One night they
wander to Thrushcross Grange, hoping to tease Edgar and Isabella Linton, the cowardly,
snobbish children who live there. Catherine is bitten by a dog and is forced to stay at the Grange
to recuperate for five weeks, during which time Mrs. Linton works to make her a proper young
lady. By the time Catherine returns, she has become infatuated with Edgar, and her relationship
with Heathcliff grows more complicated.
When Frances dies after giving birth to a baby boy named Hareton, Hindley descends into the
depths of alcoholism, and behaves even more cruelly and abusively toward Heathcliff.
Eventually, Catherine’s desire for social advancement prompts her to become engaged to Edgar
Linton, despite her overpowering love for Heathcliff. Heathcliff runs away from Wuthering
Heights, staying away for three years, and returning shortly after Catherine and Edgar’s
marriage.
When Heathcliff returns, he immediately sets about seeking revenge on all who have wronged
him. Having come into a vast and mysterious wealth, he deviously lends money to the drunken
Hindley, knowing that Hindley will increase his debts and fall into deeper despondency. When
Hindley dies, Heathcliff inherits the manor. He also places himself in line to inherit Thrushcross
Grange by marrying Isabella Linton, whom he treats very cruelly. Catherine becomes ill, gives
birth to a daughter, and dies. Heathcliff begs her spirit to remain on Earth—she may take
whatever form she will, she may haunt him, drive him mad—just as long as she does not leave
him alone. Shortly thereafter, Isabella flees to London and gives birth to Heathcliff’s son, named
Linton after her family. She keeps the boy with her there.
Thirteen years pass, during which Nelly Dean serves as Catherine’s daughter’s nursemaid at
Thrushcross Grange. Young Catherine is beautiful and headstrong like her mother, but her
temperament is modified by her father’s gentler influence. Young Catherine grows up at the
Grange with no knowledge of Wuthering Heights; one day, however, wandering through the
moors, she discovers the manor, meets Hareton, and plays together with him. Soon afterwards,
Isabella dies, and Linton comes to live with Heathcliff. Heathcliff treats his sickly, whining son
even more cruelly than he treated the boy’s mother.
Three years later, Catherine meets Heathcliff on the moors, and makes a visit to Wuthering
Heights to meet Linton. She and Linton begin a secret romance conducted entirely through
letters. When Nelly destroys Catherine’s collection of letters, the girl begins sneaking out at night
to spend time with her frail young lover, who asks her to come back and nurse him back to
health. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Linton is pursuing Catherine only because
Heathcliff is forcing him to; Heathcliff hopes that if Catherine marries Linton, his legal claim
upon Thrushcross Grange—and his revenge upon Edgar Linton—will be complete. One day, as
Edgar Linton grows ill and nears death, Heathcliff lures Nelly and Catherine back to Wuthering
Heights, and holds them prisoner until Catherine marries Linton. Soon after the marriage, Edgar
dies, and his death is quickly followed by the death of the sickly Linton. Heathcliff now controls
both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. He forces Catherine to live at Wuthering
Heights and act as a common servant, while he rents Thrushcross Grange to Lockwood.
Nelly’s story ends as she reaches the present. Lockwood, appalled, ends his tenancy at
Thrushcross Grange and returns to London. However, six months later, he pays a visit to Nelly,
and learns of further developments in the story. Although Catherine originally mocked Hareton’s
ignorance and illiteracy (in an act of retribution, Heathcliff ended Hareton’s education after
Hindley died), Catherine grows to love Hareton as they live together at Wuthering Heights.
Heathcliff becomes more and more obsessed with the memory of the elder Catherine, to the
extent that he begins speaking to her ghost. Everything he sees reminds him of her. Shortly after
a night spent walking on the moors, Heathcliff dies. Hareton and young Catherine inherit
Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, and they plan to be married on the next New Year’s
Day. After hearing the end of the story, Lockwood goes to visit the graves of Catherine and
Heathcliff.
Chronology
The story of Wuthering Heights is told through flashbacks recorded in diary entries, and events
are often presented out of chronological order—Lockwood’s narrative takes place after Nelly’s
narrative, for instance, but is interspersed with Nelly’s story in his journal. Nevertheless, the
novel contains enough clues to enable an approximate reconstruction of its chronology, which
was elaborately designed by Emily Brontë. For instance, Lockwood’s diary entries are recorded
in the late months of 1801 and in September 1802; in 1801, Nelly tells Lockwood that she has
lived at Thrushcross Grange for eighteen years, since Catherine’s marriage to Edgar, which must
then have occurred in 1783. We know that Catherine was engaged to Edgar for three years, and
that Nelly was twenty-two when they were engaged, so the engagement must have taken place in
1780, and Nelly must have been born in 1758. Since Nelly is a few years older than Catherine,
and since Lockwood comments that Heathcliff is about forty years old in 1801, it stands to
reason that Heathcliff and Catherine were born around 1761, three years after Nelly. There are
several other clues like this in the novel (such as Hareton’s birth, which occurs in June, 1778).
The following chronology is based on those clues, and should closely approximate the timing of
the novel’s important events. A “~” before a date indicates that it cannot be precisely determined
from the evidence in the novel, but only closely estimated.
TESS
The poor peddler John Durbeyfield is stunned to learn that he is the descendent of an ancient
noble family, the d’Urbervilles. Meanwhile, Tess, his eldest daughter, joins the other village girls
in the May Day dance, where Tess briefly exchanges glances with a young man. Mr. Durbeyfield
and his wife decide to send Tess to the d’Urberville mansion, where they hope Mrs. d’Urberville
will make Tess’s fortune. In reality, Mrs. d’Urberville is no relation to Tess at all: her husband,
the merchant Simon Stokes, simply changed his name to d’Urberville after he retired. But Tess
does not know this fact, and when the lascivious Alec d’Urberville, Mrs. d’Urberville’s son,
procures Tess a job tending fowls on the d’Urberville estate, Tess has no choice but to accept,
since she blames herself for an accident involving the family’s horse, its only means of income.
Tess spends several months at this job, resisting Alec’s attempts to seduce her. Finally, Alec takes
advantage of her in the woods one night after a fair. Tess knows she does not love Alec. She
returns home to her family to give birth to Alec’s child, whom she christens Sorrow. Sorrow dies
soon after he is born, and Tess spends a miserable year at home before deciding to seek work
elsewhere. She finally accepts a job as a milkmaid at the Talbothays Dairy.
At Talbothays, Tess enjoys a period of contentment and happiness. She befriends three of her
fellow milkmaids—Izz, Retty, and Marian—and meets a man named Angel Clare, who turns out
to be the man from the May Day dance at the beginning of the novel. Tess and Angel slowly fall
in love. They grow closer throughout Tess’s time at Talbothays, and she eventually accepts his
proposal of marriage. Still, she is troubled by pangs of conscience and feels she should tell Angel
about her past. She writes him a confessional note and slips it under his door, but it slides under
the carpet and Angel never sees it.
After their wedding, Angel and Tess both confess indiscretions: Angel tells Tess about an affair
he had with an older woman in London, and Tess tells Angel about her history with Alec. Tess
forgives Angel, but Angel cannot forgive Tess. He gives her some money and boards a ship
bound for Brazil, where he thinks he might establish a farm. He tells Tess he will try to accept
her past but warns her not to try to join him until he comes for her.
Tess struggles. She has a difficult time finding work and is forced to take a job at an unpleasant
and unprosperous farm. She tries to visit Angel’s family but overhears his brothers discussing
Angel’s poor marriage, so she leaves. She hears a wandering preacher speak and is stunned to
discover that he is Alec d’Urberville, who has been converted to Christianity by Angel’s father,
the Reverend Clare. Alec and Tess are each shaken by their encounter, and Alec appallingly begs
Tess never to tempt him again. Soon after, however, he again begs Tess to marry him, having
turned his back on his -religious ways.
Tess learns from her sister Liza-Lu that her mother is near death, and Tess is forced to return
home to take care of her. Her mother recovers, but her father unexpectedly dies soon after. When
the family is evicted from their home, Alec offers help. But Tess refuses to accept, knowing he
only wants to obligate her to him again.
At last, Angel decides to forgive his wife. He leaves Brazil, desperate to find her. Instead, he
finds her mother, who tells him Tess has gone to a village called Sandbourne. There, he finds
Tess in an expensive boardinghouse called The Herons, where he tells her he has forgiven her
and begs her to take him back. Tess tells him he has come too late. She was unable to resist and
went back to Alec d’Urberville. Angel leaves in a daze, and, heartbroken to the point of madness,
Tess goes upstairs and stabs her lover to death. When the landlady finds Alec’s body, she raises
an alarm, but Tess has already fled to find Angel.
Angel agrees to help Tess, though he cannot quite believe that she has actually murdered Alec.
They hide out in an empty mansion for a few days, then travel farther. When they come to
Stonehenge, Tess goes to sleep, but when morning breaks shortly thereafter, a search party
discovers them. Tess is arrested and sent to jail. Angel and Liza-Lu watch as a black flag is raised
over the prison, signaling Tess’s execution.
THE TURN
An anonymous narrator recalls a Christmas Eve gathering at an old house, where guests listen to
one another’s ghost stories. A guest named Douglas introduces a story that involves two children
—Flora and Miles—and his sister’s governess, with whom he was in love. After procuring the
governess’s written record of events from his home, he provides a few introductory details. A
handsome bachelor persuaded the governess to take a position as governess for his niece and
nephew in an isolated country home after the previous governess died. Douglas begins to read
from the written record, and the story shifts to the governess’s point of view as she narrates her
strange experience.
The governess begins her story with her first day at Bly, the country home, where she meets
Flora and a maid named Mrs. Grose. The governess is nervous but feels relieved by Flora’s
beauty and charm. The next day she receives a letter from her employer, which contains a letter
from Miles’s headmaster saying that Miles cannot return to school. The letter does not specify
what Miles has done to deserve expulsion, and, alarmed, the governess questions Mrs. Grose
about it. Mrs. Grose admits that Miles has on occasion been bad, but only in the ways boys ought
to be. The governess is reassured as she drives to meet Miles.
One evening, as the governess strolls around the grounds, she sees a strange man in a tower of
the house and exchanges an intense stare with him. She says nothing to Mrs. Grose. Later, she
catches the same man glaring into the dining-room window, and she rushes outside to
investigate. The man is gone, and the governess looks into the window from outside. Her image
in the window frightens Mrs. Grose, who has just walked into the room. The governess discusses
her two experiences with Mrs. Grose, who identifies the strange man as Peter Quint, a former
valet who is now dead.
Convinced that the ghost seeks Miles, the governess becomes rigid in her supervision of the
children. One day, when the governess is at the lake with Flora, she sees a woman dressed in
black and senses that the woman is Miss Jessel, her dead predecessor. The governess is certain
Flora was aware of the ghost’s presence but intentionally kept quiet. The governess again
questions Mrs. Grose about Miles’s misbehavior. Mrs. Grose reveals that Quint had been “too
free” with Miles, and Miss Jessel with Flora. The governess is on her guard, but the days pass
without incident, and Miles and Flora express increased affection for the governess.
The lull is broken one evening when something startles the governess from her reading. She rises
to investigate, moving to the landing above the staircase. There, a gust of wind extinguishes her
candle, and she sees Quint halfway up the stairs. She refuses to back down, exchanging another
intense stare with Quint until he vanishes. Back in her room, the governess finds Flora’s bed
curtains pulled forward, but Flora herself is missing. Noticing movement under the window
blind, the governess watches as Flora emerges from behind it. The governess questions Flora
about what she’s been doing, but Flora’s explanation is unrevealing.
The governess does not sleep well during the next few nights. One night, she sees the ghost of
Miss Jessel sitting on the bottom stair, her head in her hands. Later, when the governess finally
allows herself to go to sleep at her regular hour, she is awoken after midnight to find her candle
extinguished and Flora by the window. Careful not to disturb Flora, the governess leaves the
room to find a window downstairs that overlooks the same view. Looking out, she sees the
faraway figure of Miles on the lawn.
Later, the governess discusses with Mrs. Grose her conversation with Miles, who claimed that he
wanted to show the governess that he could be “bad.” The governess concludes that Flora and
Miles frequently meet with Miss Jessel and Quint. At this, Mrs. Grose urges the governess to
appeal to her employer, but the governess refuses, reminding her colleague that the children’s
uncle does not want to be bothered. She threatens to leave if Mrs. Grose writes to him. On the
walk to church one Sunday, Miles broaches the topic of school to the governess. He says he
wants to go back and declares he will make his uncle come to Bly. The governess, shaken, does
not go into church. Instead, she returns to the house and plots her departure. She sits on the
bottom stair but springs up when she remembers seeing Miss Jessel there. She enters the
schoolroom and finds Miss Jessel sitting at the table. She screams at the ghost, and the ghost
vanishes. The governess decides she will stay at Bly. Mrs. Grose and the children return, saying
nothing about the governess’s absence at church. The governess agrees to write to her employer.
That evening, the governess listens outside Miles’s door. He invites her in, and she questions
him. She embraces him impulsively. The candle goes out, and Miles shrieks. The next day Miles
plays the piano for the governess. She suddenly realizes she doesn’t know where Flora is. She
and Mrs. Grose find Flora by the lake. There, the governess sees an apparition of Miss Jessel.
She points it out to Flora and Mrs. Grose, but both claim not to see it. Flora says that the
governess is cruel and that she wants to get away from her, and the governess collapses on the
ground in hysterics. The next day, Mrs. Grose informs the governess that Flora is sick. They
decide Mrs. Grose will take Flora to the children’s uncle while the governess stays at Bly with
Miles. Mrs. Grose informs the governess that Luke didn’t send the letter she wrote to her
employer, because he couldn’t find it.
With Flora and Mrs. Grose gone, Miles and the governess talk after dinner. The governess asks if
he took her letter. He confesses, and the governess sees Quint outside. She watches Quint in
horror, then points him out to Miles, who asks if it is Peter Quint and looks out the window in
vain. He cries out, then falls into the governess’s arms, dead.
DAISY

At a hotel in the resort town of Vevey, Switzerland, a young American named Winterbourne
meets a rich, pretty American girl named Daisy Miller, who is traveling around Europe with her
mother and her younger brother, Randolph. Winterbourne, who has lived in Geneva most of his
life, is both charmed and mystified by Daisy, who is less proper than the European girls he has
encountered. She seems wonderfully spontaneous, if a little crass and “uncultivated.” Despite the
fact that Mrs. Costello, his aunt, strongly disapproves of the Millers and flatly refuses to be
introduced to Daisy, Winterbourne spends time with Daisy at Vevey and even accompanies her,
unchaperoned, to Chillon Castle, a famous local tourist attraction.
The following winter, Winterbourne goes to Rome, knowing Daisy will be there, and is
distressed to learn from his aunt that she has taken up with a number of well-known fortune
hunters and become the talk of the town. She has one suitor in particular, a handsome Italian
named Mr. Giovanelli, of uncertain background, whose conduct with Daisy mystifies
Winterbourne and scandalizes the American community in Rome. Among those scandalized is
Mrs. Walker, who is at the center of Rome’s fashionable society.
Both Mrs. Walker and Winterbourne attempt to warn Daisy about the effect her behavior is
having on her reputation, but she refuses to listen. As Daisy spends increasingly more time with
Mr. Giovanelli, Winterbourne begins to have doubts about her character and how to interpret her
behavior. He also becomes uncertain about the nature of Daisy’s relationship with Mr.
Giovanelli. Sometimes Daisy tells him they are engaged, and other times she tells him they are
not.
One night, on his way home from a dinner party, Winterbourne passes the Coliseum and decides
to look at it by moonlight, braving the bad night air that is known to cause “Roman fever,” which
is malaria. He finds Daisy and Mr. Giovanelli there and immediately comes to the conclusion
that she is too lacking in self-respect to bother about. Winterbourne is still concerned for Daisy’s
health, however, and he reproaches Giovanelli and urges him to get her safely home.
A few days later, Daisy becomes gravely ill, and she dies soon after. Before dying, she gives her
mother a message to pass on to Winterbourne that indicates that she cared what he thought about
her after all. At the time, he does not understand it, but a year later, still thinking about Daisy, he
tells his aunt that he made a great mistake and has lived in Europe too long. Nevertheless, he
returns to Geneva and his former life.