Wuthering Heights is back in the news and racing up the bestseller lists, thanks to a new film version by the provocative director Emerald Fennell, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. The film is marketing Wuthering Heights as “the world’s greatest love story”.
However, if this encourages you to read the novel for the first time and you’re expecting a boy-meets-girl romance, you might be in for a shock. Wuthering Heights is less happy ever after and more girl is already dead at the start of the novel, boy is haunted by girl, and then another boy is told the whole story by the girl’s old housekeeper.
But as an expert in Romantic period literature, I would argue Wuthering Heights is actually a perfect read on Valentine’s Day because it celebrates the head-spinning, hair-raising, all-consuming experience of falling in love.
