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Close Readings: ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Brontë

David Trotter, Patricia Lockwood and Thomas Jones

When Wuthering Heights was published in December 1847, many readers didn’t know what to make of it: one reviewer called it ‘a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors’. In this extended extract from episode three of ‘Novel Approaches’, Patricia Lockwood and David Trotter join Thomas Jones to explore Emily Brontë’s ‘completely amoral’ novel. As well as questions of Heathcliff’s mysterious origins and ‘obscene’ wealth, of Cathy’s ghost, bad weather, gnarled trees, even gnarlier characters and savage dogs, they discuss the book’s intricate structure, Brontë’s inventive use of language and the extraordinary hold that her story continues to exert over the imaginations of readers and non-readers alike.

To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:

Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrna
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna

Read more in the LRB:

David Trotter: Heathcliff Redounding
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n09/david-trotter/heathcliff-redounding

John Bayley: Kitchen Devil
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n24/john-bayley/kitchen-devil

Alice Spawls: If It Weren’t for Charlotte
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n22/alice-spawls/if-it-weren-t-for-charlotte

Patricia Lockwood: What a Bear Wants
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n16/patricia-lockwood/pull-off-my-head

Get the books: https://lrb.me/crbooklist

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