Dec 19, 2009

Wuthering Heights | Literary Precedents

Although Wuthering Heights is Bronte's one published novel, it is entirely possible that it is not her only novel. Evidence shows that she and her sister Anne spent years writing a Gondal epic/novel. Unfortunately none of this work survives or has as yet been found. Only the poetry survives.

Wuthering Heights may be read as part of a whole body of Gothic novels. It has the supernatural elements, the dark setting, the star-crossed lovers that one can find in Hugh Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1765) and later in The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Anne...