Wuthering Heights

Classic Fiction · No. 75 — The storm on the moors that outlives its lovers.

• Classic Fiction
• 32 min
• Ages 10–14
• 6 chapters

About this audiobook

A traveler named Lockwood hears the history of Wuthering Heights from housekeeper Nelly Dean. Mr. Earnshaw once brought home the orphan Heathcliff, whom daughter Catherine loved and son Hindley degraded. Catherine chose to marry the gentle, wealthy Edgar Linton while declaring that Heathcliff was part of her own being. Heathcliff disappeared, returned rich, and set out to possess both families: he married and mistreated Edgar's sister Isabella, took Wuthering Heights from Hindley, and after Catherine's death raised the next generation inside his revenge. He forced young Cathy Linton to marry his sickly son so he could seize Thrushcross Grange, while keeping Hindley's son Hareton uneducated and dependent. Yet Cathy and Hareton slowly choose patience, learning, and affection over the roles inherited for them. As they plan a life together, Heathcliff loses the will to continue his revenge and dies haunted by Catherine. The houses pass to the young people who break the pattern.

Why it's worth a listen

A foundling named Heathcliff and wild Catherine Earnshaw grow up as inseparable as the Yorkshire moors, but class, pride, and cruelty turn their bond into a wound that passes to their children. Often mistaken for a simple romance, Emily Brontë's fierce novel is really a weather system of abuse and revenge — and a second-generation story about the difficult work of ending it.

A question to keep

Can love remain love when possession, humiliation, and revenge take its place?

Based on the book by Retold from Emily Brontë, published by Emma's Library original retelling

Chapters

1. The Stranger at the Window
2. The Foundling of the Moors
3. Two Paths in the Heather
4. The Harvest of Spite
5. The Reading Lesson
6. A Question to Keep