From whence does passion most readily spring? From youth in an age devoted to youth, the times of Romanticism, when the world seeks to renew itself in the aftermath of some devastation, when genius seeks to challenge the old ways that had brought it all about. Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, written between 1845 and 1846 when the author was 29 (she was to die a year later) was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell following the success of her sister Charlotte’s Jane Eyre. Her first and only novel, it represents the effulgence of late-Romanticism, an expression of the dark side of the heart with its jealousies and vengefulness. It took a young soul equipped with genius to wrestle with those internal and transcendent powers that drive the individual and spurn the committee. Emily Brontë was equal to the task and placed her efforts on a moor of the collective consciousness where one doesn’t just love another person; but one is that person. Now a classic, Wuthering Heights received mixed reviews at first, due to its unusually frank and stark depiction of physical and mental cruelty, religious hypocrisy, and class and gender inequality that challenged the strict Victorian mores of the day. (Summary by Michael Hogan)

Play sample: 

Download a PDF datasheet