Perhaps the most enduring and affecting of the Bront sisters' work is Wuthering Heights. Emily Bront's tale of heartbreak and mystery still resonates on an emotional level with its theme of doomed romance. It was written between October 1845 and June 1846, appearing in print finally in December 1847. Emily's sister Charlotte spoke of the "horror of great darkness" surrounding the novel in her memoirs and it only received recognition after Emily's death from consumption in 1848. Much of the first half of the novel concerns the passionate and illicit relationship between Catherine Earnshaw and Mr Heathcliff as narrated by a number of individuals: primarily by Mr Lockwood and Nelly Dean, the housekeeper of Thrushcross Grange. There is intrigue concerning Heathcliff who has taken over the Grange and keeps a clumsy boy called Hareton Earnshaw. We learn of how his morose and stern attitude began and the cruel twists of fate which have torn two families apart. The death of Catherine and the true intentions of the novel's various mysterious characters have been the source of much speculation and even now Wuthering Heights remains genuinely harrowing and cathartic....
