2022/11/01

Wuthering Heights - Wikipedia 1847 novel by Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights - Wikipedia

Wuthering Heights

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Wuthering Heights
Houghton Lowell 1238.5 (A) - Wuthering Heights, 1847.jpg
Title page of the first edition
AuthorEmily Brontë
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
GenreTragedy, gothic
PublishedDecember 1847
PublisherThomas Cautley Newby
ISBN0-486-29256-8
OCLC71126926
823.8
LC ClassPR4172 .W7 2007
TextWuthering Heights online

Wuthering Heights is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with Earnshaw's foster son, Heathcliff. The novel was influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction.

Wuthering Heights is now widely considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written in English, but contemporaneous reviews were polarised. It was controversial for its depictions of mental and physical cruelty, including domestic abuse, and for its challenges to Victorian morality and religious and societal values.[1][2]

Wuthering Heights was accepted by publisher Thomas Newby along with Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey before the success of their sister Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre, but they were published later. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited a second edition of Wuthering Heights, which was published in 1850.[3] It has inspired an array of adaptations across several media, including English singer-songwriter Kate Bush's song of the same name.

Plot[edit]

Opening[edit]

In 1801, Mr Lockwood, the new tenant at Thrushcross Grange in Yorkshire, pays a visit to his landlord, Heathcliff, at his remote moorland farmhouse, Wuthering Heights. There he meets a reserved young woman (later identified as Cathy Linton), Joseph, a cantankerous servant, and Hareton- an uneducated fellow, who presents himself as such. Everyone is sullen and inhospitable. Snowed in for the night, Lockwood reads the diary of the former inhabitant of his room, Catherine Earnshaw, and has a nightmare in which a ghostly Catherine begs to enter through the window. Woken by Lockwood's fearful yells, Heathcliff is troubled.

Lockwood later returns to Thrushcross Grange in heavy snow, falls ill from the cold and becomes bedridden. While he recovers, Lockwood's housekeeper Ellen "Nelly" Dean tells him the story of the strange family.

Nelly's tale[edit]

Thirty years earlier, the Earnshaws live at Wuthering Heights with their children, Hindley and Catherine, and a servant—Nelly herself. Returning from a trip to Liverpool, Earnshaw brings home a young orphan whom he names Heathcliff; Earnshaw treats the boy as his favourite. His own children he neglects, especially after his wife dies. Hindley beats Heathcliff, who gradually becomes close friends with Catherine.

Hindley departs for university, returning as the new master of Wuthering Heights on the death of his father three years later. He and his new wife Frances allow Heathcliff to stay, but only as a servant.

The climb to ruined farmhouse Top Withens, thought to have inspired the Earnshaws' home in Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff and Catherine spy on Edgar Linton and his sister Isabella, children who live nearby at Thrushcross Grange. Catherine is attacked by their dog, and the Lintons take her in, sending Heathcliff home. When the Lintons visit, Hindley and Edgar make fun of Heathcliff; a fight ensues. Heathcliff is locked in the attic and vows revenge.

Frances dies after giving birth to a son, Hareton. Two years later, Catherine becomes engaged to Edgar. She confesses to Nelly that she loves Heathcliff, and will try to help but cannot marry him because of his low social status. Nelly warns her against the plan. Heathcliff overhears part of the conversation and, misunderstanding Catherine's heart, flees the household. Catherine falls ill, distraught.

Three years after his departure, with Edgar and Catherine having married in the meantime, Heathcliff unexpectedly returns, now a wealthy gentleman. He encourages Isabella's infatuation with him as a means of revenge on Catherine. Enraged by Heathcliff's constant presence at Thrushcross Grange, Edgar cuts off contact. Catherine responds by locking herself in her room and refusing food; pregnant with Edgar's child, she never fully recovers. At Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff gambles with Hindley, who mortgages the property to him to pay his debts. Heathcliff elopes with Isabella, but the relationship fails and they soon return.

When Heathcliff discovers that Catherine is dying, he visits her in secret. She dies shortly after giving birth to a daughter, Cathy, and Heathcliff rages, calling on her ghost to haunt him for as long as he lives. Isabella flees south where she gives birth to Heathcliff's son, Linton. Hindley dies six months later, leaving Heathcliff as master of Wuthering Heights.

Twelve years later, after Isabella's death, the still-sickly Linton is brought back to live with his uncle Edgar at the Grange, but Heathcliff insists that his son must instead live with him. Cathy and Linton (respectively at the Grange and Wuthering Heights) gradually develop a relationship. Heathcliff schemes to ensure that they marry, and on Edgar's death demands that the couple move in with him. He becomes increasingly wild and reveals that on the night Catherine died he dug up her grave, and ever since has been plagued by her ghost. When Linton dies, Cathy has no option but to remain at Wuthering Heights.

Having reached the present day, Nelly's tale concludes.

Ending[edit]

Lockwood grows tired of the moors and moves away. Eight months later he arrives at Wuthering Heights while travelling through the area. He sees Nelly again, who is now the housekeeper at Wuthering Heights. She reports that Cathy has been teaching the still-uneducated Hareton to read. Heathcliff was seeing visions of the dead Catherine; he avoided the young people, saying that he could not bear to see Catherine's eyes, which they both shared, looking at him. He had stopped eating, and some days later was found dead in Catherine's old room.

In the present, Lockwood learns that Cathy and Hareton plan to marry and move to the Grange. Joseph is left to take care of the declining Wuthering Heights. Nelly says that the locals have seen the ghosts of Catherine and Heathcliff wandering abroad together. Lockwood passes by the graves of Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff, and is convinced they are finally at peace.

Family tree[edit]

Names in square brackets are implied rather than explicitly used by the author.

[Mrs Earnshaw]Mr Earnshaw[Mrs Linton]Mr Linton
Frances [Earnshaw]Hindley EarnshawCatherine EarnshawEdgar LintonIsabella LintonHeathcliff
Hareton Earnshaw
m. 1803		Cathy LintonLinton Heathcliff
m. 1801

Characters[edit]

  • Heathcliff is a foundling from Liverpool, who is taken by Mr Earnshaw to Wuthering Heights, where he is reluctantly cared for by the family and spoiled by his adopted father. He and Mr. Earnshaw's daughter, Catherine, grow close, and their love is the central theme of the first volume. His revenge against the man she chooses to marry and its consequences are the central theme of the second volume. Heathcliff has been considered a Byronic hero, but critics have pointed out that he reinvents himself at various points, making his character hard to fit into any single type. He has an ambiguous position in society, and his lack of status is underlined by the fact that "Heathcliff" is both his given name and his surname. The character of Heathcliff may have been inspired by Branwell Brontë. An alcoholic and an opium addict, he would have indeed terrorised Emily and her sister Charlotte during frequent crises of delirium tremens that affected him a few years before his death. Even though Heathcliff has no alcohol or drug problems, the influence of Branwell's character is likely; although the same could be said, perhaps more appropriately, of Hindley Earnshaw and Linton Heathcliff.[4]
  • Catherine Earnshaw: First introduced to the reader after her death, through Lockwood's discovery of her diary and carvings. The description of her life is confined almost entirely to the first volume. She seems unsure whether she is, or wants to become, more like Heathcliff, or aspires to be more like Edgar. Some critics have argued that her decision to marry Edgar Linton is allegorically a rejection of nature and a surrender to culture, a choice with unfortunate, fateful consequences for all the other characters.[5] She dies hours after giving birth to her daughter.
  • Edgar Linton: Introduced as a child in the Linton family, he resides at Thrushcross Grange. Edgar's style and manners are in sharp contrast to those of Heathcliff, who instantly dislikes him, and of Catherine, who is drawn to him. Catherine marries him instead of Heathcliff because of his higher social status, with disastrous results to all characters in the story. He dotes on his wife and later his daughter.
  • Ellen (Nelly) Dean: The main narrator of the novel, Nelly is a servant to three generations of the Earnshaws and two of the Linton family. Humbly born, she regards herself nevertheless as Hindley's foster-sister (they are the same age and her mother is his nurse). She lives and works among the rough inhabitants of Wuthering Heights but is well-read, and she also experiences the more genteel manners of Thrushcross Grange. She is referred to as Ellen, her given name, to show respect, and as Nelly among those close to her. Critics have discussed how far her actions as an apparent bystander affect the other characters and how much her narrative can be relied on.[6]
  • Isabella Linton: Edgar's sister. She views Heathcliff romantically, despite Catherine's warnings, and becomes an unwitting participant in his plot for revenge against Edgar. Heathcliff marries her but treats her abusively. While pregnant, she escapes to London and gives birth to a son, Linton. She entrusts her son to her brother Edgar when she dies.
  • Hindley Earnshaw: Catherine's elder brother, Hindley, despises Heathcliff immediately and bullies him throughout their childhood before his father sends him away to college. Hindley returns with his wife, Frances, after Mr Earnshaw dies. He is more mature, but his hatred of Heathcliff remains the same. After Frances's death, Hindley reverts to destructive behaviour, neglects his son, and ruins the Earnshaw family by drinking and gambling to excess. Heathcliff beats Hindley up at one point after Hindley fails in his attempt to kill Heathcliff with a pistol. He dies less than a year after Catherine and leaves his son with nothing.
  • Hareton Earnshaw: The son of Hindley and Frances, raised at first by Nelly but soon by Heathcliff. Joseph works to instill a sense of pride in the Earnshaw heritage (even though Hareton will not inherit Earnshaw property, because Hindley has mortgaged it to Heathcliff). Heathcliff, in contrast, teaches him vulgarities as a way of avenging himself on Hindley. Hareton speaks with an accent similar to Joseph's, and occupies a position similar to that of a servant at Wuthering Heights, unaware that he has been done out of his inheritance. He can only read his name. In appearance, he reminds Heathcliff of his aunt, Catherine.
  • Cathy Linton: The daughter of Catherine and Edgar Linton, a spirited and strong-willed girl unaware of her parents' history. Edgar is very protective of her and as a result, she is eager to discover what lies beyond the confines of the Grange. Although one of the more sympathetic characters of the novel, she is also somewhat snobbish towards Hareton and his lack of education. She is forced to marry Linton Heathcliff, but after he dies she falls in love with Hareton and they marry.
  • Linton Heathcliff: The son of Heathcliff and Isabella. A weak child, his early years are spent with his mother in the south of England. He learns of his father's identity and existence only after his mother dies when he is twelve. In his selfishness and capacity for cruelty he resembles Heathcliff; physically, he resembles his mother. He marries Cathy Linton because his father, who terrifies him, directs him to do so, and soon after he dies from a wasting illness associated with tuberculosis.
  • Joseph: A servant at Wuthering Heights for 60 years who is a rigid, self-righteous Christian but lacks any trace of genuine kindness or humanity. He speaks a broad Yorkshire dialect and hates nearly everyone in the novel.
  • Mr Lockwood: The first narrator, he rents Thrushcross Grange to escape society, but in the end, decides society is preferable. He narrates the book until Chapter 4, when the main narrator, Nelly, picks up the tale.
  • Frances: Hindley's ailing wife and mother of Hareton Earnshaw. She is described as somewhat silly and is obviously from a humble family. Frances dies not long after the birth of her son.
  • Mr and Mrs Earnshaw: Catherine's and Hindley's father, Mr Earnshaw is the master of Wuthering Heights at the beginning of Nelly's story and is described as an irascible but loving and kind-hearted man. He favours his adopted son, Heathcliff, which causes trouble in the family. In contrast, his wife mistrusts Heathcliff from their first encounter.
  • Mr and Mrs Linton: Edgar's and Isabella's parents, they educate their children in a well-behaved and sophisticated way. Mr Linton also serves as the magistrate of Gimmerton, as his son does in later years.
  • Dr Kenneth: The longtime doctor of Gimmerton and a friend of Hindley's who is present at the cases of illness during the novel. Although not much of his character is known, he seems to be a rough but honest person.
  • Zillah: A servant to Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights during the period following Catherine's death. Although she is kind to Lockwood, she doesn't like or help Cathy at Wuthering Heights because of Cathy's arrogance and Heathcliff's instructions.
  • Mr Green: Edgar's corruptible lawyer who should have changed Edgar's will to prevent Heathcliff from gaining Thrushcross Grange. Instead, Green changes sides and helps Heathcliff to inherit the Grange as his property.

Publication history[edit]

1847 edition[edit]

The original text as published by Thomas Cautley Newby in 1847 is available online in two parts.[7][8] The novel was first published together with Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey in a three-volume format: Wuthering Heights filled the first two volumes and Agnes Grey made up the third.

1850 edition[edit]

In 1850 Charlotte Brontë edited the original text for the second edition of Wuthering Heights and also provided it with her foreword.[9] She addressed the faulty punctuation and orthography but also diluted Joseph's thick Yorkshire dialect. Writing to her publisher, W. S. Williams, she said that

It seems to me advisable to modify the orthography of the old servant Joseph's speeches; for though, as it stands, it exactly renders the Yorkshire dialect to a Yorkshire ear, yet I am sure Southerns must find it unintelligible; and thus one of the most graphic characters in the book is lost on them.[10]

Irene Wiltshire, in an essay on dialect and speech, examines some of the changes Charlotte made.[3]

Critical response[edit]

Contemporary reviews[edit]

Early reviews of Wuthering Heights were mixed in their assessment. Most critics recognised the power and imagination of the novel, but were baffled by the storyline, and objected to the savagery and selfishness of the characters.[11] In 1847, when the background of an author was given great importance in literary criticism, many critics were intrigued by the authorship of the Bell novels.[12]

The Atlas review called it a "strange, inartistic story", but commented that every chapter seems to contain a "sort of rugged power."[13]

Graham's Lady Magazine wrote: "How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors".[14]

The American Whig Review wrote:

Respecting a book so original as this, and written with so much power of imagination, it is natural that there should be many opinions. Indeed, its power is so predominant that it is not easy after a hasty reading to analyze one's impressions so as to speak of its merits and demerits with confidence. We have been taken and carried through a new region, a melancholy waste, with here and there patches of beauty; have been brought in contact with fierce passions, with extremes of love and hate, and with sorrow that none but those who have suffered can understand. This has not been accomplished with ease, but with an ill-mannered contempt for the decencies of language, and in a style which might resemble that of a Yorkshire farmer who should have endeavored to eradicate his provincialism by taking lessons of a London footman. We have had many sad bruises and tumbles in our journey, yet it was interesting, and at length we are safely arrived at a happy conclusion."[15]

Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper wrote:

Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book,—baffling all regular criticism; yet, it is impossible to begin and not finish it; and quite as impossible to lay it aside afterwards and say nothing about. In Wuthering Heights the reader is shocked, disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity, and the most diabolical hate and vengeance, and anon come passages of powerful testimony to the supreme power of love – even over demons in the human form. The women in the book are of a strange fiendish-angelic nature, tantalising, and terrible, and the men are indescribable out of the book itself. ... We strongly recommend all our readers who love novelty to get this story, for we can promise them that they never have read anything like it before. It is very puzzling and very interesting ....[16]

The Examiner wrote:

This is a strange book. It is not without evidences of considerable power: but, as a whole, it is wild, confused, disjointed, and improbable; and the people who make up the drama, which is tragic enough in its consequences, are savages ruder than those who lived before the days of Homer.[16]

The Literary World wrote:

In the whole story not a single trait of character is elicited which can command our admiration, not one of the fine feelings of our nature seems to have formed a part in the composition of its principal actors. In spite of the disgusting coarsness of much of the dialogue, and the improbabilities of much of the plot, we are spellbound.[17]

The English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti admired the book, writing in 1854 that it was "the first novel I've read for an age, and the best (as regards power and sound style) for two ages, except Sidonia",[18] but, in the same letter, he also referred to it as "a fiend of a book – an incredible monster  [...] The action is laid in hell, – only it seems places and people have English names there".[19]

Twentieth century[edit]

Until late in the 19th century "Jane Eyre was regarded as the best of the Brontë sisters' novels". This view began to change in the 1880s with the publication of A. Mary F. Robinson's biography of Emily in 1883.[20]

Modernist novelist Virginia Woolf affirmed the greatness of Wuthering Heights in 1925:

Wuthering Heights is a more difficult book to understand than Jane Eyre, because Emily was a greater poet than Charlotte. ... She looked out upon a world cleft into gigantic disorder and felt within her the power to unite it in a book. That gigantic ambition is to be felt throughout the novel ... It is this suggestion of power underlying the apparitions of human nature and lifting them up into the presence of greatness that gives the book its huge stature among other novels.[21]

Similarly, Woolf's contemporary John Cowper Powys referred in 1916 to Emily Brontë's "tremendous vision".[22]

In 1926 Charles Percy Sanger's work on the chronology of Wuthering Heights "affirmed Emily's literary craft and meticulous planning of the novel and disproved Charlotte's presentation of her sister as an unconscious artist who 'did not know what she had done'." However, for a later critic, Albert J. Guerard, "it is a splendid, imperfect novel which Brontë loses control over occasionally".[23]

Still, in 1934, Lord David Cecil, writing in Early Victorian Novelists, commented "that Emily Brontë was not properly appreciated; even her admirers saw her as an 'unequal genius',"[24] and in 1948 F. R. Leavis excluded Wuthering Heights from the great tradition of the English novel because it was "a 'kind of sport'—an anomaly with 'some influence of an essentially undetectable kind.'"[25]

Twenty-first century[edit]

Writing in The Guardian in 2003 writer and editor Robert McCrum placed Wuthering Heights at number 17 in his list of 100 greatest novels of all time.[26] And in 2015 he placed it at number 13 in his list of 100 best novels written in English.[27] He said that

Wuthering Heights releases extraordinary new energies in the novel, renews its potential, and almost reinvents the genre. The scope and drift of its imagination, its passionate exploration of a fatal yet regenerative love affair, and its brilliant manipulation of time and space put it in a league of its own.[28]

Writing for BBC Culture in 2015 author and book reviewer Jane Ciabattari[29] polled 82 book critics from outside the UK and presented Wuthering Heights as number 7 in the resulting list of 100 greatest British novels.[30]

In 2018 Penguin presented a list of 100 must-read classic books and placed Wuthering Heights at number 71, saying: "Widely considered a staple of Gothic fiction and the English literary canon, this book has gone on to inspire many generations of writers – and will continue to do so".[31]

Writing in The Independent journalist and author Ceri Radford and news presenter, journalist, and TV producer Chris Harvey included Wuthering Heights in a list of the 40 best books to read during lockdown. Harvey said that "It's impossible to imagine this novel ever provoking quiet slumbers; Emily Brontë's vision of nature blazes with poetry".[32]

Setting[edit]

Novelist John Cowper Powys notes the importance of the setting:

By that singular and forlorn scenery-the scenery of the Yorkshire moors round her home—[Emily Brontë] was, however, in the more flexible portion of her curious nature inveterately influenced. She does not precisely describe this scenery—not at any length ... but it sank so deeply into her that whatever she wrote was affected by it and bears its desolate and imaginative imprint."[33]

Likewise Virginia Woolf suggests the importance of the Yorkshire landscape of Haworth to the poetic vision of both Emily and Charlotte Brontë:

[Who] if they choose to write in prose, [were] intolerant of its restrictions. Hence it is that both Emily and Charlotte are always invoking the help of nature. They both feel the need of some more powerful symbol of the vast and slumbering passions in human nature than words or actions can convey. They seized those aspects of the earth which were most akin to what they themselves felt or imputed to their characters, and so their storms, their moors, their lovely spaces of summer weather are not ornaments applied to decorate a dull page or display the writer's powers of observation—they carry on the emotion and light up the meaning of the book.[34]

Wuthering Heights is an old house high on the Pennine moorland of West Yorkshire. The first description is provided by Lockwood, the new tenant of the nearby Thrushcross Grange:

Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling, "wuthering" being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed. One may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house, and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun.[35]

Lord David Cecil in Early Victorian Novelists (1934) drew attention to the contrast between the two main settings in Wuthering Heights:

We have Wuthering Heights, the land of storm; high on the barren moorland, naked to the shock of the elements, the natural home of the Earnshaw family, fiery, untamed children of the storm. On the other hand, sheltered in the leafy valley below, stands Thrushcross Grange, the appropriate home of the children of calm, the gentle, passive, timid Lintons.[36]

Walter Allen, in The English Novel (1954), likewise "spoke of the two houses in the novel as symbolising 'two opposed principles which … ultimately compose a harmony'".[37] However, David Daiches, "in the 1965 Penguin English Library edition referred to Cecil's interpretation as being 'persuasively argued' though not fully acceptable". The entry on Wuthering Heights in the 2002 Oxford Companion to English Literature, "says that the ending of the novel points to a union of 'the two contrasting worlds and moral orders represented by the Heights and the Grange'".[38]

Inspiration for locations[edit]

High Sunderland Hall in 1818, shortly before Emily Brontë saw the building.

There is no evidence that either Thrushcross Grange or Wuthering Heights is based on an actual building, but various locations have been speculated as inspirations. Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse in an isolated area near the Haworth Parsonage, was suggested as the model for Wuthering Heights by Ellen Nussey, a friend of Charlotte Brontë.[39] However, its structure does not match that of the farmhouse described in the novel.[40] High Sunderland Hall, near Law Hill, Halifax where Emily worked briefly as a governess in 1838, now demolished,[40] has also been suggested as a model for Wuthering Heights. However, it is too grand for a farmhouse.[41]

Ponden Hall is famous for reputedly being the inspiration for Thrushcross Grange, since Brontë was a frequent visitor. However, it does not match the description given in the novel and is closer in size and appearance to the farmhouse of Wuthering Heights. The Brontë biographer Winifred Gerin believed that Ponden Hall was the original of Wildfell Hall, the old mansion in Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.[42][43] Helen Smart, while noting that Thrushcross Grange has "traditionally been associated with ... Ponden Hall, Stanbury, near Haworth", sees Shibden Hall, Northowram, in Halifax parish, as more likely,[44] referring to Hilda Marsden's article "The Scenic Background of Wuthering Heights".[45]

Point of view[edit]

Most of the novel is the story told by housekeeper Nelly Dean to Lockwood, though the novel uses several narrators (in fact, five or six) to place the story in perspective, or in a variety of perspectives.[46] Emily Brontë uses this frame story technique to narrate most of the story. Thus, for example, Lockwood, the first narrator of the story, tells the story of Nelly, who herself tells the story of another character.[47] The use of a character like Nelly Dean is a literary device, a well-known convention taken from the Gothic novel, the function of which is to portray the events in a more mysterious and exciting manner.[48]

Thus the point of view comes

from a combination of two speakers who outline the events of the plot within the framework of a story within a story. The frame story is that of Lockwood, who informs us of his meeting with the strange and mysterious "family" living in almost total isolation in the stony uncultivated land of northern England. The inner story is that of Nelly Dean, who transmits to Lockwood the history of the two families during the last two generations. Nelly Dean examines the events retrospectively and attempts to report them as an objective eyewitness to Lockwood.[49]

Critics have questioned the reliability of the two main narrators.[49] The author has been described as sarcastic toward Lockwood, who fancies himself a world-weary romantic but comes across as an effete snob, and there are subtler hints that Nelly's perspective is influenced by her own biases.[50]

The narrative in addition includes an excerpt from Catherine Earnshaw's old diary, and short sections narrated by Heathcliff, Isabella, and another servant.[50]

Influences[edit]

Brontë possessed an exceptional classical culture for a woman of the time. She was familiar with Greek tragedies and was a good Latinist.[51][52] In addition she was especially influenced by the poets John Milton and William Shakespeare.[53] There are echoes of Shakespeare's King Lear and Romeo and Juliet in Wuthering Heights.[54] Another major source of information for the Brontës was the periodicals that their father read, the Leeds Intelligencer and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.[55] Blackwood's Magazine provided knowledge of world affairs and was a source of material for the Brontës' early writing.[56] Emily Brontë was probably aware of the debate on evolution. This debate had been launched in 1844 by Robert Chambers. It raised questions of divine providence and the violence which underlies the universe and relationships between living things.[57]

Romanticism was also a major influence, which included the Gothic novel, the novels of Walter Scott[58] and the poetry of Byron. The Brontës' fiction is seen by some feminist critics as prime examples of Female Gothic. It explores the domestic entrapment and subjection of women to patriarchal authority, and the attempts to subvert and escape such restriction. Emily Brontë's Cathy Earnshaw and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre are both examples of female protagonists in such a role.[59]

According to Juliet Barker, Walter Scott's novel Rob Roy (1817) had a significant influence on Wuthering Heights, which, though "regarded as the archetypal Yorkshire novel ... owed as much, if not more, to Walter Scott's Border country". Rob Roy is set "in the wilds of Northumberland, among the uncouth and quarrelsome squirearchical Osbaldistones", while Cathy Earnshaw "has strong similarities with Diana Vernon, who is equally out of place among her boorish relations" (Barker p. 501).[60]

From 1833 Charlotte and Branwell's Angrian tales began to feature Byronic heroes. Such heroes had a strong sexual magnetism and passionate spirit, and demonstrated arrogance and black-heartedness. The Brontës had discovered Byron in an article in Blackwood's Magazine from August 1825. Byron had died the previous year. Byron became synonymous with the prohibited and audacious.[61]

Romance tradition[edit]

Emily Brontë wrote in the romance tradition of the novel.[62] Walter Scott defined this as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents".[63][64] Scott distinguished the romance from the novel, where (as he saw it) "events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society".[65] Scott describes romance as a "kindred term" to novel. However, romances such as Wuthering Heights and Scott's own historical romances and Herman Melville's Moby Dick are often referred to as novels.[66][67][68] Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo, en roman".[69] This sort of romance is different from the genre fiction love romance or romance novel, with its "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending".[70] Emily Brontë's approach to the novel form was influenced by the gothic novel.

Gothic novel[edit]

Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764) is usually considered the first gothic novel. Walpole's declared aim was to combine elements of the medieval romance, which he deemed too fanciful, and the modern novel, which he considered to be too confined to strict realism.[71]

More recently Ellen Moers, in Literary Women, developed a feminist theory that connects female writers such as Emily Brontë with gothic fiction.[66] Catherine Earnshaw has been identified by some critics as a type of gothic demon because she "shape-shifts" in order to marry Edgar Linton, assuming a domesticity that is contrary to her true nature.[72] It has also been suggested that Catherine's relationship with Heathcliff conforms to the "dynamics of the Gothic romance, in that the woman falls prey to the more or less demonic instincts of her lover, suffers from the violence of his feelings, and at the end is entangled by his thwarted passion".[73] See also the discussion of the daemonic below, under "Religion".

At one point in the novel Heathcliff is thought a vampire. It has been suggested that both he and Catherine are in fact meant to be seen as vampire-like personalities.[74][75]


Themes[edit]

Morality[edit]

Some early Victorian reviewers complained about how Wuthering Heights dealt with violence and immorality. One called it "a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors".[14]

Emily Brontë was supposedly unaware of "the limits on polite expression" expected of Victorian novelists. Brontë's characters use vulgar language, "cursing and swearing".[76] And though a daughter of a curate, Brontë showed little respect for religion. The only strongly religious character in Wuthering Heights is Joseph who is usually seen as satirizing "the joyless version of Methodism that the Brontë children were exposed to through their Aunt Branwell".[77] A major influence on how Brontë depicts amoral characters was the stories her father Patrick Brontë told, about "the doings" of people around Haworth that his parishioners told him, "stories which 'made one shiver and shrink from hearing' (Charlotte's friend Ellen Nussey reported)", which were "full of grim humour" and violence, stories Emily Brontë took "as a truth".[78]

Shortly after Emily Brontë's death G.H. Lewes wrote in Leader Magazine:

Curious enough is to read Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and remember that the writers were two retiring, solitary, consumptive girls! Books, coarse even for men, coarse in language and coarse in conception, the coarseness apparently of violence and uncultivated men – turn out to be the productions of two girls living almost alone, filling their loneliness with quiet studies, and writing their books from a sense of duty, hating the pictures they drew, yet drawing them with austere conscientiousness! There is matter here for the moralist or critic to speculate on.[79]

Religion[edit]

Emily Brontë attended church regularly and came from a religious family.[80] Emily "never as far as we know, wrote anything which overtly criticised conventional religion. But she also has the reputation of being a rebel and iconoclast, driven by a spirit more pagan than orthodox Christian".[81] Derek Traversi, for example, sees in Wuthering Heights "a thirst for religious experience,'which is not Christian'. It is this spirit which moves Catherine to exclaim, 'surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here?' (Ch. IX)".[82][83]

Thomas John Winnifrith, author of The Brontes and Their Background: Romance and Reality (Macmillan, 1977), argues that the allusions to Heaven and Hell are more than metaphors, and have a religious significance, because "for Heathcliff, the loss of Catherine is literally Hell ... 'existence after losing her would be Hell' (Ch. xiv, p. 117)." Likewise, in the final scene between them, Heathcliff writhes "in the torments of Hell (XV)".[84]

Daemonic[edit]

The eminent German Lutheran theologian and philosopher Rudolph Otto, author of The Idea of the Holy, saw in Wuthering Heights "a supreme example of 'the daemonic' in literature".[85] Otto links the "daemonic" with "a genuine religious experience".[86] Lisa Wang argues that in both Wuthering Heights, and in her poetry, Emily Brontë concentrates on "the non-conceptual, or what Rudolf Otto[87] has called 'the non-rational' aspect of religion ... the primal nature of religious experience over and above its doctrinal formulations".[88] This corresponds with the dictionary meaning: "of or relating to an inner or attendant spirit, esp. as a source of creative inspiration or genius".[89] This meaning was important to the Romantic movement.[90][91]

However, the word daemon can also mean "a demon or devil", and that is equally relevant to Heathcliff,[92] whom Peter McInerney describes as "a Satanic Don Juan".[93] Heathcliff is also "dark-skinned",[94] "as dark almost as if it came from the devil".[95] Likewise Charlotte Brontë described him "‘a man's shape animated by demon life – a Ghoul – an Afreet’".[96] In Arabian mythology an "afreet", or ifrit, is a powerful jinn or demon.[97] However, John Bowen believes that "this is too simple a view", because the novel presents an alternative explanation of Heathcliff's cruel and sadistic behaviour; that is, that he has suffered terribly: "is an orphan; ... is brutalised by Hindley; ... relegated to the status of a servant; Catherine marries Edgar".[98] See also: the discussion of the demonic in the section on the gothic novel above; the Byronic hero; and the Romantic hero.

Love[edit]

One 2007 British poll presented Wuthering Heights as the greatest love story of all time.[99] However, "some of the novel's admirers consider it not a love story at all but an exploration of evil and abuse".[50] Helen Small sees Wuthering Heights as being both "one of the greatest love stories in the English language" and at the same time one of the "most brutal revenge narratives".[100] Some critics suggest that reading Wuthering Heights as a love story not only "romanticizes abusive men and toxic relationships but goes against Brontë's clear intent".[50] Moreover, while a "passionate, doomed, death-transcending relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw Linton forms the core of the novel",[50] Wuthering Heights

consistently subverts the romantic narrative. Our first encounter with Heathcliff shows him to be a nasty bully. Later, Brontë puts in Heathcliff's mouth an explicit warning not to turn him into a Byronic hero: After ... Isabella elop[es] with him, he sneers that she did so "under a delusion ... picturing in me a hero of romance".[50]

"I am Heathcliff" is a frequently quoted phrase from the novel, and "the idea of ... perfect unity between the self and the other is age-old", so that Catherine says that she loves Heathcliff "because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" (Chapter IX).[101] Likewise Lord David Cecil suggests that "the deepest attachments are based on characters' similarity or affinity",[102] However Simone de Beauvoir, in her famous feminist work The Second Sex (1949), suggests that when Catherine says "I am Heathcliff": "her own world collapse(s) in contingence, for she really lives in his." (Beauvoir, 1952, p. 725). Beauvoir sees this as "the fatal mirage of the ideal of romantic love ... transcendence .. in the superior male who is perceived as free".[103]

Despite all the passion between Catherine and Heathcliff, critics have from early on drawn attention to the absence of sex. In 1850 the poet and critic Sydney Dobell suggests that "we dare not doubt [Catherine's] purity",[104] and the Victorian poet Swinburne concurs, referring to their "passionate and ardent chastity".[105][106] More recently Terry Eagleton suggests their relationship is sexless, "because the two, unknown to themselves, are half-siblings, with an unconscious fear of incest".[107]

Childhood[edit]

Childhood is a central theme of Wuthering Heights.[108] Emily Brontë "understands that 'The Child is 'Father of the Man' (Wordsworth, 'My heart leaps up', 1. 7)". Wordsworth, following philosophers of education, such as Rousseau, explored ideas about the way childhood shaped personality. One outcome of this was the German bildungsroman, or "novel of education", such as Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847), Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (1860), and Dickens's Great Expectations (1861).[109] Bronte's characters "are heavily influenced by their childhood experiences", though she is less optimistic than her contemporaries that suffering can lead to "change and renewal".[110]

Class and money[edit]

Lockwood arrives at Thrushcross Grange in 1801, a time when, according to Q.D. Leavis, " 'the old rough farming culture, based on a naturally patriarchal family life, was to be challenged, tamed and routed by social and cultural changes' ",[111] At this date the Industrial Revolution was well under way, and was by 1847 a dominant force in much of England, and especially in West Yorkshire. This caused a disruption in "the traditional relationship of social classes" with an expanding upwardly mobile middle-class, which created "a new standard for defining a gentleman", and challenged the traditional criteria of breeding and family and the more recent criterion of character."[112]

Marxist critic Arnold Kettle sees Wuthering Heights "as a symbolic representation of the class system of nineteenth-century England", with its concerns "with property-ownership, the attraction of social comforts", marriage, education, religion, and social status.[113] Driven by a pathological hatred Heathcliff uses against his enemies "their own weapons of money and arranged marriages", as well as "the classic methods of the ruling class, expropriation and property deals".[114]

Later, another Marxist, Terry Eagleton, in Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontës (1975),[115] further explores the power relationships between "the landed gentry and aristocracy, the traditional power-holders, and the capitalist, industrial middle classes". Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire was especially affected by changes to society and its class structure "because of the concentration of large estates and industrial centers" there.[116]

Race[edit]

There has been debate about Heathcliff's race or ethnicity. He is described as a "dark-skinned gypsy" and "a little Lascar", a 19th-century term for Indian sailors,[94] Mr Earnshaw calls him "as dark almost as if it came from the devil",[95] and Nelly Dean speculates fancifully regarding his origins thus: "Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen?"[117] Caryl Phillips suggests that Heathcliff may have been an escaped slave, noting the similarities between the way Heathcliff is treated and the way slaves were treated at the time: he is referred to as "it", his name "served him" as both his "Christian and surname",[95] and Mr Earnshaw is referred to as "his owner".[118] Maja-Lisa von Sneidern states that "Heathcliff's racial otherness cannot be a matter of dispute; Brontë makes that explicit", further noting that "by 1804 Liverpool merchants were responsible for more than eighty-four percent of the British transatlantic slave trade."[119] Michael Stewart sees Heathcliff's race as "ambiguous" and argues that Emily Brontë "deliberately gives us this missing hole in the narrative".[120]

Storm and calm[edit]

Various critics have explored the various contrast between Thrushcross Grange and the Wuthering Heights farmhouse and their inhabitants (see "Setting" above). Lord David Cecil argued for "cosmic forces as the central impetus and controlling force in the novel" and suggested that there is a unifying structure underlying Wuthering Heights: "two spiritual principles: the principle of the storm, ... and the principle of calm", which he further argued were not, "in spite of their apparent opposition", in conflict.[121] Dorothy van Ghent, however, refers to "a tension between two kinds of reality" in the novel: "civilized manners" and "natural energies".[122]

Adaptations[edit]

Main article: Adaptations of Wuthering Heights
Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in the 1939 film Wuthering Heights

Film and TV[edit]

The earliest known film adaptation of Wuthering Heights was filmed in England in 1920 and was directed by A. V. Bramble. It is unknown if any prints still exist.[123] The most famous is 1939's Wuthering Heights, starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon and directed by William Wyler. This acclaimed adaptation, like many others, eliminated the second generation's story (young Cathy, Linton and Hareton) and is rather inaccurate as a literary adaptation. It won the 1939 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film and was nominated for the 1939 Academy Award for Best Picture.

Nigel Kneale's script was produced for BBC Television twice, firstly in 1953, starring Richard Todd as Heathcliff and Yvonne Mitchell as Cathy. Broadcast live, no recordings of the production are known to exist. The second adaptation using Kneale's script was in 1962, starring Claire Bloom as Catherine and Keith Mitchell as Heathcliff. This production does exist with the BFI, but has been withheld from public viewing.[124] Kneale's script was also adapted for Australian television in 1959 during a time when original drama productions in the country were rare. Broadcast live from Sydney, the performance was telerecorded, although it is unknown if this kinescope still exists.

In 1958, an adaptation aired on CBS television as part of the series DuPont Show of the Month starring Rosemary Harris as Cathy and Richard Burton as Heathcliff.[125] The BBC produced a four-part television dramatisation in 1967 starring Ian McShane and Angela Scoular.[126]

Les Hauts de Hurlevent is a French mini-series in six 26-minute episodes, in black and white, created and directed by Jean-Paul Carrère based on the eponymous novel by Emily Brontë, and broadcast between 1964 and 1968 on the first ORTF channel. The 1970 film with Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff is the first colour version of the novel. It has gained acceptance over the years although it was initially poorly received. The character of Hindley is portrayed much more sympathetically, and his story-arc is altered. It also subtly suggests that Heathcliff may be Cathy's illegitimate half-brother.

In 1978, the BBC produced a five-part TV serialisation of the book starring Ken Hutchinson, Kay Adshead and John Duttine, with music by Carl Davis; it is considered one of the most faithful adaptations of Emily Brontë's story.[127]

There is also a 1985 French film adaptation, Hurlevent by Jacques Rivette, and a 1988 Japanese film adaptation, Wuthering Heights (1988 film).[128]

The 1992 film Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche is notable for including the oft-omitted second generation story of the children of Cathy, Hindley and Heathcliff.

More recent film or TV adaptations include ITV's 2009 two-part drama series starring Tom Hardy, Charlotte Riley, Sarah Lancashire, and Andrew Lincoln,[129] and the 2011 film starring Kaya Scodelario and James Howson and directed by Andrea Arnold.

Adaptations which place the story in a new setting include the 1954 adaptation, retitled Abismos de Pasion, directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel and set in Catholic Mexico, with Heathcliff and Cathy renamed Alejandro and Catalina. In Buñuel's version Heathcliff/Alejandro claims to have become rich by making a deal with Satan. The New York Times reviewed a re-release of this film as "an almost magical example of how an artist of genius can take someone else's classic work and shape it to fit his own temperament without really violating it," noting that the film was thoroughly Spanish and Catholic in its tone while still highly faithful to Brontë.[130] Yoshishige Yoshida's 1988 adaptation also has a transposed setting, this time to medieval Japan. In Yoshida's version, the Heathcliff character, Onimaru, is raised in a nearby community of priests who worship a local fire god. Filipino director Carlos Siguion-Reyna made a film adaptation titled Hihintayin Kita sa Langit (1991). The screenplay was written by Raquel Villavicencio and produced by Armida Siguion-Reyna. It starred Richard Gomez as Gabriel (Heathcliff) and Dawn Zulueta as Carmina (Catherine). It became a Filipino film classic.[131]

In 2003, MTV produced a poorly reviewed version set in a modern California high school.

Wuthering High, a 2015 TV Movie shown on Lifetime, is set in Malibu, California.

The 1966 Indian film Dil Diya Dard Liya is based upon this novel. The film is directed by Abdul Rashid Kardar and Dilip Kumar. The film stars Dilip Kumar, Waheeda Rehman, Pran, Rehman, Shyama and Johnny Walker. The music is by Naushad. Although it did not fare as well as other movies of Dilip Kumar, it was well received by critics.

In 2022, Emma Mackey starred in a biopic of Emily Brontë in Emily. The film charts the life of Brontë and the inspiration she gained for writing Wuthering Heights living in the Yorkshire countryside.

Theatre[edit]

The novel has been adapted as operas composed by Bernard Herrmann, Carlisle Floyd, and Frédéric Chaslin (most cover only the first half of the book) and a musical by Bernard J. Taylor.

In 2021, Emma Rice directed a theatrical version which was shown online and at the Bristol Old Vic.[citation needed],this production was then put on at the National Theatre in 2022.[132]

Works inspired by Wuthering Heights[edit]

Main article: List of Wuthering Heights references

Literature[edit]

Mizumura Minae's A True Novel (Honkaku shosetsu) (2002) is inspired by Wuthering Heights and might be called an adaptation of the story in a post-World War II Japanese setting.[133]

In Jane Urquhart's Changing Heaven, the novel Wuthering Heights, as well as the ghost of Emily Brontë, feature as prominent roles in the narrative.

In her 2019 novel, The West Indian, Valerie Browne Lester imagines an origin story for Heathcliff in 1760s Jamaica.[134]

K-Ming Chang's 2021 chapbook Bone House was released by Bull City Press as part of their Inch series.[135] The collection functions as a queer Taiwanese-American retelling of Wuthering Heights, in which an unnamed narrator moves into a butcher's mansion "with a life of its own."[136]

Canadian author Hilary Scharper's ecogothic novel Perdita (2013) was deeply influenced by Wuthering Heights, namely in terms of the narrative role of powerful, cruel and desolate landscapes.[137]

The poem "Wuthering" (2017) by Tanya Grae uses Wuthering Heights as an allegory.[138]

Maryse Condé's Windward Heights (La migration des coeurs) (1995) is a reworking of Wuthering Heights set in Cuba and Guadeloupe at the turn of the 20th century,[139] which Condé stated she intended as an homage to Brontë.[140]

In 2011, a graphic novel version was published by Classical Comics.[141] It was adapted by Scottish writer Sean Michael Wilson and hand painted by comic book veteran artist John M Burns. This version, which stays close to the original novel, was shortlisted for the Stan Lee Excelsior Awards.[142]

Music[edit]

Kate Bush's 1978 song "Wuthering Heights" is most likely the best-known creative work inspired by Brontë's story that is not properly an "adaptation". Bush wrote and released the song when she was 18 and chose it as the lead single in her debut album. It was primarily inspired by the 1939 Olivier–Oberon film, which deeply affected Bush in her teenage years. The song is sung from Catherine's point of view as she pleads at Heathcliff's window to be admitted. It uses quotations from Catherine, both in the chorus ("Let me in! I'm so cold!") and the verses, with Catherine admitting she had "bad dreams in the night". Critic Sheila Whiteley wrote that the ethereal quality of the vocal resonates with Cathy's dementia, and that Bush's high register has both "childlike qualities in its purity of tone" and an "underlying eroticism in its sinuous erotic contours".[143] Singer Pat Benatar covered the song in 1980 on her "Crimes of Passion" album. Brazilian heavy metal band Angra released a version of Bush's song on its debut album Angels Cry in 1993.[144] A 2018 cover of Bush's "Wuthering Heights" by EURINGER adds electropunk elements.[145]

Wind & Wuthering (1976) by English rock band Genesis alludes to the Brontë novel not only in the album's title but also in the titles of two of its tracks, "Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers..." and "...In That Quiet Earth". Both titles refer to the closing lines in the novel.

Songwriter Jim Steinman said that he wrote the 1989 song "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" "while under the influence of Wuthering Heights". He said that the song was "about being enslaved and obsessed by love" and compared it to "Heathcliff digging up Kathy's corpse and dancing with it in the cold moonlight".[146]

The 2008 song "Cath..." by indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie was inspired by Wuthering Heights.

References[edit]

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  2. ^ Eagleton, Terry (2005). Myths of Power. A Marxist Study of the Brontës. London: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-4697-3.
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  77. ^ Helen Small, "Introduction" to Wuthering Heights. Edited by Ian Jack and Introduction and notes by Helen Small. Oxford University Press, 2009, p. vii.
  78. ^ Quoted in Winifred Gérin, Emily Brontë: A Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871), p. 37. Helen Small, "Introduction" to Wuthering Heights, p. ix.
  79. ^ Allott 1995, p. 292
  80. ^ Backholer, Paul (18 April 2022). "Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, the Brontë Sisters, and their Faith in the Bible and Christianity". By Faith.
  81. ^ "Bronët 200 - A God of her Own : Emily Brontë and the Religious". Brontë Society
  82. ^ "Emily Brontë" Religion, Metaphysic, and Mysticism". cuny.edu
  83. ^ See also, Derek Traversi, "Wuthering Heights after a Hundred Years". The Dublin Review. 223 (445): 154ff. Spring 1949.
  84. ^ "Emily Brontë: Religion, Metaphysic, and Mysticism". cuny.edu
  85. ^ John W Harvey, "Translator's Preface" to The Idea of the Holy by Rudolph Otto OUP USA, 1958, p. xiii
  86. ^ "Otto on the Numinous: The Connection of the Numinous and the Gothic", cuny.edu
  87. ^ See R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy (1923); 2nd edn, trans. J.W. Harvey (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1950) p. 5.
  88. ^ Lisa Wang, "The Holy Spirit in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Poetry". Literature and Theology, June 2000, Vol. 14, No. 2, p. 162.
  89. ^ OED
  90. ^ Kent Ljungquist, "Uses of the Daemon in Selected Works of Edgar Allan Poe". Interpretations, Vol. 12, No. 1 (July 1980), p. 31
  91. ^ Nicholls, A. (2006). Goethe's Concept of the Daemonic: After the Ancients. Boydell & Brewer.
  92. ^ OED.
  93. ^ Peter McInerney, "Satanic conceits in Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights". Nineteenth Century Contexts, 4:1, 1–15, 1980.
  94. ^ Jump up to:a b Onanuga, Tola (21 October 2011). "Wuthering Heights realises Brontë's vision with its dark-skinned Heathcliff". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  95. ^ Jump up to:a b c Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. p. 40. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  96. ^ John Bowen, "Who is Heathcliff?" (The novel 1832–1880) British Library online
  97. ^ OED
  98. ^ John Bowen, "Who is Heathcliff?"
  99. ^ Marin Wainwright, "Emily hits heights in poll to find greatest love story". The Guardian, 10 August 2007.
  100. ^ "Introduction" to Wuthering Heights. Edited by Ian Jack and Introduction and notes by Helen Small. Oxford University Press, 2009, p. vii.
  101. ^ Helen Smart, "Introduction" to Wuthering Heights. Edited by Ian Jack and Introduction and notes by Helen Small. Oxford University Press, 2009, p. xiii.
  102. ^ "I am Heathcliff", cuny.edu
  103. ^ Kathryn Pauly Morgan, "Romantic Love, Altruism, and Self-Respect: An Analysis of Simone De Beauvoir". Hypatia, Spring, 1986, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 129.
  104. ^ "Currer Bell," Palladium, September, 1850. Reprinted in Life and Letters of Sydney Dobell, ed. E. Jolly (London, i878), I, 163-186.
  105. ^ A. C. Swinburne, "Emily BrontE," in Miscellanies, 2d ed. (London, I895), pp. 260-270 (first appeared in the Athenaeum for 1883).
  106. ^ "Sex in Wuthering Heights". cuny.edu
  107. ^ "Nothing Nice about Them",London Review of Books, Vol. 32 No. 21, 4 November 2010.
  108. ^ Richard Chase, "The Brontes: A Centennial Observance", in The Brontes: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Ian Gregor (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1970; repro 1986), pp. 19-33 (p. 32).
  109. ^ Melissa Fegan. Wuthering Heights: Character Studies. London: Continuum, 2008, p. 4.
  110. ^ Melissa Fegan, Wuthering Heights: Character Studies, p. 5.
  111. ^ "Wuthering Heights as Socio-Economic Novel", cuny.edu
  112. ^ "Wuthering Heights as Socio-Economic Novel"
  113. ^ Arnold Kettle, An Introduction to the English Novel, vol. 1 London: Harpers, 1951, p. 110.
  114. ^ Arnold Kettle, An Introduction to the English Novel, p. 110.
  115. ^ London, McMillan.
  116. ^ "Wuthering Heights as Socio-Economic Novel", cuny.edu
  117. ^ Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. p. chapter VII, p 4. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  118. ^ Caryl Philips, A Regular Black: The Hidden Wuthering Heights, dir. by Adam Low (Lone Star Productions, 2010).
  119. ^ Maja-Lisa von Sneidern,"Wuthering Heights and the Liverpool Slave Trade". ELH, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), p. 172
  120. ^ O'Callaghan, Claire; Stewart, Michael (2020). "Heathcliff, Race and Adam Low's Documentary, A Regular Black: The Hidden Wuthering Heights (2010)". Brontë Studies. 45 (2): 156–167. doi:10.1080/14748932.2020.1715045. S2CID 213118293 – via TandF Online.
  121. ^ "Later Critical Responses to Wuthering Heights". cuny.edu
  122. ^ van Ghent, Dorothy, "The Window Figure and the Two-Children Figure in Wuthering Heights". Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Dec., 1952, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 189-197
  123. ^ Wuthering Heights (1920 film) at IMDb
  124. ^ "BFI Screenonline: Wuthering Heights (1962)".
  125. ^ Schulman, Michael (6 December 2019). "Found! A Lost TV Version of Wuthering Heights". The New Yorker. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
  126. ^ "Wuthering Heights: Part 1: An End to Childhood". 28 October 1967. p. 7 – via BBC Genome.
  127. ^ "Wuthering Heights (1978) – Trailers, Reviews, Synopsis, Showtimes and Cast – AllMovie". AllMovie.
  128. ^ "Arashi ga oka". IMDb.
  129. ^ Wuthering Heights 2009(TV) at IMDb
  130. ^ Canby, Vincent (27 December 1983). "Abismos de Pasion (1953) Bunuel's Brontë". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 June 2011.
  131. ^ "Hihintayin Kita sa Langit (1991) - Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (MPP)". www.manunuri.com. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
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  133. ^ Chira, Susan (13 December 2013). "Strange Moors: 'A True Novel' by Minae Mizuma". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
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  138. ^ Grae, Tanya (2017). "Wuthering". Cordite Poetry Review. 57 (Confession). ISSN 1328-2107.
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Bibliography[edit]

Editions[edit]

Journal articles[edit]

Books[edit]

  • Allott, Miriam (1995). The Brontës: The Critical heritage. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-13461-3.
  • Doody, Margaret Anne (1997) [1996]. The True Story of the Novel. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0813524535.
  • Drabble, Margaret, ed. (1996) [1995]. "Charlotte Brontë". The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-866244-0.
  • Hagan, Sandra; Wells, Juliette (2008). The Brontės in the World of the Arts. Ashgate. ISBN 978-0-7546-5752-1.
  • Manning, Susan, editor (1992), "Introduction to", Quentin Durward, by Scott, Walter, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0192826589 {{citation}}: |contributor-first= has generic name (help)
  • Moers, Ellen (1978) [1976]. Literary Women: The Great Writers. London: The Women's Press. ISBN 978-0385074278.
  • Scott, Walter (1834). "Essay on Romance". Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott. Vol. VI. R Cadell.

External links[edit]

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wuthering Heights.
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DateAuthorTitle
2010Angell, Stephen W.A Quaker in Iran
 It is a tremendous pity that so few Americans get an opportunity to travel in Iran. Its mosques and its ancient monuments are incalculable treasures, but the opportunity to visit with Iranian peoples is a treasure even more to be cherished.
 
2009King, Sallie B.A Quaker's Response to Christian Fundamentalism
 Many Friends are unprepared to meet the challenges of Christian fundamentalism. When acquaintances, co-workers or neighbors accost us, insisting upon certain conservative or fundamentalist theological views, many Friends find themselves tongue-tied and do not know what to think or say....
 
2009Gillman, HarveyWhat is Spirituality?
 Our attempts to establish a vision of peace, justice, equality, respect for the environment, are all aspects of this spiritual vision. Indeed our testimony in the world is the proof of the depths of the vision we have been granted.
 
2008Riemermann, JamesMystery: It's What We Don't Know
 In this essay the author reflects on the nature of reality and the origins of the Western monotheistic tradition. He, then considers the conundrum posed by this and raises questions regarding the nature of boundaries of Quaker universalism and where non-theists place fits in relation to it.
 
2008Rickerman, SallyTrust: My Experience of Quakerism's Greatest Gift
 The author, who from her lifetime immersion and experience of Quakerism , being given by nature to “march to a different drummer,” shares her discovery that it is not only a safe place to be but also an immensely enriching one. She reports on finding that “the resulting tensions between individualism, universalism, freedom and community are mediated by trust.
 
2007Gilman, Rhoda R.The Universality of Unknowing
 A snapshot of the life and writings of Luther Askeland, a philosopher, teacher and mystic. Luther Askeland, author of Ways in Mystery: Explorations in Mystical Awareness and Life, has published essays and articles. Rhoda Gilman reflects on the importance of Askeland's thinking in her life.
 
2007Seeger, Daniel A.Commerce, Community, and the Regulations of Universal Love
 John Woolman’s essay A Plea for the Poor provides a starting point for Dan Seeger’s reflections in this pamphlet, was a vigorous argument for justice and equality in economic relations. Thus, according to the author, if the universalist principles of Quaker belief extend an inner light and a spirit of love to all humankind, then certainly in today’s global world the ethics of Quakerism must extend to global economy. Seeger both reminds and makes the reader aware, therefore, that Friends from George Fox’s generations and beyond have questioned the moral crime of making human beings (as distinct from human labor) into a marketable commodity.
 
2006Gilk, PaulRadiant In Joy
 A long-time ecological thinker and critic of American consumerist society, h has also written two books and a collection of poetry. The essay presented here has been condensed from a longer piece, and I hope that in "pruning" it I have preserved for QUF readers a lot of its unique style—often blunt, sometimes whimsical, and always deeply thoughtful. Paul is the kind of appreciative author an editor loves to work with, and I follow his express instructions here in "taking a deep bow." R.R.G.
 
2006Williams, Patricia A.Hazardous Engagement: God Makes a Friend
 This spiritual autobiography, written during 2001 and 2002, is framed as a series of monthly letters to the spiritual presence. The author later discovered that this spiritual presence who had been her teacher during those seven years had taught lessons that were in close accordance with the theology of the first Quakers!
 
2005Boulton, DavidMilitant Seedbeds Of Early Quakerism  
 Was Gerrard Winstanley a Quaker? Did he have any direct connection with Quakers? Did George Fox read his books and pamphlets, and was he influenced by them? These questions — the first two, at least — were asked in the seventeenth century, and have been asked again by historians and scholars in the twentieth.
 
2005Sibley, Mulford Q.In Praise of Gandhi Technology And The Ordering Of Human Relations
 During the 20th century, Friends were deeply influenced by Gandhi’s concept of nonviolent resistance as a tool for social and political change. They have been less sympathetic to his ideas on technology, although as Sibley makes clear, those ideas were rooted in Gandhi’s religious beliefs and in a testimony of simplicity not unlike that of traditional Quakers.
 
2004Rush, DavidThey Too Are Friends A Survey of 199 Nontheist Friends
 While at Woodbrooke, as a Fellow, Rush was able to research on both sides of the Atlantic the perspective of 199 non-theist Friends. According to Doug Gwyn, “It is an important piece of fresh research on a growing phenomenon in the liberal branch of Quakerism over the past several years.”
 
2004Seeger, DanThe Mystical Path: Pilgrimage To The One Who Is Always Here
 In discussing mysticism, Dan Seeger observes, ’As there is given to us some degree of awareness of the ineffable mystery of God we are shown the way to complete ourselves, both as individuals and as communities, in accordance with the principles of compassion and truth which are the basis of our natural and intended character.’
 
2003Gilman, RhodaReview: Essays in Radical Quakerism by David Boulton
 Rhoda Gilman reviews a collection of articles by David Boulton, a British Quaker historian.
 
2003Wood, FrankWalking the Talk
 A sensitive article by a Friend who continues his search.
 
2002Fox, GeorgeFifty nine Particulars
 Fifty nine Particulars laid down for the Regulating things, and the taking away of Oppressing Laws, and Oppressors, and to ease the Oppressed. This is the first, since 1659, reprint of Fox’s impassioned plea to Parliament. It is not a theological treatise, but in the Addendum, Fox makes a passionate plea for religious liberty.
 
2001Schmoe, FloydWhy Is Man?
 QUF has edited selections from this book, originally published privately in 1983. This is a small collection of meditations on science, nature, humankind and God. Schmoe was a concerned Friend, a dedicated environmentalist and an active peacemaker.
 
2001Sells, MichaelThe Generous Qur'an
 QUF is privileged to be able to present Sells’ sensitive translations of ten of the suras (chapters) of the Qur’an. This gives our readers an opportunity to understand more fully and to appreciate the universality and beauty of the Islamic message.
 
2001Abbott, Jay & CooperWaiting and Resting in the True Silence: Three Essays from Friends Bulletin
 These three essays give the experiential reflections of three authors on the meaning of Meeting for Worship to each of them from a universalist perspective.
 
2000Sibley, Milford Q.Quaker Mysticism: Its Context and Implications
 This posthumously published essay gives the reader the clearest definitions of mysticism available. It also notes that Quaker mysticism, in its framework of group discernment, and helps distinguish illusion from truth in the religious experience.
 
1999Rickerman, SallyGrowing Up Quaker and Universalist Too
 The author looks back on her journey as a Quaker universalist -- from her ancestral roots in 17th-century Quakerism, to her family’s experiences on the American frontier, to her own being a 20th-century Friend by both ’nature and nurture’. She also reflects on her perceptions of Quakerism and the leadings that have drawn her into working for QUF.
 
1998Amoss, GeorgeReforming Christianity
 The early Quakers combined the apocalyptic, the mystical, and the prophetic.
 
1998Morgan, Arthur E.Should Quakers Receive The Good Samaritan Into Their Membership?
 As we look today at the world-wide wave of fundamentalism and see the way it threatens to divide both the world and the Religious Society of Friends, many of Morgan’s insights speak to us with fresh conviction.
 
1998Mulford Q. Sibley & Rhoda R. GilmanAuthority and Mysticism in Quaker and Buddhist Thought
 These two essays have a common thread which lies in the authority given by both Friends and Buddhists to personal religious experience. And this, as Sibley points out, opens the door to universalism, for mystical experience of the divine and sacred is universal, not limited to Christianity or any other religious tradition.
 
1997Alpern, RobinWhy Not Join the Unitarians?
 Can a non-theist find a home in the Religious Society of Friends?
 
1997Seeger, Daniel A.I Have Called You Friends: A Quaker Universalist's Understanding of Jesus
 Dan uses John 15:15 to explore his own relationship to and with Jesus and how it effects his universalism. He points out many of the ’unresolvable dichotomies ... innate to humankind’s spiritual quest’ and the overwhelming unifying quality of love.
 
1996Amoss, GeorgeOn Silent Worship
 What should I be doing during silent worship?
 
1996Cadbury, Henry J.A Quaker Approach to the Bible
 Given at the Guilford College 1953 Ward Lecture, Cadbury’s exposition of the Quaker approach is today still germaine to Friends as he carries on a long tradition.
 
1996Fager, ChuckThe Authenticity of Liberal Quakerism
 An answer to evangelical Quakers from the ’Beanite’ viewpoint.
 
1995Gilman, RhodaToward a New Universalism
 The importance of Quaker mysticism in defining what is Universal.
 
1995Hodgkin, DavidQuakerism: A Mature Religion for Today,
 This view of Quakerism -- as a body defined by its form of worship, the quality of its community, and its service to the world is presented by a presiding clerk, who later became secretary of Australia Yearly Meeting. He states that Quakerism is ’centered toward a God not cramped by definitions which will satisfy some and estrange others.’
 
1995van der Sprenkel, OttoFriends and Other Faiths,
 This is the text of the Ninth James Backhouse Lecture given in Canberra at Australia Yearly Meeting, January 7, 1973, and published by Friends at the same time. Among the implications of his title is that Friends themselves have a ‘faith’ or system of beliefs that can usefully be compared or contrasted with ‘other faiths.’
 
1994Conlon, EmilyWilliam Penn, Quaker Universalist
 A discussion of Elizabeth Gray Vining's pamphlet: William Penn, Mystic
 
1994Knudsen-Hoffman, GeneSpirit and Trauma
 During a time of mental illness, Knudsen-Hoffman explored the relationship between religion and psychological health. Insights gained and meaningful meditations from Quakerism, Zen Buddhism and Hasidic Judaism are shared with readers.
 
1994Nicholson, JohnThe Place of Prayer Is A Precious Habitation,
 The author summarizes for Friends the testimony of John Woolman about his rich and varied prayer life. He also helps us understand how it moved from direct prayer to living the spirit of prayer.
 
1994Swayne, KingdonUniversalism and Me
 A non-Christiam Quaker briefly explains his origins and his approach.
 
1992Balling, PeterThe Light upon the Candlestick
 QUF takes great pride in presenting a 1663 Quaker tract which argues for the authenticity of inward experience. This pamphlet also has a summary by Rufus Jones in its preface. The Epilogue reports on newly discovered connections between Quakers, the Collegiants and Spinosa.
 
1992Gwyn, DouglasThe Quaker Dynamic: Personal Faith and Corporate Vision
 Gwyn tells of his concern that Friends need focus to ’...reclaim the unique Christian spirituality of Quakerism as the shared core of our faith.’ Here he distinguishes between personal faith and shared witness, rejoicing in the light shining in lives of other religionists.
 
1992Hearing Where The Words Come From Four Perspectives
 Tom Ceresini, Mickey Edgerton, Al Roberts and Sally Rickerman heeded the comment made by a non-English-speaking American Indian, listening to John Woolman, ’I love to hear where the words come from.’ Sharing the wide variety of religious experience which shaped each’s faith, all present were able to hear the Spirit and not let words interfere with deep understanding.
 
1991Seeger, Daniel A.The Boundaries of our Faith A Reflection on the Practice of Goddess Spirituality
 This is a thoughtful account of events that started with a women’s weekend at Powell House (NYYM’s conference center) and ended at that year’s Yearly Meeting sessions. Seeger consulted with the Friends involved and has noted where their perspectives differed from his. QUF is indeed privileged to be able to publish this important document.
 
1991Watson, ElizabethJourney to Universalism
 Elizabeth lovingly shares her life’s spiritual experiences particularly as she made her pilgrimages to Israel, India and Greece. She found that the journey to universalism is a journey to the universe.
 
1990Walters, HerbAdventures in Listening
 Herb Walters has taken his Listening Project successfully to areas of racial, ethnic, and cultural conflict. Here he recounts some of the methods and results of the increasingly used ’Listening’ to bring seemingly opposed ’sides’ to mutual understanding and reconciliation.
 
1990Varieties of Religious Experience: An Adventure in Listening
 QUF was given an opportunity to truly listen with open hearts to the variety of ways that some of their fellow Friends, from a wide range of theological perspectives, give structure to their lives.
 
1988Seeger, Daniel A.Quaker Universalists: Their Ministry Among Friends and in the World
 Defines the reality of Quaker universalism and reviews the opportunities for the Fellowship to become a reconciling and enriching group among Friends.
 
1986Seeger, Daniel A.The Place of Universalism in the Religious Society of Friends: Is Coexistence Possible?
 One of four panelists speaking on Quaker ’theology’ at the 1986 FGC Gathering, Dan traces the universalist strain in Quakerism and reflects on ways to truly share our religious unity.
 
1985Dulles, AveryRevelation and the Religions
 QUF is pleased to reprint a chapter from the book Models of Revelation written by the then Father Dulles. This distinguished Catholic theologian reveals, through meticulous scholarship, the various positions on Divine revelation taken by both Protestants and Catholics and the ’inbuilt tension between particularism and universalism.’
 
Hetherington, RalphReadings For Universalists
 Testimonies of important Quakers both today and yesterday.
 
Hetherington, RalphThe Defining Marks Of Quakerism
 The inward light as the essence of Quakerism.
 

 





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Quaker Univ Fellowship Journal - No 49 Feb 2009

Quaker Universalist Fellowship Journal - Number 49:

Universalist Friends

The Journal of the
Quaker Universalist Fellowship
 
Number 49
February 2009

In This Issue


 
 

The Quaker Universalist Fellowship is an informal gathering of persons who cherish the spirit of universality that has always been intrinsic to the Quaker faith. We acknowledge and respect the diverse spiritual experience of those within our own meetings as well as of the human family worldwide; we are enriched by our conversation with all who search sincerely. Our mission includes publishing and providing speakers and opportunities for fellowship at regional and national Quaker gatherings.

Universalist Friends and a QUF pamphlet are published twice a year and are available free to on-line subscribers. These publications are available as web pages (HTML) for browsing, ebooks (PDF) for on-line reading, and pamphlets (booked PDF) for printing. Visit our website at http://www.universalistfriends.org to enter a free on-line subscription.

If you wish to receive printed copies of these publications by regular mail, send an annual subscription fee of $25.00 to QUF at our mailing address below. Selected past QUF publications are available free to our on-line subscribers. We will send available printed copies of past publications upon request and on payment of a fee.

We trust that all of our subscribers will support our work by sending a tax-deductible contribution to QUF. You can also contribute by sharing your reflections on our publications and on your own experiences.

News from QUF

George Amoss, Jr., and Lyn Cope have recently agreed to serve on the Steering Committee of the QUF.

George is a member of Homewood Friends Meeting in Baltimore and currently attends Little Falls Meeting in Fallston, Maryland. He has served in the past on the Steering Committee, and long-time readers will remember him as having been for several years editor of Universalist Friends.

Lyn lives in Melbourne Beach, Florida and works full-time for South East Yearly Meeting, where she is responsible for design and layout, website, finance and conference support. She writes: "Philosophically, I believe that all active adult Friends have chosen to be Friends of whatever persuasion and that there seemingly is a vibrancy in meetings blessed with convinced Friends. Born into Paullina Monthly Meeting, I have chosen to remain passionately involved in the wider world of Friends. . . . My life might best be summed up with a Horace quote, `Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.'. . . [I have] a self-directed, independent, liberal value system that now I am seeing reflected in my grandchildren, which brings me full circle to QUF — I want the next generation to have the option of knowing that Quaker roots are universalist."

 

 

The year 2008 saw the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Quaker Universalist Fellowship. It was marked by an article in the August, 2008, issue of Friends Journal, in which Rhoda Gilman outlined the history of the organization. Readers of Friends Journal will have noticed several letters in later issues commenting on the nature of Quaker universalism.

Sally Rickerman's pamphlet, Trust: My Experience of Quakerism's Greatest Gift, which was published by QUF in spring, 2008, has been issued in paper format by Troll Press and is featured on the website of QuakerBooks.

 

 

Sally Rickerman writes: "I was fortunate to receive a notice from the Hawkinson Foundation in Minneapolis that our editor, Rhoda Gilman, and her daughter, Betsy Raasch-Gilman, received two of their 2008 three annual awards for Peace and Justice. Three cheers for Rhoda and may we, too, bask in her glory!"

From the Clerk

A Summary of a Conversation

The Chair of Quaker Universalist Group (QUG) in Britain (Andrew Cowan) and 

the Clerk of Quaker Universalist Fellowship (QUF) in the United States (Larry Spears) 

met for four hours of conversation at Friends House, London on November 22, 2008.

It was stimulating. The conversation was wide-ranging and enthusiastic for the role of QUG and QUF in the future of the Quaker tradition and, through Quaker witness, to the world. We recognized mutual strengths and weaknesses in current efforts and identified potential joint and parallel initiatives for consideration.

At lunch, we were joined by Alec Davison, former QUG Chair, who updated us on the outreach activities of Quaker Quest and Kindlers programs in Britain.

As a result of these conversations, based partly on points for clarification raised by QUG and QUF colleagues, we made some of these observations and suggestions for consideration by QUF and QUG for discussion and discernment:

Demographics: Both organizations currently reflect aging constituencies. Neither has a significant youth constituency. This is not promising for the future or for the current communication mechanisms of the organizations. We discussed whether universalism, by its nature, is only meaningful to those in the last chapters of life, who have accumulated sufficient experience to recognize the importance of universalism.

Web Activity: Both organizations benefit from the growth of their websites, from the immediacy and personal opportunity of e-groups and from newsletters. QUF provides fuller content of its publications. Neither has entered fully into the blogsphere. Both are shifting toward greater expansion into the Internet. QUF and QUG are moving to an online publishing presence at different speeds. Use of these web tools is helped by having like-minded partners and by skilled, dedicated administrators. Visual expression and music at QUG are developing to supplement the verbal messages.

Strategic Planning: QUG will consider framing issues for strategic planning for sharing with QUF.

Language: QUG and QUF recognize the problem of inadequate language and vocabulary in carrying on the discussion of universalism within the Quaker tradition. Language is a challenge and opportunity for QUG and QUF to make a joint contribution in clarification and augmentation of the larger discussion of universalist themes within the Quaker tradition.

Globalization Relationship: QUF and QUG see a relationship between Quaker universalism and the globalization of culture and commerce, but neither currently addresses this globalization as a spiritual or reasoning challenge or as an opportunity of major importance.

Diversity and Relativism: We discussed the need for clarification of the role and limits of theological diversity as an element of universalism within the Quaker community but did not arrive at a conclusion.

Inter-religious Dialogue: We discussed the role and limits of universalism in inter-religious consultation but did not arrive at a conclusion. How do we provide respect and appreciation for other religions without endorsing all asserted religions as of equal completeness or religious cultural practices as of equal soundness?

Environment: There is affinity within QUG and QUF for the spiritual links between universalism and planetary environmentalism, but we recognized that the conceptual basis of the relationship of universalism to environmentalism is insufficiently clarified.

Future of Universalism Within Quaker Tradition: There is an impression that universalism is part of the common denominator of unprogrammed Quakers and some programmed Quakers in Britain and the U.S. among the older cohort of Quakers. Universalism of salvation and respect for other religions is highly contested among most programmed Quakers. The views of the younger generation of Quakers are currently opaque.

Cooperation: Both QUG and QUF want to emphasize that we enjoy being collegial and hope to continue this mutually helpful relationship. Areas of potential future cooperation between the two organizations include:

1. Joint publication of selected articles and historic documents;

2. Mutual reviews of the publications of the other organization; and

3. Cross-over participation in meetings of steering committees of the two organizations.

Organizational Relations: Neither QUG nor QUF have formal correspondence relations with environmental, political or religious organizations or institutions outside of the Quaker community.

Testimonies: From the discussion of the implications of universalism for implementation of Quaker testimonies in the areas of social policy advocacy, we concluded that they need further development. We discussed the potential scope and elements of a human universalism underlying all religions and secular ideologies as a basis for global human rights policy development.

Expanded Visibility: We discussed the possibilities of expansion of the visible presence for QUF and QUG.

Quaker Quest: During the conversation, Alec Davison joined us and summarized his view of the distinctiveness of Quakers as present-day seekers, as identified from listening in nearly 100 Quaker Quest events in Britain. These distinctives included:

1. Truth: Quakers accept the truth from several sources, including science, the arts and other religious traditions.

2. Christianity: Quakers recognize their roots in the Christian tradition and the disclosing and transmission of the way of Jesus for today as developed and augmented by others, including Elizabeth Fry and John Woolman.

3. Experience: Quakers identify truth in both their individual and their community experience, subject to threshing processes.

4. Testimonies: Quakers witness to testimonies for implementation in individual and community life, which testimonies are derived from their understanding of truth. These include equality and social justice.

5. Peace: Quakers focus particular attention on the testimony of peace.

6. Sacramental Life: Quakers witness to the reality that all of life is sacramental, beyond the affirmation of that of God in everyone.

In Britain, Quaker Quest, which is for persons who are interested in Quakers, is accompanied by a program called Kindlers, which is for deepening the spiritual roots and worship within the Quaker community.

Financial Condition: Both organizations have modest budgets. QUG currently functions with a balanced budget. QUF is working toward that goal. Neither budget reflects the much greater order of magnitude of the importance of the spiritual witness these organizations have to share.

Business Model: QUF and QUG have similar business models. Both rely on contributions, subscriptions and the purchase of published materials for their income. Both are shifting toward greater expansion into the Internet. QUF and QUG are moving to an online publishing presence at different speeds. QUG runs an annual conference, designed to break even rather than to make money.

Fundraising: We discussed whether QUF and QUG should be more active fundraisers, as are so many other nonprofit organizations in order to carry out larger services.

Quaker Contributions: We discussed how the resources of the Quaker tradition could inform, clarify and assist us today in these discussions of universalism for the implementation of traditional Quaker testimonies.

We look forward to close communication as opportunities open in the future.

This was a warm and searching conversation. We both recognized the benefit of encouraging more discussion between QUG and QUF in the future to our mutual benefit.

Larry Spears

From the Editor

After three years of editing Universalist Friends and in addition taking on the task of preparing two Quaker Universalist Readers for publication, Patricia Williams laid down her editorial pen last summer. We are all grateful for her dedicated and competent service. Two new books — Universalism and Religions and Universalism and Spirituality — stand as monuments to it. Both can be purchased from the QUF bookstore on our web site.

As editor of our pamphlets and a former editor of Universalist Friends, I have volunteered to assemble the journal on its semiannual schedule until a more permanent editor can be found. Therefore any contributions, comments, and correspondence can be sent to me by e-mail at <editors @universalistfriends.org> or by regular mail to: 513 Superior Street, St. Paul, MN 55102.

We welcome essays or personal journeys related to Quaker universalism (approximate length: 1,000—3,000 words), and we especially welcome reviews of books and pamphlets, or suggestions of publications that perhaps we ought to review. In keeping with past custom, we will also include letters from readers and news and notes about the ongoing activities of the Quaker Universalist Fellowship.

Rhoda Gilman

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