Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë · 1847
Emily Bronte's only novel, published in 1847 and unlike anything before or since. A love story that doubles as a ghost story, a class drama, and a portrait of obsession so intense it warps the narrative itself. Heathcliff is English literature's most violently compelling anti-hero. It burns.
The case against
Everything arrives secondhand: Lockwood tells you what Nelly told him, sometimes what Nelly heard from a servant, so the wildest passion in English fiction reaches you through two layers of gossip. The second generation's story is a long cooling-off. And Heathcliff hangs a dog, torments a dying woman, and imprisons a teenager; calling this a great romance requires skipping pages.
Literary Fiction · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
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