In Our Time: Wuthering Heights

Today, September 28 on BBC Radio 4:

In Our Time: Wuthering Heights
Presenter: Melvyn Bragg
With Karen O'Brien, John Bowen and Alexandra Lewis
Producer: Simon Tillotson
BBC Radio 4, 9am

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emily Bronte (1818-1848) and her only novel, published in 1847 under the name 'Ellis Bell' just a year before her death. It is the story of Heathcliff, a foundling from Liverpool brought up in the Earnshaw family at the remote Wuthering Heights, high on the moors, who becomes close to the young Cathy Earnshaw but hears her say she can never marry him. He disappears and she marries his rival, Edgar Linton, of Thrushcross Grange even though she feels inextricably linked with Heathcliff, exclaiming to her maid 'I am Heathcliff!' On his return, Heathcliff steadily works through his revenge on all who he believes wronged him, and their relations. When Cathy dies, Heathcliff longs to be united with her in the grave. The raw passions and cruelty of the story unsettled Emily's sister Charlotte Bronte, whose novel Jane Eyre had been published shortly before, and who took pains to explain its roughness, jealousy and violence when introducing it to early readers. Over time, with its energy, imagination and scope, Wuthering Heights became celebrated as one of the great novels in English.

The Times's radio pick of today is precisely this program:

In Our Time (Radio 4, 9am/9.30pm)
Wuthering Heights, the extraordinarily intense Emily Brontë novel that has inspired films, radio and TV adaptations, operas and Kate Bush’s most famous song, is Melvyn Bragg’s topic today.  (Paul Donovan)

Also today, an alert in Urretxu (Spain):

Literatura de Mujeres del Mundo, a las 18.30 horas en la Biblioteca municipal de Urretxu, se abordará la obra 'Jane Eyre' de Charlotte Brontë. (Diario Vasco)