All about Wuthering Heights

Today marks the 176th anniversary of the death of Anne Brontë in Scarborough.

The Yorkshire Evening Post reports that Bradford 2025 expects the forthcoming Wuthering Heights film 'to spark new wave of tourism'.

The striking wild moorland surrounding West Yorkshire town Haworth is the vivid inspiration for some of the greatest literary classics.

And it is set to capture the imagination once more when Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights takes to the big screen next year with a star studded cast including Margot Robbie.

But the Brontë sisters’ works continue to be some of the best loved novels in the world and the team a the Parsonage Museum, where they once called their home, are making sure their legacy continues to live on as Bradford marks its year as the City of Culture.

Home to the largest collection of Bronte items in the world the dedicated team work to preserve and educate visitors from across the globe as the literary love affair with their work continues.

Rebecca Yorke, director of Brontë Parsonage, said: “The Brontë’s were a family of six children and they grew up here in Haworth at the parsonage having moved from Thornton in Bradford where they were born.

“Their mother died very young which, is of course, very tragic for them as small children and Mr Brontë knows doing his best to bring them up with an aunt from Cornwall.

“It was a life full of tragedy but resilience and they survived against all the odds and have written some of the best loved novels in the world.

“They were writing about things that clergymen's daughters weren't normally writing about and that's down to Mr Bronëe giving them such freedom with their learning and reading when they were when they were younger.

“They had access to all sorts of material, newspapers, Byron, poetry and things that might have not seemed appropriate for young children but he was very forward-thinking and they had their own ideas and, of course, their vivid imaginations.”

Currently the team expect around 65,000 visitors with many coming to tick the museum off their Bucket List.

And as the city celebrates its year of culture, Haworth is home to the Wild Uplands Project. There will be a series of new contemporary artworks created by national and international artists transforming Penistone Hill Country Park into an open-air gallery until October 12.

The museum is also set to welcome a loan from the National Portrait Gallery of Branwell Bronte’s portrait of his sister Emily - back in the place where it was painted so many years ago.

But as well as welcoming visitors from across the globe the team at the Parsonage remains keen to remind people living in and around Bradford of the treasure right on their doorsteps.

Rebecca Yorke added: “We really want to remind people that live locally that we are here on your doorstep, a gem in the Bradford heritage crown and that we would love to see some of our local residents as well.

“Lots of local residents tell us that they came on a school trip and haven't been since and this is the year to put that right.”

And ahead of next year’s release of Wuthering Heights, the museum is hosting a special exhibition highlighting the enduring legacy of the Brontë sisters through TV and film adaptations.

Rebecca Yorke added: “Haworth started to become famous even in the Brontë's day. There were people coming to find the writer of Jane Eyre and hoping to get a glimpse of Charlotte Brontë in church or meet her father.

“And, of course, there's been lots of screen adaptations and films since then which have been seen all over the world, screened in many different languages.

“And we thought this exhibition, the subject of this exhibition was perfect fit for Bradford City of Culture 2025, what with Bradford being a UNESCO City of Film and also the global appeal of Brontë enthusiasts across the world.

“We always see an uptick in visitor numbers when a new adaptation comes out and we're always delighted to share information and sell books and talk to visitors about adaptations that they've seen and enjoyed.

“And we're looking forward next year to the new version of Wuthering Heights directed by Emerald Fennell and starring Margot Robbie.”

The Independent has eight writers pick the book that made them who they are today and two of them pick Wuthering Heights.

Kate Mosse: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

A brilliant and ambitious novel – published in 1847, the year before she died – it’s about violence, about the power of landscape, about obsession, about race and the restrictions on women’s lives and a ghost story to boot. More than anything, it’s a novel that changed what was possible for women to write and inspired the sort of novelist I would, years later, become. The final paragraph – when the narrator Lockwood looks at the headstones of Heathcliff, Catherine Earnshaw and Edgar Linton on the moors – is all beauty, all reflection, and brings tears to my eyes every time I read it. [...]

Joanne Harris: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

I first read Wuthering Heights at 15, thinking it was a love story. And so it is in many ways: there’s toxic love, and thwarted love; and innocent love, and delusional love. But mostly I fell in love with the words, and the very familiar scenery of the Yorkshire Moors, which, of course, is the real love story: the one between Brontë and her world. I re-read it every few years. It’s like going for a favourite walk, where every time I see something new. (Annabel Nugent)

Nerd Daily has a Q&A with writer Mikki Daughtry:

The one [book] that you can’t stop thinking about: I will never be able to stop thinking about Wuthering Heights or One Hundred Years of Solitude. (Elise Dumpleton)

Wuthering Heights is also the first go-to book to escape so-called 'BookTok Burnout' according to Trill.

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

For fans of A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Mass

Fans of passionate enemies-to-lovers, class issues, social conflict, and a brooding male protagonist will love Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.

While Wuthering Heights isn’t necessarily a fantasy novel, the Gothic supernatural elements should be enough to satisfy any fantasy lover, especially when coupled with the politics of gender roles and class conflict. Swap out the faerie realm for the Yorkshire Moors, and you’ve essentially got the same book—and, bonus points for an unmatched level of yearning. (Talia Pirron)