A Demented Novel

Let's begin this long, long... long Wuthering Sunday news with a great article in The Sunday Times exploring previous Wuthering Heights adaptations and what their creators have to say about the book and the adaptation process:

First things first: Wuthering Heights is a demented novel. If people lose their minds over Emerald Fennell’s sexed-up film adaptation, remember that Emily Brontë got there first. When she published it in 1847, under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, readers were appalled by its violence and immorality, and by the incestuous, narcissistic Cathy and Heathcliff.

Fennell has taken the film in an S&M direction — a test screening featured “a bondage-tinged sexual encounter involving horse reins” — but it’s all there in the book: the floggings, the slappings, the cruelty and the shared death wish. Add a banging Charli XCX soundtrack, the Adolescence star Owen Cooper as young Heathcliff and a controversy over the leads, Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi (too old, too white: Brontë’s Heathcliff is a “Gypsy beggar” and “a lascar”), and you have a hit tailor-made for the I-love-it-I-hate-it era of film consumption.

The story, which is on the A-level English syllabus, is also fantastically complicated, but in a nutshell: Cathy Earnshaw’s father rescues the young Heathcliff from the streets of Liverpool and brings him to live in the family home on the Yorkshire moors. He and Cathy become close — but when they grow up Cathy is torn between Heathcliff and a more conventional life with their wealthy neighbour, Edgar Linton. After Heathcliff runs away she marries Linton; he returns three years later to seduce Linton’s sister Isabella, and all hell breaks loose: there are ghosts, howling storms, dug-up graves and murdered puppies.

It’s a lot, which is what attracted the director of the equally unhinged Saltburn (remember what Barry Keoghan did with a dug-up grave). Last September Fennell told the Brontë Women’s Writing Festival that Wuthering Heights “cracked me open”: “I’ve been driven mad by this book. I know that if somebody else made it I’d be furious.” When she first saw Elordi in his Heathcliff sideburns she “wanted to scream” with excitement. (...)

Despite its strangeness and deep Yorkshire roots, Brontë’s story has resonated at the level of myth — a story about crazy, stupid love that every generation wants another go at. (...)

Anna Calder-Marshall was 23 when she played Cathy opposite the future 007 Timothy Dalton in the 1970 version. The film’s US producer, Louis Heyward, wanted to shake things up, telling reporters: “Olivier and Oberon portrayed him as a regular nice guy and her as sweetness and light. That was not the truth and Hollywood now goes in for the truth. Heathcliff was a bastard and Cathy a real bitch and that’s how they’ll be.” (...)

What does [Peter] Bowker think Wuthering Heights is about? “If I wanted to piss everyone off, I’d say toxic masculinity. Really, it’s about a series of unfortunate men making very bad decisions, starting with Heathcliff being taken from Liverpool. It’s about class and generational pain — Heathcliff makes a decision to cause damage and sticks with it.” (...)

The other star of Brontë’s book is the Yorkshire moors, lovingly shot for Arnold by her longtime cinematographer Robbie Ryan despite six weeks of unwanted sunshine. “We expected it to be miserably wet,” he says, laughing. “We needed rain for a scene where Heathcliff walks away, but the pipes froze and I had to do it with a watering can from behind the camera.” Even so, the location turned into a mudbath. “I was running around with a 35mm camera in rugby boots and a T-shirt that said There Will Be Mud.” There were animals everywhere. “Tons of dogs, tons of horses. Wuthering Heights is a love story, for sure, but it’s the environment that makes it for me — it should be a shot in the arm of nature.” (Melissa Demes)

The Guardian explores how Haworth residents feel about the expected Wuthering Heights hype.

The four-mile trail from the village of Haworth to Top Withens in West Yorkshire is well trodden; numerous footprints squelched into the boggy ground by those seeking the view said to have inspired the setting for Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. The landscape rolls in desolate waves of brown bracken. A lone tree punctuates the scene. It’s bleakly, hauntingly beautiful.

With the release of Emerald Fennell’s new film of the Gothic masterpiece starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi next week, Haworth and many of the filming locations in the Yorkshire Dales national park, where the book is set, are braced for a slew of visitors.

The local residents, though, seem distinctly unfazed by the attention.

“We’re used to crowds,” shrugs Craig Verity, the landlord at the Kings Arms, a pub at the top of Haworth’s steep cobbled Main Street, just steps from the parsonage where the Brontës were raised.

Brontë country has been milking the connection for decades. On a wall in the Kings Arms, a board promotes a selection of Bridgehouse cask ales named Charlotte, Anne, Emily and Branwell, the latter being the lesser-known Brontë brother.

In the surrounding streets, there’s the Brontë Hotel and the Brontë Bar and Restaurant, as well as – somewhat tenuously – Brontë Balti. (...)

For this new film, the cast stayed at Simonstone Hall, a sumptuous country house hotel in Yorkshire Dales. It’s a 20-minute drive from here to Swaledale, where many of the scenes were shot.

“They were lovely people, and brilliantly undemanding,” said the owner, Jake Dinsdale, noting that Robbie had since been back for a stay with her husband. “Although they’d booked out all 20 rooms, our restaurant was still open to the public, and the cast enjoyed being around the firepit to toast s’mores, or sitting down to a roast dinner or afternoon tea.”

Haworth, pictured here, and many of the filming locations in the Yorkshire Dales national park are braced for a slew of visitors. Photograph: grough.co.uk/Alamy

His own attitude is equally relaxed. “I don’t know what the film will do,” he said. “It could all be a flash in the pan, and that’s fine. If it sticks, that’s also great. What I do know is that I won’t be renaming any rooms as ‘The Jacob Elordi Room’ or ‘The Heathcliff Room’. (...)

Tony Watson, head of economy and tourism for North Yorkshire council, said: “The area has featured in so many films and series; we’re experienced in managing that. Post-Covid, we were already seeing more younger people getting outdoors and exploring the county, and this demographic will doubtless grow as the film showcases the area’s beauty and authenticity.

“We’ll have to wait until the release to see whether there’s some iconic shot that people want to replicate. If there is, hopefully it will be somewhere like Aysgarth Falls, which has all of the necessary infrastructure in place – otherwise, we’ll need to suggest alternatives that don’t make mountain rescue unhappy.”

Back at The Kings Arms, Jack Greatrex, who lives in the area, is sanguine. “The Brontë sisters shaped this village for future generations, and for lovers of landscape and literature,” he said. “This film could mean that they continue to do so.”

Whatever effect the new film has, said Watson, they’re ready for it. “I’m the luckiest head of tourism imaginable – the film is going to do my job for me.” (Sarah Rodrigues)

For the upcoming visitors, we have some guides: 

The West Australian visits 'moody Yorkshire':

The moody moorland and pretty villages of Yorkshire are the romantic backdrop of the film Wuthering Heights, which is set to be released in Australia on Thursday, February 12, 2026.

Based on Emily Brontë’s novel, it stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, and is directed by Emerald Fennell.

Wuthering Heights film locations are in both the Yorkshire Dales and the West Yorkshire countryside.

It was filmed in Arkengarthdale, Swaledale and the village of Low Row.

Yorkshire Dales National Park has a starring role.

The Visit England team have come up with a two-day touring itinerary to immerse yourself in the movie, its mood and locations.

There are plenty of good places to stop — Haworth, Hawes, Arkengarthdale, Low Row and Top Withens.

Alongside confirmed filming locations, it includes places closely linked to Brontë’s life and the landscapes that inspired the novel. (Stephen Scourfield)

Yorkshire Live goes to Haworth and the Brontë Falls:

Tucked away into a corner of West Yorkshire, Top Withins stands proud against the elements it has been battered by for hundreds of years.

As a self-proclaimed big fan of Wuthering Heights, I was eager to complete the pilgrimage popular with Brontë fans. Top Withins has long been rumoured to be the inspiration behind the classic novel, and it's easy to see why. Standing high on the moors, the ruined farmhouse is exposed to wind and rain, a landscape of moorland and hills surrounding it.

Top Withins is a stone's throw away from Haworth, where Charlotte, Emily and Anne lived with their brother Branwell and father Patrick. The bustling village is now home to pubs, boutique shops and the Bronte Parsonage, which stands proud in front of the graveyard. (Sophie Corcoran)

A new literary bar and kitchen in Haworth: Writer's Bloc is in The Yorkshire Post:

The team behind the venue – Writers’ Bloc – said they are inviting visitors not just to experience Haworth, but to actively contribute to its story.

A spokesman said: “Founded by real-life couple and creative entrepreneurs Jamila Juma-Ware and Matthew Wignall, the space blends literature, cocktails and community under the ethos ‘come as strangers, leave as friends’.” (...)

To coincide with the film’s release, Writers’ Bloc is launching a Creative Love Letter Competition, encouraging guests to write love letters to Haworth itself, which celebrate the village’s power to inspire creativity. Selected letters will be displayed in the venue, with winners receiving dinner and drinks. (Greg Wright)

Vogue publishes a Wuthering Heights-Coded Guide To Brontë Country:

Haworth is a 20-minute drive through the Pennines. At the top of its cobbled high street sits the Brontë Parsonage, the house where Charlotte, Anne and Emily lived with their brother Branwell. Nestled next door is St. Michael and All Angels Church (where their father Patrick was curate) and its deeply atmospheric graveyard. Charlotte and Emily are buried in the family vault in the church; on show inside is Charlotte’s marriage certificate; she is listed with no profession despite being renowned then as the author of Jane Eyre.
The house itself is hauntingly close to when the family were in residence. The front parlour room is laid out as if they’d just broken for tea, the small dining room table they worked at scattered with a writing block and ink, newspapers, cups and saucers. But tragedy, too, isn’t far from sight; against the wall is the sofa where Emily died from Tuberculosis, aged 30. (Victoria Moss)

The Yorkshire Post visits Cahty's room, an Airbnb ‘setcation’, located in West Yorkshire:

I’ve been lucky enough to be given the opportunity to immerse myself deeper into the story, with a visit to a replica film set of Cathy’s Thrushcross Grange bedroom, which was used for shooting the new Wuthering Heights adaptation.

It was here, in the book, where some of the biggest moments happened – particularly in the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff. (...)ç

It’s a lavish, sumptuous space, with a silk canopied bed and an ornate dressing table, which encapsulates the grandeur and refinement of the Linton family’s estate, perhaps illuminating what captured Cathy’s attention as a young woman and subsequently were her reasons for marrying Linton – sealing hers and Heathcliff’s fate.

In the film, the bedroom was decorated by her husband Linton, whose design choices were an ode to his wife and her untamed spirit.

The room is apparently painted the exact Pantone shade of actress Robbie’s skin, with vein detailing across the wall panels which deepen as the film continues, representing Cathy’s intensity and wild nature. (Sophie Goodall)

Deutsche Welle has a ten-minute video piece about Wuthering Heights 2026 with particular emphasis in the alleged non-whiteness of Heathcliff. Among others, the video features Mithu Sanyal, author of

Mithu Sanyal über Emily Brontë,

Air Mail publishes an interesting article about what is and isn't Wuthering Heights 2026. The article is almost a review of the film, but not quite:

The wonder of it is that Wuthering Heights, which was declared to be “unquestionably and irredeemably monstrous” upon publication, exists at all, its creative origins forever obscured by the brief and enigmatic life of its author. The novel, published in 1847 under a male pen name (Ellis Bell), was written by Emily Brontë, a 27-year-old virgin so reclusive she makes Emily Dickinson seem positively sociable, who lived in a parsonage together with her gifted sisters and alcoholic brother in the tiny village of Haworth in Yorkshire, England. (...)

For all its heaving drama, the plot of Wuthering Heights is remarkably simple, even primitive. It is the age-old one of a soured romance, of childhood sweethearts who are foiled by the adult reality they grow into. Boy meets girl; boy falls in love with girl; boy loses girl. And then, if the boy in question happens to be Heathcliff, with his “satanic nimbus,” as one writer put it—the romantic antihero par excellence—all hell breaks loose. (...)

While watching the latest film adaptation, I kept wondering what Brontë would have made of this version of her stark, doomed story, with its graphic scenes of masturbation, B.D.S.M., and doggy-style penetration. Would she have recognized her novel at all? And what about Cathy’s outlandish, anachronistic wardrobe, replete with a red latex gown, German milkmaid corsets, and Elton John sunglasses? (...)

Influenced by the aesthetics of soft porn and high fashion, this is a movie with its sights firmly fixed on Gen Z. It works, in its edgy stylistic way, and it should sell heaps of tickets. But by simplifying the arc of the original story, ending the narrative with Cathy’s death and leaving out her ghostly haunting of Heathcliff, and by making explicit what was implicit, this Wuthering Heights is, curiously, a less subversive and radical rendering of the otherworldly, inexorable desire that Emily Brontë captured almost two centuries ago. (Daphne Merkin)

The London premiere, the bracelet, the Boucheron brouches, Brontë bun, Margot Robbie's nails... all that old news from 24 hours ago still linger on in Indulge Express, Something about Rocks (and another one), The Fashion Spot, Hello!, AzatTV, TV Azteca Chihuahua, BBC, American Salon, Daily Mail, Great British Life, Metro, The Mirror, Times of India, Grazia, Instore, The Tab, Times Now News, News18, Harper's Bazaar, Forbes...

The boost in sales of the novel is also discussed in The Express Tribune. The raunchy, kissing nature of the film is once again highlighted in the Daily Mail, The Sun, and Telegrafi. First reactions in The Cinema Group. Emerald Fennell explains the R rating of the film in Cinemablend. The Times explores "Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi and the Hollywood ‘showmance’ industry". Margot Robbie defends her casting as an older Cathy in USA Today:

Over the course of the movie, "Cathy's in her mid-20s to early 30s, which puts so much more pressure on the marriage situation," Robbie tells USA TODAY. "A bunch of people telling an 18-year-old, 'Oh, f---, you better hurry up and get married!' That doesn't really hold the same weight to a modern-day audience member."

Whereas now, "particularly for women, there's suddenly this checklist that society has given you and you better have it all ticked off by the time you're 30: get married, get a house, have your career figured out, and start thinking about kids," Robbie continues. For Gen Z and millennial moviegoers, "watching an older Cathy have that pressure might carry more weight." (Patrick Ryan)

Anna Silverman summarizes Wuthering Heights 2026's style in The Sunday Times:

 Barbie + Kim K’s gothic dress + Mills & Boon paperback = Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights

El Día (Argentina) explores the original novel by Emily Brontë:

En los páramos desolados del norte de Inglaterra, donde el viento no solo azota la tierra sino también los ánimos, Emily Brontë  levantó una de las novelas más inquietantes y perdurables de la literatura universal. Cumbres Borrascosas, publicada en 1847 bajo el seudónimo de Ellis Bell, sigue siendo una obra incómoda, feroz y profundamente actual, capaz de sacudir al lector incluso más de un siglo y medio después de su aparición. No es una historia pensada para tranquilizar ni para ofrecer consuelos fáciles: es, ante todo, una exploración descarnada de las pasiones humanas llevadas al extremo.

La novela se desarrolla en un escenario áspero y hostil que no funciona como simple decorado, sino como una prolongación emocional de los personajes. Los páramos, el clima violento y la casa que da nombre a la obra conforman un universo cerrado, casi opresivo, donde el amor, el rencor y la obsesión crecen sin freno. Allí se forja el vínculo entre Heathcliff y Catalina Earnshaw, una relación que desafía las categorías tradicionales del romanticismo. No hay idealización ni ternura permanente: lo que los une es una fuerza primitiva, absoluta, que ignora las normas sociales, la razón y hasta los límites de la vida y la muerte. (Translation)

TVO (Ontario) broadcasts the dramatized documentary In Search of the Brontës 2003. StageTalk interviews Sally Cookson, and her Jane Eyre adaptation is mentioned several times. BookClub includes Jane Eyre in a list of "books about happy women with happy endings". Only an AI could have written that. Giornale della Danza (Italy) interviews prima ballerina Silvia Selvini:

Michael Olivieri: Un romanzo da trasformare in balletto?

Cime Tempestose di Emily Brontë. (Translation)

The Yorkshire Post publishes several Haworth postcards from the Peter Tuffrey collection:

 Postcard collector, the late Norman Ellis of Ossett enthusiastically gathered as many images of West Yorkshire as he could find.

Also in The Yorkshire Post, some news about the Stop Calderdale Windfarm campaign:

Campaigners against proposals to build a giant windfarm on West Yorkshire moorland believe they are winning the battle – but the fight isn’t over yet.

The Stop Calderdale Windfarm campaigners oppose Calderdale Energy Park proposals to put giant turbines on Walshaw Moor, above Hebden Bridge.

The say in a presentation to local parish councils this month the developers revealed the have scaled back their plans for the second time.

Their original proposal in September 2023 was for 65 turbines, reduced to 41 in April 2025.

They have now reduced that number further to 34 after widespread criticism and public opposition, claims the campaign group.

The group adds the timescale for the project has also slipped, with Statutory Public Consultation previously scheduled for January now being put back to April 2026.

Despite believing it shows the developers might be on the back foot, the group warns the fight is far from over.

“The developers are clearly on the defensive, but the latest proposals would still be incredibly damaging to the carbon-rich blanket peat bogs on Walshaw Moor and the endangered ground-nesting birds which breed on this internationally important Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and Special Protection Area (SPA). (John Greenwood)

Books for the hopeless romantics in Times Now News:

Jane Eyre

A sweeping, atmospheric love story that feels timelessly tender, Jane Eyre is for romantics who adore emotional intensity wrapped in quiet strength. Jane and Mr. Rochester’s bond is slow, smoldering, and full of moral complexity, the kind of love you root for even when they stumble. It’s haunting, passionate, and beautifully earnest. Every chapter feels like a heartbeat you can hear, not just read. (Simran Sukhnani)

Broadway World Chicago reviews Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors:

[Valerie] Martire’s Lucy shares more in common with Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre than her original fictional counterpart. She desires for adventure and a place in society in which her knowledge and accomplishments can be celebrated, not buried under the weight of matrimony. ( Misha Davenport)

Places to visit in the Peak District in The Sunday Times:

 5. Hathersage, Derbyshire

“High banks of moor were about me; the crag protected my head: the sky was over that.” So narrates the eponymous Jane Eyre in Charlotte Brontë’s beloved novel. Having stayed in Hathersage in 1845, Brontë set her story in the charming Hope Valley village. Also inspiring her, as per that quote, was the surrounding, brooding Dark Peak scenery, and not least Stanage Edge — a four-mile gritstone ridge that offers memorable vistas for miles. Modern-day Hathersage has a heated outdoor pool, but you may just prefer its churchyard. Little John, Robin Hood’s loyal outlaw companion, is supposedly buried here, as a gravestone attests. (Oliver Perry)

Nice Bastard Blog (in German) posts about how Emily Brontë's poems and a French anorexic novelist inspired a small publishing house. The Behind the Glass podcast's latest guest is Elizabeth The Thisty:

Mia and Sam are joined by THE drag queen historian Elizabeth the Thirsty.

We share our love for making history fun, imagine a Brontë-themed drag show and learn about a secret language used by the Georgians...