Wuthering Heights — The Companion Edition (eBook)

"I am Heathcliff." Catherine Earnshaw's sentence has haunted readers since 1847 — but which text have you actually been reading? Most modern reprints descend from the edition of 1850, in which Charlotte Brontë, rescuing her dead sister's reputation, also regularized Emily's spelling and punctuation and softened Joseph's Yorkshire dialect. This Companion Edition goes back to the beginning: the complete Wuthering Heights — all thirty-four chapters, 115,872 words, unabridged — in the text of the first edition of 1847 (Thomas Cautley Newby, published under the name "Ellis Bell"), taken from Project Gutenberg eBook #768 and collated against Internet Archive scans of the 1847 printing. The choice, the 1847 printing's famous errors, and every emendation are documented in the edition's provenance note — nothing is silently modernized.

Around the novel, a companion written for reading together: an introduction on the Bells, the 1847 publication and the 1850 reissue; a Who's Who that untangles the two Catherines and the two households, with the family tree written out in plain sentences; four explainers — the narrative frame (how far to trust Lockwood and Nelly Dean), a Yorkshire dialect glossary for Joseph's speeches, moorland farming life in the two houses, and the period money and property law the plot runs on; a short life of Emily Brontë; a reading schedule; and thirty-six discussion questions, spoiler-fenced by part, so no meeting spoils the next.

The novel's text is public domain worldwide. All companion material is original to this edition. This is an independent publication, not affiliated with or endorsed by any estate or adaptation.

Formats: EPUB eBook ($9.99, this listing). Paperback ($14.99) and hardcover ($24.99) follow on KDP; the printable Book Club Kit is available in this store.