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Wuthering Heights Audiobook
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(3.88) - 25 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
The sole novel of Emily Brontë, who died a year after its publication at the age of thirty, Wuthering Heights is one of the most original classics in the canon of English literature. Set amid the wild and stormy Yorkshire moors, it is the tale of childhood playmates who grow into soul mates, and whose tempestuous natures and obsessive love eventually destroy them and those around them.
High on a windy hill, the old gothic manor of Wuthering Heights is the ancestral home of the lordly Earnshaw family. When kind Mr. Earnshaw adopts Heathcliff, a wild child from the slums, he unwittingly sets in motion a cycle of love and revenge that will possess his family for a generation. Heathcliff is despised and abused by Earnshaw’s son and heir, Hindley, who views him as a rival. But Heathcliff’s tempestuous nature finds its match in Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine, and the two become inseparable.
When Hindley becomes master of the estate, he forces Heathcliff to work as a degraded hired hand. Cathy, now divided from Heathcliff by social status, decides to marry the civilized Edgar Linton in hopes of gaining leverage to protect Heathcliff from her brother. To her despair, Heathcliff disappears; but he returns a few years later, now a wealthy gentleman, intent on using his new power to ruin Hindley, Edgar, and anyone who dared to drive a wedge between him and Cathy.
Fraught with psychological tension and supernatural atmosphere, Wuthering Heights is a haunting tale of the exalted heights and destructive depths of human passion.
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"Most people I know adore Jane Eyre and don't care for Wuthering Heights. I, on the other hand, can't stand Jane Eyre and love Wuthering Heights. It's everything I usually hate in a romance: high drama, fierce emotion, a brooding hero (or in this case, anti-hero), but for some reason I come back to this book time and time again and love every single reading. Wuthering Heights makes me long to experience all of the wildness of the moors. The setting plays such a key role in this novel, which I think is one of the reasons I'm not turned off by the drama of the story. Everything works so perfectly together. It's amazing that Emily Bronte was able to write a novel like this leading the relatively cloistered life that she did."
— Melanie (5 out of 5 stars)
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“Carolyn Seymour conducts a graceful dance over the stormy moors in her performance of this dark, complex novel. Readers who kept a safe distance from the gruff Heathcliff in other versions of the book may fall for his tormented soul in this production. Seymour’s rendition of this iconic character makes Heathcliff a simultaneously loathsome and lovable figure…Seymour’s narration shines when she takes on the less-than-warm cast who populate Wuthering Heights and its surrounding environs. Her snappy dialogue and blend of sharp humor and compassion for the characters make this audiobook a fine view of a classic.”
— AudioFile -
“[My favorite novelist of all time is] Emily Brontë, author of the greatest psychological novel ever written, with the most complex character ever conceived. Read Wuthering Heights when you’re eighteen and you think Heathcliff is a romantic hero; when you’re thirty, he’s a monster; at fifty you see he’s just human.”
— Alice Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author -
“[A] classic tale of possessive and thwarted passion…There is something magnificent about the depth and intensity of their love…It is hard not to listen in awe when Catherine cries out, ‘I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind; not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.’”
— Erica Bauermeister, 500 Great Books by Women -
“It is as if Emily Brontë could tear up all that we know human beings by, and fill these unrecognizable transparencies with such a gust of life that they transcend reality.”
— Virginia Woolf -
“Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book—baffling all regular criticism; yet it is impossible to begin and not finish it; and quite as impossiple to lay it aside afterwards and say nothing about it...We strongly recommend all our readers who love novelty to get this story, for we can promise them that they never have read anything like it before.”
— Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper (January 1848) -
“If the rank of a work of fiction is to depend solely on its naked imaginative power, then this is one of the greatest novels in the language.”
— G. W. Peck, The American Review: A Whig Journal of Politics, Literature, Art and Science (June 1848)
Wuthering Heights Listener Reviews
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" I listened to this because I felt like I needed to listen to a Classic and it is a Classic and I am glad I listened but the characters are so obviously imbalanced and troubled. Positive I will never re-listen. "
— Marcie, 10/26/2019 -
" Poignant, resonant, and skillfully written; a powerful Gothic romance with memorable characters and complex moral ideas. A good read and an essential experience for any high school English student. Outstanding. "
— Matt, 2/15/2014 -
" I live dark and tragic love stories. "
— Audrey, 2/10/2014 -
" It seems difficult to understand at first, then gradually I caught up the hidden meaning and situation between those great lines. "
— Nga, 2/5/2014 -
" This was my grandmother's favorite book. There is something compelling about Heathcliff. "
— Katy, 1/22/2014 -
" This story was ok. Only hard part to follow was the character they were talking about at the time due to trying to keep track of the names (some characters were referred to by different names at different times). "
— Sandi, 12/25/2013 -
" A book that stayed me with me a long time. "
— Keila, 12/23/2013 -
" Nellie Dean is a cow. What a memory though. Loved it from beginning to end. Recommend Emily Bronte's poetry if you can find it. "
— Joanne, 12/22/2013 -
" One of my favorite stories "
— Alma, 12/17/2013 -
" This was a dark and fascinating story- full of angst and emotion and nature, it was a proper Romantic piece. I listened to this as an audiobook,and it was extremely well narrated. I looked forward to each car ride as the mystery behind Wuthering Heights unraveled. "
— Melanie, 12/9/2013 -
" I hated this book with a passion. And I hated my teacher for making me read it -.- "
— Shelby, 12/8/2013 -
" It was like a 19th century soap opera, complete with love triangle, deception and, of course, revenge. "
— Brian, 11/28/2013 -
" Interesting, sad story. It seemed like it ended before I was really completed. "
— Clare, 11/25/2013 -
" Tried 3 times, can't get through it. "
— Victoria, 11/5/2013 -
" The only book of my A level English Literature course that I truly remember enjoying. What a blast. Primal, visceral, epic. Did Bronte actually know what she was writing? Like, how big it was? Properly inspirational and beautifully mad. "
— Chas, 10/26/2013 -
" I have been reading only the part of introduction and found out that this women was having a hard time surviving when she was writing this book. am very looking froward to read the first chapter. "
— Yoonjo, 7/5/2013 -
" MUY HERMOSA , PERO TRISTE FINAL. "
— Chany, 1/12/2013 -
" not a style I am used to and took a while to get used to this style. It was difficult to decide whether i enjoyed the book until i reached the end. By the last page i decided that i enjoyed the style of writing and consequently the book. "
— Natalie, 12/27/2012 -
" Not my cup of tea. "
— Allendra, 5/15/2012 -
" An excellent snapshot of the era in which it was written, a very complex philosophical journey into the root of how people become who they are, and how they become more than that. "
— Tommie, 11/2/2011 -
" I was dumbfounded of the story. I really appreciated the work of Emily Bronte, she's my favorite author and that she wrote the Wuthering Heights well. It was such a nice story yet a complicated one but still a good story to read.. You'll learn what life is... "
— Jehan, 10/21/2010 -
" I just felt that it was a very bland story and I just didn't love it. It lacked depth and was rather boring. "
— Ruth, 7/2/2010 -
" Still trying to make up my mind if I really liked it... "
— Orla, 6/27/2010 -
" It's not bad. she just couldn't describe the conflict well. "
— Abdalla, 4/24/2010
About Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë (1818–1848), sister of Anne and Charlotte, published only one novel in her career, Wuthering Heights. Though she died just one year after its publication and never knew of its success, the story of doomed love and revenge went on to earn its place among the masterpieces of English literature.
About Carolyn Seymour
Carolyn Seymour is a voice artist and audiobook narrator. She was born in England and grew up on a farm on the Isle of Wight. Her rather eccentric Russian Irish parents instilled in her a love of reading and a passion for the countryside.