Excerpts from Contemporary Reviews of Wuthering
Heights
When Wuthering Heights was first published, the
reviewers appreciated its power and Emily Brontë's exceptional
talent. The following excerpts are typical:
- "This is a work of great ability, and contains many
chapters, to the production of which talent of no common order has
contributed. At the same time, the materials which the author has
placed at his own disposal have been but
few. In the resources of his own mind, and in his own manifestly vivid
perceptions of the peculiarities of character in
short, in his knowledge of human nature–has he found them
all.... It is not every day that so good a novel makes its appearance;
and to give its contents in detail would be depriving many a reader of
half the delight he would experience from the perusal of the work
itself. To its pages we must refer him, then; there will he have ample
opportunity of sympathising,–if he has one touch of nature that 'makes
the whole world kin'–with the feelings of childhood, youth, manhood,
and age, and
all the emotions and passions which agitate the restless
bosom of humanity. May he derive from it the delight we
have ourselves experienced, and be equally grateful to its
author for the genuine pleasure he has afforded him." (1847)
Note: This excerpt is from a clipping, one of five reviews
found in Emily's desk after her death. The source of the
clipping has not been identified.
- "There seems to us great power in this book but a
purposeless power, which we feel a great desire to see
turned to better account. We are quite confident that
the writer of Wuthering Heights wants but the practised
skill to make a great artist; perhaps, a great dramatic
artist. His qualities are, at present, excessive; a far
more promising fault, let it be remembered, than if they were
deficient. He may tone down, whereas the weak and inefficient writer,
however carefully he may write by rule and line, will never work up his
productions to the point of beauty in
art." (Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper, January
15, 1848)
- "If this book be, as we apprehend it is, the first
work of the author, we hope that he will produce a second,–giving
himself more time in its composition than in the present case,
developing his incidents more carefully, eschewing exaggeration and
obscurity, and looking steadily at human life, under all its moods, for
those pictures of the passions that he may desire to sketch for our
public benefit." (Examiner, January 1848)
- "Wuthering Heights is a strange, inartistic
story. There are evidences in every chapter of a sort of rugged
power–an unconscious strength–which the possessor seems never to think
of turning to the best advantage. The general effect is inexpressibly
painful. We know nothing in the whole range of our fictitious
literature which presents such shocking pictures of the worst forms of
humanity....
" ... The work of Currer Bell is a great
performance; that of Ellis Bell
is only a promise, but it is a colossal one." (Atlas, January
22,
1848)
Brontë: Table of Contents
March 4, 2009
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