Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights , one of the greatest Western classics, a precursor to the Gothic novel, translated and retold by the great Brazilian writer Rachel de Queiroz. This edition is part of Carina's Club box set number 5.

Emily Brontë was an independent woman, incapable of being "tamed"—traits evident in Wuthering Heights , this masterpiece of the Gothic genre, initially published under the male pseudonym Ellis Bell. The writer died in 1848, twelve months after the publication of her only novel, little suspecting that she would join the select group of great names in world literature.

In an era ruled by Puritanism, Wuthering Heights was met with harsh criticism. The shock was even greater when, in 1850, its true authorship was revealed to a society accustomed to judging women who, like Emily, strayed from a fanciful feminine ideal. The narrative of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw's corrosive love, however, is so mesmerizing that it captivates readers in the tangle of complex layers of the human mind. And also in the plot of a violent, dark passion, capable of surviving even death.

There was no character quite like Heathcliff in literature. Considered a Byronic hero or the archetypal tormented antihero, he is driven by fury, jealousy, and revenge. He destroys everything in his path, including—and above all—himself. Catherine Earnshaw, on the other hand, is not far from this. Torn between love and ambition, she is the opposite of the perfect romantic model. Cathy is a free spirit, a spoiled and arrogant young woman who tortures and drives to agony all who dare to love her.

Wuthering Heights , translated and retold in this edition by the great Brazilian writer Rachel de Queiroz, is undoubtedly an intense masterpiece. And more than just a tragic story of perdition, it is a meticulous and frightening analysis of the cruelty of love, human perversity, and trauma—the kind that often returns to knock and knock at the window, even if we leave it securely locked.

- Carina Rissi