September 19, 1850.




EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION OF 'WUTHERING HEIGHTS'




I have just read over 'Wuthering Heights,' and, for the first time,
have obtained a clear glimpse of what are termed (and, perhaps,
really are) its faults; have gained a definite notion of how it
appears to other people--to strangers who knew nothing of the
author; who are unacquainted with the locality where the scenes of
the story are laid; to whom the inhabitants, the customs, the
natural characteristics of the outlying hills and hamlets in the
West Riding of Yorkshire are things alien and unfamiliar.

To all such 'Wuthering Heights' must appear a rude and strange
production. The wild moors of the North of England can for them
have no interest: the language, the manners, the very dwellings
and household customs of the scattered inhabitants of those
districts must be to such readers in a great measure
unintelligible, and--where intelligible--repulsive. Men and women
who, perhaps, naturally very calm, and with feelings moderate in
degree, and little marked in kind, have been trained from their
cradle to observe the utmost evenness of manner and guardedness of
language, will hardly know what to make of the rough, strong
utterance, the harshly manifested passions, the unbridled