I don't have a collection so it was fascinating looking at some of your different covers as well as an extended bouquet--likely not the full array--with a google search of images. In my ramble I spied a Classics Illustrated (comic strip version?) where the headband is giving...devil horn vibes?
What I'm musing on on in this moment: is there a cover in your collection, or one that you're coveting, that feels closest to EJB's WH?
Ah!--Classics Illustrated. There are a couple versions of that--I think they are comic books, yea. The devil horn headband one also includes a scary neon green stole strangling her--what in the actual? There is another one (from 1990) in which both Catherine and Heathcliff look like scowling Rugrats--I kind of want to get my hands on them, for the amusement factor.
Wait, you don't remember the scene with the scary neon green stole?!?!? Clearly another close read is in order with, perhaps, 439 Neon Green in hand lol. I'm off to spy the rugrat version...for the amusement factor.
After much consideration...I have decided that the cover image in my collection which is most accurate (but certainly not very *pretty*) is the Norton 3rd Edition, which includes a fir tree sketched by EJB on its cover and a ring ouzel sketched by EJB on its back cover.
While I have some gorgeous editions--they are always, always inaccurate.Often, the setting is 'whimsical,' and the trees are unidentifiable. Catherine is always tiny-waisted and petite-framed and Heathcliff's hair is always short and neat.
Speaking of inaccurate Heathcliff...today I was near tears laughing about my latest Jacob Elordi observation: his robust hoop earring. I'm not sure if he is supposed to be the Lascar sailor-Heathcliff or the gypsy-Heathcliff but it is hilariously absurd.
How did I miss this reply? I will have to go seek out the absurd glint--or rather glare--of the robust hoop earring.
Thank you for such thoughtful consideration to my question and for sharing your thoughts here as well as in notes along with images of book covers. Your laser cut beloved hugged by a seat belt was so sweet! How wonderful that the most accurate includes nature by EJB's own hand! Plus, there's the added bonus of the number 3 in the Norton title. :)
My Norton is featuring the ruins of Top Withens, Yorkshire. The credit says it’s supposed to be inspiration for WH. It’s a stock photo so no mention of painter/printmaker. No steamy romance come-on here! As an aside when Heathcliff found in garden by Nelly (vol II, chap. II) my edition says “ousels” as “blackbirds” so maybe that’s the disconnect for other Friedrich painting cover?
I love that you are so obsessed. I read your line “there are no crows (or ravens)…” and I had just read the day before of blackbirds in the garden so thought it must be me misremembering .. found ousel/footnote etc. I looked up pic - quite different! Ok off to read your piece on ousels. Thanks!
Hi Matt--yes, Top Withens has long been associated with Wuthering Heights as the setting (but not the literal farmhouse). A plaque is erected there that reads: This farmhouse has been associated with "Wuthering Heights," the Earnshaw home in Emily Brontë's novel. The buildings, even when complete, bore no resemblance to the house she described, but the situation may have been in her mind when she wrote of the moorland setting of the Heights.
Also--I agree, I don't doubt Friedrich's "black" birds are being associated to ousels. And, I've seen a number of contemporary editors' annotations refer to ousels as "blackbirds."
I imagine American publishers also utilize imagery of any "black" bird because so many readers might be unfamiliar with the ousel--either way, I *do* love Friedrich's painting!
I understand that publishers (one of whom is a good friend of mine, and we discuss these things often) privilege what they believe to be the tastes and cultural backgrounds of a novel's potential readership above the actual minutiae of the novel's content. Consequently, since Wuthering Heights is frequently regarded in the popular imagination as a 'Romance', there has been a tendency to use conventional romantic images, especially well-known pictures or popularly recognised iconography, on cover art, as anything else might be too difficult to 'sell' to certain readers. Yes, it is intensely frustrating for writers or people like us who are deeply invested in the content, but sadly it's a case of commerce triumphing, as it so often does, over artistic integrity.
Thank you Elizabeth, for this additional insight. I must confess, one of my most beloved editions of Wuthering Heights (a Collins Clear-Type Press) is a movie tie-in from 1939, which includes black and white photographs of the terribly handsome (and well-known) Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. I've noticed that for many years following the release of that particular film, cover images of Heathcliff were designed to mimic the aesthetic of Olivier.
Have you ever seen a film called Devotion about the life of the Brontes? 1940s Hollywood thought that the Yorkshire moors have little steps cut into them so that Ida Lupino, Olivia de Havilland, and Nancy Coleman could scamper prettily. I watched it with my dad decades ago and for years afterwards we would quote from it: “Morning Dickens!” “Morning Thackeray!” Unintentionally hilarious.
I've not seen it...but it certainly sounds hilarious. Hollywood has always had a knack for the unintentionally absurd...I'll have to see if I can find it.
Your comment is amusing to imagine because I was just watching To Walk Invisible the other evening and the sisters are certainly not scampering in that biographical offering!
Brilliant read! This is exactly my feelings right now! I’m only halfway through as a first time reader and it is absolutely nothing like I have always believed it would be. To my shame, I have oft dismissed this book thinking it would be a bit ‘slushy’ and how wrong was that! I am completely immersed and very grateful for your guides.
I hadn’t really considered the importance of the dust jacket / blurb being faithful to the contents, but as you say, EJB has done all the work already by providing so much detail.
I still have the treat of the 34 essays to come to later down the line (I guess in my second read!).
I don't have a collection so it was fascinating looking at some of your different covers as well as an extended bouquet--likely not the full array--with a google search of images. In my ramble I spied a Classics Illustrated (comic strip version?) where the headband is giving...devil horn vibes?
What I'm musing on on in this moment: is there a cover in your collection, or one that you're coveting, that feels closest to EJB's WH?
Ah!--Classics Illustrated. There are a couple versions of that--I think they are comic books, yea. The devil horn headband one also includes a scary neon green stole strangling her--what in the actual? There is another one (from 1990) in which both Catherine and Heathcliff look like scowling Rugrats--I kind of want to get my hands on them, for the amusement factor.
Wait, you don't remember the scene with the scary neon green stole?!?!? Clearly another close read is in order with, perhaps, 439 Neon Green in hand lol. I'm off to spy the rugrat version...for the amusement factor.
After much consideration...I have decided that the cover image in my collection which is most accurate (but certainly not very *pretty*) is the Norton 3rd Edition, which includes a fir tree sketched by EJB on its cover and a ring ouzel sketched by EJB on its back cover.
While I have some gorgeous editions--they are always, always inaccurate.Often, the setting is 'whimsical,' and the trees are unidentifiable. Catherine is always tiny-waisted and petite-framed and Heathcliff's hair is always short and neat.
Speaking of inaccurate Heathcliff...today I was near tears laughing about my latest Jacob Elordi observation: his robust hoop earring. I'm not sure if he is supposed to be the Lascar sailor-Heathcliff or the gypsy-Heathcliff but it is hilariously absurd.
How did I miss this reply? I will have to go seek out the absurd glint--or rather glare--of the robust hoop earring.
Thank you for such thoughtful consideration to my question and for sharing your thoughts here as well as in notes along with images of book covers. Your laser cut beloved hugged by a seat belt was so sweet! How wonderful that the most accurate includes nature by EJB's own hand! Plus, there's the added bonus of the number 3 in the Norton title. :)
3s have my heart! ♡
My Norton is featuring the ruins of Top Withens, Yorkshire. The credit says it’s supposed to be inspiration for WH. It’s a stock photo so no mention of painter/printmaker. No steamy romance come-on here! As an aside when Heathcliff found in garden by Nelly (vol II, chap. II) my edition says “ousels” as “blackbirds” so maybe that’s the disconnect for other Friedrich painting cover?
I love that you are so obsessed. I read your line “there are no crows (or ravens)…” and I had just read the day before of blackbirds in the garden so thought it must be me misremembering .. found ousel/footnote etc. I looked up pic - quite different! Ok off to read your piece on ousels. Thanks!
It's a good kind of obsessed. ♡
Yes...the ring ousel is quite different-looking from a crow or a raven. And, they are found at Thrushcross Grange (in the novel)--Perfect!
Hi Matt--yes, Top Withens has long been associated with Wuthering Heights as the setting (but not the literal farmhouse). A plaque is erected there that reads: This farmhouse has been associated with "Wuthering Heights," the Earnshaw home in Emily Brontë's novel. The buildings, even when complete, bore no resemblance to the house she described, but the situation may have been in her mind when she wrote of the moorland setting of the Heights.
Also--I agree, I don't doubt Friedrich's "black" birds are being associated to ousels. And, I've seen a number of contemporary editors' annotations refer to ousels as "blackbirds."
Ousels are in fact, thrushes. I wrote about them here (in my Autumn 2025 read-along): https://symbolismandstructure.substack.com/i/172973042/a-pair-of-ousels-passing
I imagine American publishers also utilize imagery of any "black" bird because so many readers might be unfamiliar with the ousel--either way, I *do* love Friedrich's painting!
I understand that publishers (one of whom is a good friend of mine, and we discuss these things often) privilege what they believe to be the tastes and cultural backgrounds of a novel's potential readership above the actual minutiae of the novel's content. Consequently, since Wuthering Heights is frequently regarded in the popular imagination as a 'Romance', there has been a tendency to use conventional romantic images, especially well-known pictures or popularly recognised iconography, on cover art, as anything else might be too difficult to 'sell' to certain readers. Yes, it is intensely frustrating for writers or people like us who are deeply invested in the content, but sadly it's a case of commerce triumphing, as it so often does, over artistic integrity.
Thank you Elizabeth, for this additional insight. I must confess, one of my most beloved editions of Wuthering Heights (a Collins Clear-Type Press) is a movie tie-in from 1939, which includes black and white photographs of the terribly handsome (and well-known) Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. I've noticed that for many years following the release of that particular film, cover images of Heathcliff were designed to mimic the aesthetic of Olivier.
Have you ever seen a film called Devotion about the life of the Brontes? 1940s Hollywood thought that the Yorkshire moors have little steps cut into them so that Ida Lupino, Olivia de Havilland, and Nancy Coleman could scamper prettily. I watched it with my dad decades ago and for years afterwards we would quote from it: “Morning Dickens!” “Morning Thackeray!” Unintentionally hilarious.
I've not seen it...but it certainly sounds hilarious. Hollywood has always had a knack for the unintentionally absurd...I'll have to see if I can find it.
Your comment is amusing to imagine because I was just watching To Walk Invisible the other evening and the sisters are certainly not scampering in that biographical offering!
Brilliant read! This is exactly my feelings right now! I’m only halfway through as a first time reader and it is absolutely nothing like I have always believed it would be. To my shame, I have oft dismissed this book thinking it would be a bit ‘slushy’ and how wrong was that! I am completely immersed and very grateful for your guides.
I hadn’t really considered the importance of the dust jacket / blurb being faithful to the contents, but as you say, EJB has done all the work already by providing so much detail.
I still have the treat of the 34 essays to come to later down the line (I guess in my second read!).
I'm grateful you're finding the guides helpful, Dawn. Slushy, it is not--ha! ♡
My unintentional glimpse into one book jacket is making me want to do a close study of all my editions--just to compare the text!