The Short Version
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë’s only novel, first published in 1847 under the name Ellis Bell, is a rewarding club pick because almost nobody in it is simply good, so every member can defend a different character. It is more about obsession and revenge than romance. A gentleman called Lockwood rents Thrushcross Grange, visits his rough landlord Heathcliff, and hears the story of two families from the housekeeper, Nelly Dean.
Below are twenty questions: ten you can use before everyone has finished, and ten that spoil the ending. A short section covers the film adaptations. Our review scores the book four and a half out of five. It runs a bit over a hundred thousand words in thirty-four chapters, and our advice is to expect confusion for about fifty pages and keep going.
Before You Start: Content Notes For Your Group
The book contains child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, cruelty to animals, alcoholism, threats of murder, grief, illness and death. It has no explicit sex scenes. The language of the time includes racialised and class-based insults aimed at one character. Mention this to your group before choosing it.
Spoiler-Free Questions
- The story is told by two narrators, Lockwood and Nelly, with one story inside the other. Which narrator did you trust, and what might each leave out?
- Lockwood is trapped by a snowstorm, finds the name Catherine scratched on the window ledge, and has a nightmare of a child’s ghost begging to be let in. How does this opening set the tone?
- Brontë writes the moors as a living force, with wind, snow and mud. Which setting did you picture most clearly?
- Old Mr Earnshaw brings home a dark, ragged orphan from Liverpool and names him Heathcliff. Why does Hindley hate him while Catherine adores him?
- Catherine tells Nelly she has accepted Edgar because he is handsome and rich, yet being his wife feels as wrong as being in heaven. Is she selfish, trapped or both?
- Her famous line is that Heathcliff is more herself than she is. Is that love, or something else?
- Heathcliff hears only that it would degrade her to marry him, and leaves for three years. Does he share the blame for what follows?
- Joseph speaks in thick Yorkshire dialect. Did you read it aloud, skim it, or give up?
- Our review says almost everyone is unlikable. Which character did you want to root for, or are you team Heathcliff, team Catherine or team Nelly?
- Is Wuthering Heights a love story? Defend your answer with one scene.
Spoiler Questions (Finish The Book First)
- Catherine locks herself in her room, starves and falls into delirium, then dies two hours after giving birth. Who bears the most blame?
- Heathcliff returns rich and elopes with Isabella to hurt Edgar and get a hold on the Linton fortune. What does Isabella’s escape in the snow say about his cruelty?
- Heathcliff gains the mortgage on Hindley’s land and raises Hareton as a servant who cannot read. Is the cruelty shown to children the book’s central point?
- Heathcliff tricks young Cathy into marrying the sickly Linton, so the Grange and the Heights both pass to him. Is this revenge or something sadder?
- Why does Brontë add a second generation? Our ending page reads it as the same story with a different answer. Do you agree?
- Cathy mocks Hareton’s reading, he throws his books on the fire, and later she gives him a book wrapped in paper. Is this the book’s moral center?
- Heathcliff finds that he holds every lever to destroy the two houses and cannot be bothered to pull them, because Hareton and Cathy both have Catherine’s eyes. Is he redeemed?
- Heathcliff dies in the old panelled bed with the window open and what looks like a smile. Was it a release or a defeat?
- The shepherd boy and Joseph say two figures walk the moor, Nelly says the dead are at peace, and Lockwood is not sure. Which narrator do you believe?
- Nelly admits she mistreated Heathcliff as a child, carried tales and arranged the secret meeting with the dying Catherine. How reliable is she?
The Films
The 1939 film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon adapts only sixteen of the thirty-four chapters and ends with an invented scene of two ghosts walking away through the snow. The 1992 film with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche is one of the few major versions that keeps the second generation. Andrea Arnold’s 2011 film concentrates on childhood and teenage years. The 2026 film, written and directed by Emerald Fennell with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, released by Warner Bros on February 13, is a loose reimagining that covers roughly the first half and cuts the second generation. In the novel, Heathcliff’s ancestry is never stated: he is called a dark-skinned gypsy and one character guesses he might be a Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway.
What To Read Next
If your group wants more, our characters guide helps keep the families straight, and our book versus film page compares every adaptation. If you want to read spoiler-free first, start with the review, and use the ending explained page after your discussion. Our review suggests Jane Eyre, Rebecca and Frankenstein for readers who enjoyed this.
