Lockwood, the narrator, has just rented a large, secluded house called Thrushcross Grange in the desolate moors of Yorkshire in northern England. When he goes to visit his landlord, a Mr. Heathcliff, who lives a few miles away at a smaller place called Wuthering Heights, he finds his new neighbor surly and quarrelsome. Forced to spend the night there because of a snowstorm, he dreams of a ghost calling itself Catherine Linton. Back at the Grange, he asks his housekeeper, Ellen (Nelly) Dean, to tell him about the strange household at Wuthering Heights. Mrs. Dean's story begins thirty years before, when Wuthering Heights was the home of a respectable family called the Earnshaws. After a visit to Liverpool, Mr. Earnshaw has brought home a stray gypsy lad, whom he calls Heathcliff, to raise with his own children, Hindley and Catherine. Catherine feels a special closeness with Heathcliff, but Hindley hates him because the gypsy boy is Mr. Earnshaw's favorite. Shortly after his father dies, Hindley comes home from school with a new wife, and forces Heathcliff into the role of servant. Cathy takes Heathcliff's side, and the two run wild together on the moors, eventually falling in love. On one of their rambles they are caught peeking into the windows of Thrushcross Grange, where the Lintons live. The Linton children, Edgar and Isabella, are afraid of the rough Heathcliff, but become fond of Catherine, who is forced to stay with them for several weeks to recover from the bite of their watchdog. When Cathy returns home, she's dressed like a lady and has given up her wild ways. She laughs at Heathcliff's black, cross look, and he runs off in anger. Hindley's wife dies soon after bearing a son, and in his grief Hindley treats Heathcliff worse than ever. Cathy and Heathcliff have also been arguing intensely. Thus when Edgar Linton proposes, Cathy accepts. Afterward she tells Ellen, the housekeeper, that Edgar is handsome and cheerful, and that he...
