Wuthering Heights

I haven't read this book in recent years, and today it's almost like reading it for the first time. The Biographical Note and Preface, both written by Charlotte Bronte, are so powerful, they make the hair stand up on the nape.

The first chapter of Emily's book is full of a dark, perverse and irresistible humor--Mr. Lockwood fending off the dogs with a poker, the cook restoring order with a frying pan, and Joseph muttering under his breath. And Lockwood's attempt to relate to Heathcliff by comparing their reserved natures, is a compliment to the latter's cultivated inhumanity, but presumptuous in the extreme. Still, it provides continuity, in that Lockwood will return to Wuthering Heights and resume the tale.