Set in the moorlands of northern England, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is part love story, part Gothic novel, and part class novel. The story centers on the dynamics of two generations of the residents of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, with Catherine Earnshaw's and Heathcliff's unconsummated love as a guiding force. Wuthering Heights is deemed one of the greatest love stories in fiction.
The story is told through diary entries by a London-based gentleman named Lockwood, which relate the events as told by the former Wuthering Heights housekeeper, Nelly Dean. Spanning a period of 40 years, Wuthering Heights is divided in two parts: the first deals with the all-consuming (but not consummated) love between Catherine Earnshaw and the outcast Heathcliff, and her subsequent marriage to the delicate Edgar Linton; while the second part deals with Heathcliff as a stereotypical Gothic villain and his vengeful mistreatment of Catherine’s daughter (also named Catherine), his own son, and his former abuser’s son. Each part of the story consists of seventeen chapters.