H.--: The Story of Heathcliff's Journey Back to Wuthering Heights

by Lin Haire-Sargeant

Book Overview

In Emily Bront 's masterpiece Wuthering Heights Heathcliff overhears Cathy in a conversations with Nelly Dean say, "It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now..." Devastated Heathcliff runs away... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671777009
• ISBN13: 9780671777005
• Release Date: July 1992
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

I would have loved it more if it was an original story.

Did you ever wonder how Heathcliff made his fortune? Where he went for those many years after he heard those life-changing words uttered from Cathy, "It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff." You can imagine how that stayed with him and motivated him into some kind of action. But what was it that he did? How did it all happen? Author Lin Haire-Sergeant makes a bold attempt to fill in that space and explain Heathcliff's life during that time. What I did like about this book is that the story is told by two narrators (which is very similar to Wuthering Heights!) Mr. Lockwood is traveling on a train on his way back to Gimmerton to see Nelly Dean who is on her death bed (this book takes place 20 years after the end of WH). His fellow passenger on the train is none other then Charlotte Bronte! Mr. Lockwood shows her a letter that Nelly Dean sent him and asks her to read it and advise him. The letter is written from Heathcliff to Cathy upon his return to WH and in it he explains what has happened to him and were he has gone. This takes up majority of the book, and Heathcliff is our narrator. Unfortunately, the letter is never delivered and if it was we can imagine that the course of WH would have been very different! What I didn't like about this book was that the author used the plot and characters from another story to create Heathcliff's path. At first it was fun to discover the similarities and spot the parallels in the story, but by the end I wished that the author would have created her own back story and give us tale that wasn't borrowed. If this was done, then this book would become one of my favorites! I would have liked more creativity and imagination from the author, she has an excellent writing style and I loved her portrayal of Heathcliff. She showed how Cathy was always on his mind, always motivating his actions. I recommend this book to any Wuthering Heights or Bronte fan. But I would advise you not to have high expectations. While you may enjoy Heathcliff's story you may walk away feeling as I did that it would have been better if she did not borrow it from another book. OR you may like the connections she made between the two books and not mind it being borrowed.

Great fun for any Brontë lover!

I recently came across H: The Story of Heathcliff's Journey Back to Wuthering Heights by Lin Haire-Sargeant. It is a great deal of fun to read if you are a Brontë fan and, what she did was so diabolically clever that I found myself grinning as I read. Basically she used the tale-within-a-tale technique to describe a train trip that a fictional Charlotte Brontë was taking back from France when an ill-fated love affair ended. On the train she encounters a man who tells her about a trip he is taking to visit an old friend on her death bed. Soon he persuades Miss Brontë to read a series of letters sent him by this lady and the fun begins. Of course using such a construct for a novel is extremely clever because you can cover any gaps in credibility with missing pages to letters or letters to another party or simple human error but this story doesn't really rely on this at all. All lovers of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights know the story --- Catherine Earnshaw has become enthralled by Edgar Linton and, while talking with their housekeeper Nellie, complains that while she loves Heathcliff, it would "degrade her" to marry him. Heathcliff overhears this and flees. Some years later Cathy is now married to Edgar and Heathcliff returns --- wealthy and a gentleman (though sort of in the sense that Tony Soprano can act like a gentleman at times) --- but it is too late. Everything goes downhill from there. Well, Haire-Sargeant picks up the story at the moment Heathcliff flees, ragged, filthy and furious, and finds his way to London where he is discovered outside an insane asylum by the mysterious "Mister Are". Mister Are takes a liking to Heathcliff and invites him back to his home where he sets about the process of making a gentleman of him. The rest of the story is genuinely enjoyable. What makes it so clever is that any devoted Brontë fan will, in short order, begin to recognize names and places and, grinning madly as you read, say "Ahhhhhh, `Are' for Rochester!" The magnanimous Mister Are lives in Thornfield Hall and has a dog named Pilot and pretty soon Mrs. Fairfax shows up followed by Blanche Inghram. So now Emily Brontë's story has merged with her sister, Charlotte's story Jane Eyre. Great fun! As the story progresses there are a lot of things that are perhaps wild and improbable but then both stories are wild and improbable so who cares. My favorite part was once Rochester hired the "governess" that he falls in love with and she and Heathcliff do NOT get along. Frankly, the only two people who ever got along with Heathcliff were Cathy and now Mister Are. The book is beautifully written and as engrossing as its inspirations. Anyway, I loved the book because, having read both of the books from which it grew many times, it was like spending a weekend with old friends and discovering all kinds of astonishing new things about them! --- from ParlezMoiBlog.com

The ending's a little off but overall a good read

Purists will probably scream until their hair turns white but I thought this was actually a very good yarn. What happened to Heathcliff after he left Wuthering Heights? How did he become the gentleman he returned as?It's a nicely woven tale, tying in how the Bronte sisters conceived their tales and connecting the dots between Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff is just plain wicked--the warning he gives Linton against marrying Cathy is absolutely horrifying--and his origins, though predictable after a while, are intriguing. Unfortunately I found it came apart a bit at the end, which after ping-ponging about and even making at attempt to give the fatal romance a happy ending ends on an ambiguous note that left me puzzled.

It's written to please

For those who have read "Wuthering Heights" and are left with a bitter-sweet feeling of a love lost, this book, "Heathcliff; Return to Wuthering Heights", will rekindle the belief of the hopeless romantic, that true love can conquer all. This book is written in very similar style as is "Wuthering Heights", which gives the illusionn of returning to that era. Most of the book deals with Heathcliff and how he came to his fortune and the adventures that happen to him during his absence from "Wuthering Heights". The development of his character is very dark, darker than is portrayed in "Wuthering Heights", but he feels all is justified in his ultimate goal to reclaim Cathy. The book is obviously written to please the "Wuthering Heights" reader who couldn't bear the fact that Heathcliff and Cathy never had a life together, much as "Scarlett" was written to please the readers of "Gone with the Wind & ! quot; with the same concerns. But beyond that, the book is well written and the style stays consistent with the style of Emile Bronte's. It is an enjoyable read, makes the heart beat a little quicker, and brings to rest a story that has haunted many of us since our High School Literature classes.

Haire-Sargeant plot a bit too daring?but writing is superb.

Lin Haire-Sargeant almost created a masterpiece. If she had had a far-sighted editor, I think she would have made headlines in the world of literature. Her plot is quite daring, almost to a fault . . . but her highly excellent writing style makes every page a captivating work of art. Imagine, Charlotte Bronte on a train reading Heathcliff's letter to Catherine 60 years later, forty years after he died . . . Heathcliff (at 18? yrs.) meeting Linton (and not killing him) at Mr. Are's estate . . . at the end of 3 years discovering he is the child of Rochester and Bertha! . . . taking and healing Catherine from her deathbed and going to live together in America for 5 (?) years . . . Linton burying a casket filled with stones instead of Catherine . . . Charlotte and Emily Bronte getting Heathcliff's manuscript from ancient Ms. Dean on her deathbed . . . and then going for a walk (while they taunt each other) past Wuthering Heights. Again, the points of the plot mentioned above are almost too daring (other sections not mentioned are fascinating and credible: Heathcliff preventing a prize horse's destruction by taming it, etc.), but Haire-Sargeant pulled it off. What I really didn't like was the introduction. She should have offered the novel surrounded with more mystery-just let the reader become mesmerized by the writing. Then "maybe" (or maybe not) have an "postlogue." Prior to Haire-Sargeant, I believed Bronte gives clues that it is critical Cathy & Heathcliff do not marry--because he is really her half-brother. But Haire-Sargeant has earned 1st stage, so I'll not argue.