The three Brontë sisters lived short, isolated lives in early nineteenth century England, but they produced some outstanding novels, in particular Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The bicentenaries of their births are being celebrated from 2016 to 2020.
To find out more about the Brontës, visit the Brontë Society site, which has information about each member of the family, Haworth and the novels. The novel pages offer free Kindle downloads of the books. The Brontë Society runs the Brontë Parsonage Museum, in the sisters' home.
There is an entire site given over to Wuthering Heights with detailed summaries and analysis, character portraits, biographical information and timelines.
BBC Radio 4’s In Your Time programme is a mine of information on all sorts of cultural subjects, and the episodes are downloadable as podcasts indefinitely. There is an edition on Wuthering Heights. The presenter, Melvyn Bragg discusses the book with three English literature professors. From 9’15 to 11' 45 one of the professors gives a succinct summary of the novel, understandable from B1+. (She has a light Australian accent.). There is also an episode on Jane Eyre.
This is a 1’30 summary of the story by the singer playing Catherine Earnshaw an opera production of Wuthering Heights. It’s usable from B1 and is a good example of how to present a work. There are spoilers though!
The BBC’s Bitesize revision site has a comprehensive summary of the plot of Wuthering Heights. It’s fairly long but the language is easy enough for B1 or even A2+ (extract). There are also sections on the characters and themes. And another Bitesize section on Jane Eyre.
Tag(s) : "biography" "British culture" "Bronte" "Jane Eyre" "literature" "nineteenth century" "Victorian" "Wuthering Heights"