London: Thomas Cautley Newby, 1847. First edition. 3 vols, duodecimo (184 x 115 mm). Uniformly rebound to style in half calf, spine with raised bands, red morocco lettering-pieces, black morocco circular numbering-pieces, compartments decorated in blind, marbled sides, brown endpapers. A few minor marks, a very good copy.

First edition of one of the most extraordinary English novels of the 19th century. Published as part of a three-decker with Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey making up the third volume, Wuthering Heights was rushed into print on 4 December 1847, hoping to cash in on the unexpected success of Jane Eyre, but attracted only hostile and uncomprehending reviews.

Sales were apparently so poor that neither author received any payment, having already been required by Newby to advance £50 towards publication. Most copies went to the circulating libraries, where the volumes were loaned out singly and were later disposed of into the second-hand trade as two separate titles. Consequently, complete sets are rare on the market. Fit to stand alongside Frankenstein and Pride and Prejudice as one of the most desirable and collectable 19th-century novels, Wuthering Heights is by far the rarest of the three in commerce.

Wuthering Heights is now praised for its passionate and vindictive characters, the moorland setting, casual violence, self-destructive love and a vengeful theme, all held together with “the complete absence of any moral tone or purpose - a quality almost unique in Victorian fiction” (ODNB).

Parrish 85; Sadleir, XIX Century Fiction, 350; Smith, Brontë, pp. 60-3. (Item #6846)