Books and Manuscripts

(Bronte, Emily)
Wuthering Heights. A Novel
New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1848. First American edition. 8vo. 288 pp. Contemporary three-quarter tan calf over marbled paper-covered boards, black morocco spine label, stamped in gilt, boards and extremities rubbed and lightly worn, head of spine chipped; all edges trimmed; remnants of contemporary book-plate on front paste-down; foxing to text. Smith 3, pp. 74-75; Symington, p. 100

A lovely copy of the rare first American edition of Emily Bronte’s enduring masterpiece, her only novel. Published in April, 1848, and preceded by the first edition published in London five months earlier, in December, 1847. First published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, this edition falsely attributes the author to Emily’s sister, Charlotte Bronte, “The Author of Jane Eyre”. It would not be until 1850, with the publication of Charlotte’s Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell, that Emily’s authorship was revealed—more than a year following her untimely death from consumption at age 30, in December, 1848.

Wuthering Heights was published simultaneously in cloth and in paper covers on April 21, 1848. Both bindings contain the original printed sheets, this copy rebound from the cloth issue.