Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights opens with Lockwood, a Heathcliff tenant, visiting his landlord's home. A subsequent visit to Wuthering Heights produces an incident and a curious supernatural encounter, which pique Lockwood's curiosity. Returning to Thrushcross Grange and cured of his illness, Lockwood asks Nelly Dean, a maid who grew up in Wuthering Heights and now takes care of Thrushcross Grange, to tell him the story of Heathcliff. Nelly narrates the main plot of Wuthering Heights.
Mr. Earnshaw, a Yorkshire farmer and owner of Wuthering Heights, brings home an orphan from Liverpool. The boy is called Heathcliff and he grew up with children Earnshaw, Hindley and Catherine. Catherine loves Heathcliff but Hindley hates him because Heathcliff has replaced Hindley in Mr. Earnshaw's affection. After Mr. Earnshaw's death, Hindley goes out of his way to destroy Heathcliff, but Catherine and Heathcliff grow up playing wildly on the moors, oblivious to anything or anyone else - until they meet the Lintons.
Edgar and Isabella Linton live in Thrushcross Grange and are the exact opposite of Heathcliff and Catherine. The Lintons welcome Catherine into their home but avoid Heathcliff. Once again treated as an outsider, Heathcliff begins to think about revenge. Catherine initially splits her time between Heathcliff and Edgar, but soon spends more time with Edgar, which makes Heathcliff jealous. When Heathcliff hears Catherine tell Nelly that she will never marry him (Heathcliff), she leaves Wuthering Heights and goes away for three years.
While he's away, Catherine continues to woo and ends up marrying Edgar. Their happiness is short lived because they come from two different worlds and their relationship is further strained when Heathcliff returns. Relationships become even more complicated when Heathcliff ends up living with his enemy, Hindley (and Hindley's son Hareton), in Wuthering Heights and marries Edgar's sister Isabella. Soon after Heathcliff's wedding, Catherine gives birth to Edgar's daughter, Cathy, and dies.
Heathcliff swears revenge and doesn't care who he hurts as he executes it. He wishes to take control of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange and destroy everything Edgar Linton holds dear. To get his revenge, Heathcliff has to wait 17 years. Eventually, he forces Cathy to marry her son, Linton. At this point he is in control of the heights and with Edgar's death, he is in control of the Grange.
In all of this, however, Catherine's ghost haunts Heathcliff. What he really wants more than anything else is to reunite with his soul mate. At the end of the novel, Heathcliff and Catherine are united by death, and Hareton and Cathy will be united in marriage.
