Reading the Novel: First Impressions

When Emily Brontë published “Wuthering Heights,” in 1847, critics were baffled, alarmed, and mostly unimpressed. James Lorimer, writing in the North British Review, promised that the novel would “never be generally read.” Nearly two centuries later, it’s regarded as one of the great works of English literature. In a live taping of Critics at Large at the 92nd Street Y, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the staying power of the original text and the countless adaptations it’s inspired, from the 1939 film featuring Laurence Olivier to Andrea Arnold’s 2011 version. The most recent attempt comes from the director Emerald Fennell, whose new “Wuthering Heights,” starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, reads as a romantic fever dream. The movie has been polarizing in part for the way it excises some of the weirder and wilder aspects of its source material. But what’s discarded—or emphasized—can also be revealing. “It’s an audacious proposition to adapt a great novel … I don’t think it needs to be faithful, necessarily,” Fry says. “The adaptation itself becomes a portrait of the time in which it’s made.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Wuthering Heights,” by Emily Brontë
Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”
Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” (2026)
“Emerald Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ Never Plumbs the Depths,” by Justin Chang (The New Yorker)
“Barbie” (2023)
“Saltburn” (2023)
“Promising Young Woman” (2020)
“Jane Eyre,” by Charlotte Brontë
“The Communist Manifesto,” by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx (1848)
Peter Kosminsky’s “Wuthering Heights” (1992)
William Wyler’s “Wuthering Heights” (1939)
Andrea Arnold’s “Wuthering Heights” (2011)
“All the King’s Men,” by Robert Penn Warren
“I Love L.A.” (2025–)

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Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.