Wuthering Heights

Chapter 40 Postscript

"Wuthering Heights" was first published in [-], and was bound together with her sister Anne Bronte's "Agnes Gray" at that time.In [-], when the two authors passed away successively, the two novels were published separately by Charlotte Bronte.Charlotte also wrote "The Preface to the Reprint of Wuthering Heights" under the pseudonym of Cole Bell and "Anecdotes about the Life of Alice and Akton Bell" recalling the two sisters, which were placed at the beginning of the volume of "Wuthering Heights".This book edited by Charlotte has been the final version of "Wuthering Heights" for a century. The biggest difference between it and the first edition of "Wuthering Heights" lies in the division.Emily's [-] edition is more carefully divided into sections, or sometimes messy, and the punctuation and spelling are also considered to be rough.With her literary literacy and insights, Charlotte changed her sister's punctuation and spelling, and combined small paragraphs into large paragraphs in many places, which is recognized by the critics as indispensable.

However, the sun and the moon change, Feng Shui changes, and after readers have had enough of Charlotte's Emily, they can't help yearning for Emily's original appearance.Moreover, in the nineteenth century, Emily's literary name was not comparable to that of Charlotte, but in the second century, it tended to overshadow her sister.It is against this "background" that some publishers started publishing new versions of "Wuthering Heights" in [-], regardless of Charlotte, from the middle of the twentieth century. This translation is based on A more representative and more recent one.

Regarding the rights and wrongs of the story of "Wuthering Heights", there have been many big opinions before, so I don't need to say anything more.Because even if you want to say it, you can't make it clear in a few words.But I want to say that the evolution of literary tastes is far from what some readers imagined, day and night, uncertain.Because of this, I translated the preface to Charlotte's reprint of "Wuthering Heights" in [-], because I think Charlotte's introduction and evaluation of this novel are still quite insightful from today's point of view. .Heathcliff, who is under the watchful eyes of everyone, does not talk about him. In fact, the two characters who moved me the most in this book are Edgar Linton and little Catherine.

Looking through the previous Chinese translations of "Wuthering Heights", I found that my hard work in the past few months was not unnecessary.I certainly hope that readers and friends like my translation.

Translator

May 1998, 3 in Shanghai
(End of this chapter)