Largely self-educated, Emily Bronte (1818-1848) spent most of her life at her father's rectory in Haworth, on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. The enigma that such a protected young woman, with almost no social contacts, could write the wildly romantic, complex, and unconventional Wuthering Heights has long fascinated readers. Robert Barnard examines Bronte's insulated childhood and her aversion to relationships. He includes excerpts from the lyrical poems of her twenties, which presage the raw intensity of Wuthering Heights, and investigates the real-life counterparts of the novel's characters, landscape, and buildings. He draws extensively from critical sources varying from early reviews of Wuthering Heights to Gaskell's appraisal of Emily's "stern selfishness", to Juliet Barker's recent biography of the Bronte family.