‘Wuthering Heights’ Movie Controversy Sends Book Sales Soaring

Topline

Book sales for the 1847 classic novel “Wuthering Heights” have shot up on Amazon since the trailer for a new film adaptation stirred controversy for its casting choices, overtly sexual tone and apparent inconsistencies with the original story.

Laurence Olivier at the bedside of Merle Oberon in a scene from the film ‘Wuthering Heights’, 1939.

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Key Facts

Sales of the 1997 Wordsworth Classics edition of “Wuthering Heights” shot up 504% between Thursday and Friday, Amazon said, making it the No. 2 bestselling gothic romance as of Friday.

The Penguin Classics paperback edition, first released in 2002, has seen sales rise 187% and the book was the 98th bestseller across Amazon as of 10 a.m. Friday.

The spike in popularity comes after Warner Bros. released the official teaser trailer for “Wuthering Heights” on Wednesday to the dismay of some viewers, who highlighted apparent inconsistencies between the novel and director Emerald Fennell’s adaptation.

Critics said the film’s stars, Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and Margot Robbie as Catherine Earnshaw, were both poor choices as, in the novel, Heathcliff is described as dark-skinned (Eldori is white) and Catherine is a teenager (Robbie is 35).

The trailer was also criticized for the longing stares and overt sexual tension that imply the film will be an errotic adaptation of an original story centered on abuse, violence and trauma.

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Surprising Fact

The last time “Wuthering Heights” saw a big spike in sales was thanks to the so-called “Twilight effect.” The ultra-popular teen vampire “Twilight” series mentions the Emily Brontë classic several times—it is named as protagonist Bella Swan’s favorite book and, in “Eclipse,” direct quotes are used to compare Swan’s relationships to ones in the classic novel. The Telegraph reported that sales of “Wuthering Heights” in Britain quadrupled in 2009 thanks to “Twilight,” shooting up from the 8,551 copies it sold in 2005 to 34,034 in 2009 after Harper Collins reissued it with the tag-line “Bella and Edward’s favourite book.”

Key Background

“Wuthering Heights,” the only novel by English author Emily Brontë, was released to mixed reviews and generally compared unfavorably to Brontë’s sister’s novel, “Jane Eyre,” which was published the same year. In the late 20th Century, however, opinions began to shift and the work is now considered a must-read classic of Gothic literature. There have been more than a dozen film and television adaptations of the work, including a 1939 film that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and seven other Oscars. It won one, for cinematography, but lost the top award to “Gone with the Wind.”