But Nelly remains close to Hindley, and falls in love. Although, with Mrs Dean’s help, Nelly returns to Wuthering Heights, she is formally employed as a servant. This changed after Heathcliff’s arrival: Mr Earnshaw banishes her for a slight to Heathcliff. While Nelly knew that she was not really a member of the Earnshaw family, she was – for some years at least – more of a companion to the children than a servant.
In ‘Nelly Dean’, Ms Case presents Nelly as having joined the Earnshaw household as a consequence of her mother’s friendship with Mrs Earnshaw. This is the backstory, perhaps, for those of us who wondered what Wuthering Heights was like before Heathcliff arrived. Her story is heartbreaking and courageous and simply lovely.In a series of letters addressed to Mr Lockwood, the man to whom she’d formerly told the story of Cathy and Heathcliff, Ellen (Nelly) Dean writes of her life as a child and as a young woman at Wuthering Heights. I felt as though Nelly became the voice of my own conscience in many ways, echoing my feelings about the other characters. The books interlock like a puzzle that you hadn’t realized had pieces missing. This book really does stand on its own quite well, though your experience may be richer if you read (or re-read) Wuthering Heights first. Nelly’s purpose is to add to or correct what Lockwood already knows. Lockwood already knows that part of the story. This is brilliant, because it eliminates the need for Case to rewrite the original Wuthering Heights, as Mr.
Lockwood, who is the man she told only part (or so we now learn) of the story to in Emily Brontë’s novel. It’s told from Nelly’s perspective as a letter she’s composing to Mr. In her early teens, Nelly becomes the housekeeper instead of the schoolmate and friend, but maintains varying levels of complicated relationships with the children of the Heights as they all grow up.įans of Wuthering Heights will find the characters, setting, and writing style they remember, but the genius of this novel is the frame. Set in the moors of late 18 th-/early 19 th-century England, Alison Case’s novel follows the story of Nelly Dean, who grew up at Wuthering Heights alongside Catherine, Hindley, and Heathcliff. Whether you’ve read Wuthering Heights a hundred times or never picked it up, you are going to like this book. Nelly Dean: A Return to Wuthering Heights
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