A Literary Treasure in Buffalo: UB Rare Books Collection Holds First British Edition of Wuthering Heights

by DENISE WOLFE

With a new film adaptation of Wuthering Heights now in theaters, interest in Emily Brontë’s remarkable novel is once again on the rise. But more than 175 years before the story returned to movie screens, one of its earliest printed forms quietly found a home in Buffalo.

The University at Buffalo Rare Books Collection offers an illuminating window into one of fiction’s most enduring stories — and the lengths one woman went to tell it.

The collection holds a first British edition of Wuthering Heights, the only novel written by Emily Brontë. Published in December 1847 under the pen name Ellis Bell, the book was issued in three volumes — a common format for British fiction of the period, known as a “triple-decker” novel. While the exact print run of this edition is unknown, it is thought to have been only 250 copies.

Brontë chose a male pen name to conceal her gender at a time when women writers faced significant barriers to being taken seriously. Her sisters Charlotte and Anne did the same, publishing under the names Currer Bell and Acton Bell, respectively. The Brontë siblings were part of a remarkably creative family; the UB Rare Books Collection also holds original manuscripts of poetry by Charlotte Brontë.

The three-volume format was more than a publishing convention — it was a business model. Circulating libraries, which operated on a subscription basis, could lend each volume to a different subscriber simultaneously, tripling their return on a single title.

UB’s copy bears evidence of this lending history. A sticker for the British & Foreign Public Subscription Library remains affixed to the volume, along with a printed notice specifying borrowing terms: in-town subscribers had one week with new releases, while those in the country were allowed two — an acknowledgment of carriage travel times.

It is worth noting that Wuthering Heights comprises only the first two volumes of the set. The third contains Agnes Grey, a novel by Anne Brontë — a reminder that the triple-decker format sometimes bundled works together to meet the required length.

“Initially panned as a ‘compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors,’ Wuthering Heights has endured as a timeless classic of literature,” said Alison Fraser, curator of the Rare Books Collection. “UB’s first edition is a reminder both of an important chapter of book history and the humble origins of one of the most significant works of 19th-century literature.”