Читать книгу The Return of the Stranger - Kate Walker - Страница 3

Dear Reader

You’ll see the book is partly dedicated to a Mr Grogan, who first introduced me to the story of Wuthering Heights. I was just ten years old, and living just down the road from where the Brontë sisters grew up. One day, to distract us from the heavy storms outside, our teacher started to read us Wuthering Heights. We only ever heard the start of the story—up to the moment when Heathcliff turned his back on Cathy and walked away to make his fortune—so I didn’t know what happened until I found a copy on my mother’s bookshelves and found myself caught up in the story.

I had always hoped that Wuthering Heights would have a happy-ever-after for Cathy and Heathcliff. But even from the start I had somehow known that that wasn’t going to be—that, whatever else it was, Wuthering Heights wasn’t really a love story but a story about passion and possession. So when I was asked to rework Wuthering Heights I could take the wild, strong-willed Cathy and the dark, brooding, dangerous Heathcliff and let them learn about love, so as to give them give them the happy ending Emily Brontë's original story could never have had.

Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights was a vital part my life right from that day in my childhood, and I still reread the book at least once a year, so writing THE RETURN OF THE STRANGER was a dream come true for me. I’ve loved reworking this classic story, and I hope you’ll love the result when you read it.

Kate Walker

http://www.kate-walker.com