`Wuthering Heights` on top of classics chart

Stephenie Meyer’s vampire saga has put ‘Wuthering Heights’ at the top.

London: American author Stephenie Meyer’s vampire saga has helped put Emily Bronte’s 1847 novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ at the top of the Waterstone’s classics chart. Meyer’s ‘Twilight’ has made Bronte’s novel become famous among teenage readers, with the story highlighting ‘Wuthering Heights’ as being the central character’s favourite book.

In Eclipse, the third book in Meyer’s series, Bella Swan, the chaste love of vampire Edward Cullen, makes repeated references to Bronte’s masterpiece. She compares the vampire to turbulent Heathcliff, as she quotes Bronte’s heroine Cathy. “If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger,” the Telegraph quoted Bella Swan, played by Kristen Stewart, as telling Edward Cullen, played by Robert Pattinson. “By highlighting Wuthering Heights in her novels, Stephenie Meyer has introduced Emily Bronte to the Twilight generation,” Sarah Clarke, children’s books buyer for Waterstone’s, said. HarperCollins, the publisher, has even printed a new “gothic” jacket for Wuthering Heights, similar to the look of Meyer’s books, to attract her fans. It has sold more than 10,000 copies in Waterstone’s booksellers’ stores since May, more than twice as many as the traditional Penguin Classics edition. A spokesman for the chain said that it was the first time Wuthering Heights had topped its classic books chart since it started compiling such figures in 1998. It has been number one in the classics chart for four months. “I don’t think a vampire’s recommendation has ever sent a book to number one before,” Simon Robertson, the company’s classics buyer, said. The surge underlines how important Meyer now is in the British book market. ANI