Normally, I’m not a huge fan of hardback books myself – too unwieldy, too much faff to carry around – but this is a nice edition with a lovely full colour frontispiece by C.E. Popping in to light some candles, I was delighted to find a booksale taking place in the crypt, where I unearthed this copy of Wuthering Heights as well as a some Mary Stewart novels and a mint copy of the 6th Pan book of Horror Stories. Wandering around on the edge of the town just the other day, I came across a rather enchanting looking church, old enough and ugly enough to warrant further investigation. Well, well, well, it feels almost as if I had given up blogging for lent but fear not dear reader, I am back, this time with another copy of my favourite gothic and what is the first hardback book to grace these pages. This edition printed Richard Clay & Company, Bungay, Suffolk and published by P.R Gawthorn Ltd, Russell Square, London. Love of life and passionate adoration of the earth burns in it.

It is a wild prose poem rather than a novel – the tragedy of souls at grips with fate and fighting a hope-lost battle. Its large outlines, its intensity of feeling, its foreboding shadows at once stimulate and oppress the imagination. Yet there is about it a titanic greatness, impressing one profoundly indeed it is awesome. It is sombre, humourless, of unrelieved gloom. Wuthering Heights is unique, and cannot be classified the reader feels either pronounced dislike or tremendous admiration.

Black Candle by Christine Randell