Wuthering Heights (1911)
I have reverted to the original so far as concerns Joseph's quaint talk, but I have kept the rest of the text as it left the kindly care of the elder sister.
Since the Brontes' time novel readers have become familiarized with almost every dialect spoken in the British Isles, and the Yorkshire vernacular is not likely at the present day to be any bar to the popular appreciation of Emily's remarkable story. I have less hesitation in disregarding Charlotte's alterations since she herself has left on record her distaste for the liberty she was taking. She thought the change in spelling robbed the story of much of the special flavour which made it redolent of the moors, the heather, the hills, and the people of her beloved West Riding. It is a matter of great regret to me that 1 has been unable to place, as a frontispiece a portrait of the gifted author of this wonderfully fascinating story.
All my efforts to find anything like an authentic picture have failed. Wuthering Heights was reissued in 1850 under the editorship of Charlotte Bronte, and we learn from Mrs Gaskell's "Life" that she revised the text and altered the spelling of the West York- shire dialect in which Joseph speaks, to make his language more easily understood by the general reader. In the present edition, I have reverted to the original so far as concerns Joseph's quaint talk; but I have kept the rest of the text as it left the kindly care of the elder sister.
Since the Brontes' time novel readers have become familiarized with almost every dialect spoken in the British Isles, and the Yorkshire vernacular is not likely at the present day to be any bar to the popular appreciation of Emily's remarkable story. I have less hesitation in disregarding Charlotte's alterations since she herself has left on record her distaste for the liberty she was taking. She thought the change in spelling robbed the story of much of the special flavour which made it redolent of the moors, the heather, the hills, and the people of her beloved West Riding. It is a matter of great regret to me that 1 has been unable to place, as a frontispiece a portrait of the gifted author of this wonderfully fascinating story. All my efforts to find anything like an authentic picture have failed.
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