Charting a careful course through the bewildering profusion of material on this offers synopses of and excerpts from critical responses to the novel from the time of publication to the present day, supplemented by the most comprehensive bibliography currently available. Opening with a chapter on how Emily Brontë's masterpiece was received in the nineteenth century, the links together a selection of extracts that demonstrate the major critical developments of the twentieth century -- from humanism through formalism to deconstruction. Within this general framework, subsequent chapters focus on psychoanalytic readings, source studies, readings using discourse theory, work on dissemination, and political readings from Marxist, postcolonialist, and feminist points of view.