Until 3/4 of the way through I was highly tempted to dismiss this book with a two word review: "Histrionic nonsense." At about that point, however, I was struck by a resemblance to a superficially altogether different genre of literature - no, not the oft noted influence of the wildly popular only a few decades previously, Gothick novel - but a genre I have never heard mentioned in relation to Emily Bronte: Greek Tragedy.

The overwrought, intense, oppressive insanity of almost all the principal characters, the death of one of them at the half-way point, the feeling that everything is going according to the demented will of some external force out to amuse itself, the violently destructive internal relations of a family, all speak to me of the tone and temper of those plays about people such as Oedipus, Electra and Cassandra. To me this explains the histrionics, cruelty, structure and even the (possibly) supernatural/Gothic elements of the book. And yet I suspect the resemblance is by accident, not design; probably Emily just thought bat-shit crazy, obsessive, cruel, selfish yet self-destructive, vengeful fiends were two-a-penny in Yorkshire. Or that adopting street orphans from Liverpool was a bad idea.