Title: Is Heathcliff a murderer?
Subtitle: great puzzles in nineteenth-century literature
First published: 1996
Description: In Is Heathcliff a Murderer? (well, is he?) John Sutherland investigates thirty-four conundrums of nineteenth-century fiction. Applying these 'real world' questions to fiction is not in any sense intended to catch out the novelists who are invariably cleverer than their most defectively inclined readers. Typically, one finds a reason for the seeming anomaly. Not blunders, that is, but unexpected felicities and ingenious justifications.

In Is Heathcliff a Murderer? John Sutherland, recently described by Tony Tanner as 'a sort of Sherlock Holmes of literature', pays homage to the most rewarding of critical activities, close reading and the pleasures of good-natured pedantry.
Subjects: English fiction, Puzzles, Miscellanea, History and criticism, Literary recreations, English fiction, history and criticism, 19th century
Time periods: 19th century
LC classification: PR861 .S88 1996