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Hm, all this time I've thought for sure I've already posted in this thread but seems I haven't.
I read both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre long ago and close together for school when I was a teen. I loved them both and both are two of my all-time favourites, but there is a clear winner here for me- Wuthering Heights.
They both have this beautiful gothic melancholy that I really like, but I think what sets Wuthering Heights apart, especially for its time period, is that it goes above and beyond with its originality and its fierce and fiery all-consuming passion. Spoilers ahead, so proceed carefully - but it can somewhat be compared to the woman locked in the attic in Jane Eyre. In that novel, such passion is a crazy Other, locked away and then destroyed, and then order is continued. In Wuthering Heights, such passion is forefront and consumes the major characters.
Similarly, the central couple of Jane Eyre is more conventional, even if Jane is very well written. The central couple of Wuthering Heights is very unconventional, again especially for its time. So I think Jane Eyre is a great book, but Wuthering Heights is even greater for its devouring eccentricities. Of course, taste and ymmv and all that, and I haven't read the books in forever, though I have seen the most recent films of each (both from around 2011).
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