Wuth. Hts · Both generations · 1757–1803
Two houses, two generations, two Catherines, and a foundling who marries into one family to ruin the other. Here is the whole genealogy with dates — each person filled with the dialogue color they keep in Chromatics from the first page to the last.
marriage · descent · quotations verbatim from the 1847 text Photographs: Hill & Adamson · Julia Margaret Cameron · an unrecorded ambrotypist — the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty, Yale Center for British Art and other open collections.
c. 1764–1802
Brought back from Liverpool by Mr Earnshaw in 1771 and raised alongside his children. Married Isabella Linton in 1783.
“Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”
1765–1784
The elder Earnshaw daughter. Married Edgar Linton in 1783.
“My rival, as she will have herself to be, would shoot a shaft into your soul that would fix you for ever, and send my image into eternal oblivion!”
b. 1784
Daughter of Catherine Earnshaw and Edgar Linton. Married Linton Heathcliff in 1801, and Hareton Earnshaw after.
“Mr. Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you… You are miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? Nobody loves you—nobody will cry for you when you die!”
1762–1801
The Linton son, master of Thrushcross Grange. Married Catherine Earnshaw in 1783.
“Will you give up Heathcliff hereafter, or will you give up me? It is impossible for you to be my friend and his at the same time; and I absolutely require to know which you choose.”
1765–1797
The Linton daughter. Married Heathcliff in 1783.
“Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil?”
1757–1784
The Earnshaw son and heir. Married Frances; father of Hareton.
“Kiss me, Hareton! Damn thee, kiss me! By God, as if I would rear such a monster! As sure as I’m living, I’ll break the brat’s neck.”
b. 1778
Son of Hindley Earnshaw and Frances. The last Earnshaw.
“My name is Hareton Earnshaw, and I’d counsel you to respect it!”
1784–1801
Son of Heathcliff and Isabella Linton. Married Catherine Linton in 1801.
“No—don’t kiss me: it takes my breath… Will you shut the door, if you please? you left it open; and those—those detestable creatures won’t bring coals to the fire. It’s so cold!”
In Chromatics every person on this tree keeps their color on every page — the novel is free in full right now, and you will never flip back here.
Wuth. Hts · The two Catherines
Catherine Earnshaw is the first: Hindley’s sister, Heathcliff’s other half, Edgar’s wife. She is born at Wuthering Heights in 1765, becomes Catherine Linton by marriage in 1783, and dies in March 1784, two hours after giving birth.
Catherine Linton is the second: her daughter, called Cathy. She is born a Linton, becomes Catherine Heathcliff by her first marriage, and ends as Catherine Earnshaw by her second — her mother’s name, walked backwards. Lockwood finds all three names scratched into the windowsill in Chapter III and has no idea what he is looking at. Neither does anyone else on a first read.
There are two Heathcliffs as well: Heathcliff the foundling, and Linton Heathcliff, his son by Isabella. The recycled names are not carelessness — Emily Brontë is closing a circle. But she makes you work for it.
Wuth. Hts · Why you got lost
Three reasons. First, the names: two Catherines, two Heathcliffs, and a Linton who is a person as well as two people’s surname. Second, the structure: the story reaches you through Lockwood, who hears most of it from Nelly, who heard parts of it from Isabella, Cathy, and Zillah — a narrator inside a narrator, with the timeline folded in half. Third, the dates matter and the book rarely states them; the chronology above was reconstructed from internal evidence, and the novel expects you to hold it in your head.
In Chromatics, two of the three problems dissolve on their own: every speaker keeps one color for the whole novel, so the two Catherines are never the same person on the page — and a quiet banner above the text tells you where you are, when it is, and who is telling the story to whom. The third problem is the one this page is for.
Wuth. Hts · The record
Wuth. Hts · The household tells it
None of the family narrates. The story arrives through the household — and they have colors too.
When the nesting gets deep — Cathy telling Nelly, who is telling Lockwood, who is telling you — the app’s scene banner keeps the chain in view: Wuth. Hts · Cathy → Nelly → Lock. · Past 3 weeks. There is more about that, and a page you can listen to, on the Wuthering Heights audiobook page; the book itself lives on its hub page.
Wuth. Hts · Asked and answered
Mother and daughter. Catherine Earnshaw is the first — Heathcliff’s Catherine, Edgar’s wife. Catherine Linton, called Cathy, is her daughter, born the day her mother died. The full untangling is above.
No — a foundling carried home from Liverpool in 1771 and raised alongside Catherine and Hindley. Catherine grew up as his near-sister, which is part of what scandalized the book’s first readers.
Not by blood at all: Hareton is Hindley’s son. Heathcliff raises him rough and unlettered on purpose — doing to Hindley’s child exactly what Hindley did to him. The symmetry is the point.
Twice over: Linton Heathcliff, forced, in August 1801 — widowed in about ten weeks — and then Hareton Earnshaw, freely, with the wedding set for New Year’s Day 1803, just past the last page.
Because Emily Brontë is closing a circle: the second generation carries the first’s names through the same two houses and walks the damage backwards. It is confusing on purpose — and it rewards exactly one careful look at the tree above.
Every one of these people keeps their color for the whole novel — you will never need this page again. Read it that way, free.
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