Wuthering Heights First Edition Breaks Emily Brontë Record at Christie's

A first edition of Wuthering Heights together with Agnes Grey has sold at Christie’s London for £1,206,500 in its live The Exceptional Sale: Masterworks Across Cultures auction setting a new world auction record by Emily Brontë.

The set is one of the finest examples in private hands, and no textually complete copy has appeared at auction in publisher’s cloth since 1908. It survives in its original 1847 publisher’s cloth binding and retains the distinctive textual and printing irregularities of the first edition. It is also the highest price ever achieved for 19th century literature and for any printed book by a woman.

Only 250 copies of the first edition of Wuthering Heights were printed and examples in their original full-cloth binding are scarce with only five other examples known (The Blavatnik-Honresfield copy at Brotherton Library, University of Leeds; University of Oxford; British Library; Charlotte Brontë's annotated copy with pages missing sold at Christie’s New York in 2009; and Anne Brontë's annotated copy at Princeton University Library). 

This copy bound in diagonally ribbed green-grey cloth with floral patterns and arabesques stamped on the cover has been kept in the same historic house library in England since just after its publication in 1847. 

The book has been in the spotlight recently thanks to the 2026 movie adaption starring Margot Robbie.
 
“This is exactly the kind of book collectors dream about but almost never see," said Mark Wiltshire, Specialist, Books & Manuscripts, Christie’s. "A first edition of Wuthering Heights in original cloth is extraordinarily rare. It’s a true survival and a landmark result for Brontë collecting. It is an honour to have been entrusted with such an exceptional work.”