Michael Stewart on his new novel, retelling Heathcliff's lost years
Author Michael Stewart visits Haworth to discuss the research for his new novel,
Ill Will, which recounts Heathcliff's lost years. In
Wuthering Heights, Emily deftly creates a close and claustrophobic world with great skill. But what of the world outside? It is 1780 when Heathcliff runs off the in the storm. The north of England is going through radical change - from a rural community, to the industrial revolution, from a wild world where highwaymen and robbers terrorise the coach roads, to one of turnpikes and canals and from one where slavery is acceptable, to the beginnings of abolitionism.