| Sumario: | This paper draws attention to a curious but widespread illusion about Wuthering Heights: that Catherine and Heathcliff meet as adult lovers on the hilltop of Penistone Crag. There may be commercial reasons why film-makers promote this image, but many readers of the novel believe that they have read such a scene, and can hardly be persuaded that it is not there in the novel. In fact, we only read of Catherine and Heathcliff alone together out of doors at a time when they cannot be more than twelve years old. I want to suggest that this illusion depends on aspects of the novel's narrative technique which have such a powerful effect on us that they persuade us that we have 'seen' what is not actually there in the novel — the image of Catherine and Heathcliff, as adults, speaking their love to one another on top of Penistone Crag.
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