A Student's Guide to Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is a general introduction to one of the great English novels of the nineteenth century. Misunderstood by most critics and commentators upon its publication in 1847, the story of Catherine and Heathcliff and their peers and descendants slowly became recognized as the work of a genius and is now on nearly every list of recommended books for both high school and college students. However, many students today find the novel difficult to read and understand because of its language and its setting; especially challenging to some are the sections in which characters speak in the Yorkshire dialect. This guide provides an easy-to-use glossary of that dialect and translations of the dialogue. It also includes discussions of the social, economic, and political background of the period (the last part of the eighteenth and the first part of the nineteenth centuries).
Richard E. Mezo, a veteran of thirteen years of military service, entered the USAF in 1954 and the USN in 1962. He served as an enlisted man, as a supply specialist in the Air Force and an electronics technician in the Navy. His duties included overseas service in the Northeast Air Command in Newfoundland, on the U. S. S. Bon Homme Richard (the second one) in the Pacific, and as a flight crew member in a patrol squadron. As a radio/radar operator on the P-2V and later P-3A antisubmarine warfare aircraft, he was
required to undergo survival training; his squadrons tracked submarines along the Pacific coast and were deployed to the Aleutian Islands.
Upon his discharge in 1967, Mezo attended San Diego State College for an A. B. and an M. A. in English; then he transferred to the University of North Dakota, where he was awarded the Ph. D. in English Language and Literature in 1978. In 1988, he returned to Western Washington University for a graduate course of study in Education, leading to his certification as a public school teacher.
Dr. Mezo has taught English language and literature at universities, colleges, and high schools in the United States and overseas and on military bases. He has written and published several books and continues to publish in various magazines and journals, both professional and creative. He has been a College Board reader for the examination in AP English literature, a field bibliographer for the Modern Language Association, and a reader of grant proposals for the U. S. Department of Education. He is listed in Who's Who and in the Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers. He teaches
composition, literature, and developmental English part-time at Germanna Community College's Fredericksburg [VA] Area campus.
