'Wuthering Heights is not bonkbuster like the film'

A bookshop owner says customers wanting to buy a copy of Wuthering Heights because they think it is a "bonkbuster" are "going to be seriously disappointed".

Demand for Emily Brontë's magnum opus soared after the release of Emerald Fennell's film adaption starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.

According to Penguin Classics, sales of the 19th Century gothic tragedy went up by 469% year on year in January 2026, with 8,795 more copies sold.

But Suzie Grogan, from Framlingham Books, warned that any shoppers hoping for the novel to be as raunchy as the film version might end up feeling shortchanged.

"I'm going to tell you, if you're looking for a bonkbuster, you're going to be seriously disappointed," she said.

"There's so much naughty stuff in it (the film) and, to be quite honest, Emily Brontë must be turning in her grave in Howarth at the idea of it, frankly."

Grogan was talking to BBC Suffolk's Sarah Lilley about the knock-on effect on sales when Hollywood gives famous stories the big screen treatment.

As well as Wuthering Heights, William Golding's Lord of the Flies was recently turned into a BBC series and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein became a Netflix hit.

And the demand for those adaptations' source material was now said to be being felt across the county.

Second-hand bookshop, the Treasure Chest, in Felixstowe, for example, said it had sold out of all of its copies of Wuthering Heights and Lord of the Flies.

There was a similar scramble by bookworms to get their hands on the novels at Oxfam Books, in Woodbridge, according to manager, David Scrivener.

"Wuthering Heights is always a popular book anyway, but especially now, and also Lord of the Flies, any copies we had have gone," he said.

"So, it piques the interest to know what the original text was, I suppose - Frankenstein was the same as well when the film version of that came out.

"It's not bad for business, is it?"

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