![]() Charlotte told Elizabeth Gaskell, who later became Brontë’s first biographer, that the character of Shirley was how she imagined her sister Emily (author of Wuthering Heights) might have turned out if she had the benefits of wealth and privilege. The narrative concerns the spirited heiress Shirley Keeldar, whose wealth liberates her from staid convention. It was also a time when industrialisation was changing the landscape and machines were taking over. ![]() ![]() Hurt by certain the criticisms of Jane Eye as being passionate and melodramatic, in her published second novel, Charlotte sought to create a work that was as ‘real, cool and solid unromantic as Monday morning.’ Shirley is set in the early part of the nineteenth century, during the Luddite riots and the last stages of the Napoleonic wars, which had been devastating for Yorkshire trade. Shirley is one of the lesser-known works of Charlotte Brontë (1816 -55), overshadowed somewhat by her blockbuster Jane Eyre, which is a shame because it is a fine novel with an engrossing narrative. ![]() David Stuart Davies looks at the second published novel of Charlotte Brontë ![]()
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