Shirley

by Charlotte Bronte, Jessica Cox (Editor), Lucasta Miller (Introduction)

Overview

A passionate but unsentimental depiction of conflict between classes, sexes and generations

Struggling manufacturer Robert Moore has introduced labour saving machinery to his Yorkshire mill, arousing a ferment of unemployment and discontent among his workers. Robert considers marriage to the wealthy and independent Shirley Keeldar to solve his financial woes, yet his heart lies with his cousin Caroline, who, bored and desperate, lives as a dependent in her uncle's home with no prospect of a career. Shirley, meanwhile, is in love with Robert's brother, an impoverished tutor - a match opposed by her family. As industrial unrest builds to a potentially fatal pitch, can the four be reconciled? Set during the Napoleonic wars at a time of national economic struggles, Shirley (1849) is an unsentimental, yet passionate depiction of conflict between classes, sexes and generations.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141439860
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/26/2006
Series:	Penguin Classics Series
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	624
Sales rank:	41,996
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.16(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), English writer noted for her novel Jane Eyre (1847), sister of Anne Bronte and Emily Bronte. The three sisters are almost as famous for their short, tragic lives as for their novels. The collection of poems, Poems By Currer, Ellis And Acton Bell (1846), which Charlotte wrote with her sisters, sold only two copies. Her novel The Professor never found a publisher during her lifetime. Undeterred by this rejection, Charlotte began Jane Eyre, which appeared in 1847 and became an immediate success. Jane Eyre was followed by Shirley (1848) and Vilette (1853).

Lucasta Miller read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She is the author of The Brontë Myth and writes for The Guardian.

Jessica Cox is a research student and postgraduate tutorial assistant in the Department of English at the University of Wales Swansea. Her research interests include the sensation fiction of the 1860s, the feminist movement of the nineteenth century and the Victorians in the twentieth century.

Date of Birth:

April 21, 1816

Date of Death:

March 31, 1855

Place of Birth:

Thornton, Yorkshire, England

Place of Death:

Haworth, West Yorkshire, England

Education:

Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire; Miss Wooler's School at Roe Head

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION		vii	(17)
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS EDITION		xxiv	(1)
NOTE ON THE TEXT		xxv	(5)
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY		xxx	(3)
CHRONOLOGY		xxxiii
SHIRLEY		1	(646)
EXPLANATORY NOTES		647