Title: Shirley   

Author: Charlotte Bronte  

Genre: Classic Literature    

Publisher: Wordsworth Classics

Format: Paperback

Pages: 482

Rating:3.5/5 stars

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Following the tremendous popular success of Jane Eyre, which earned her lifelong notoriety as a moral revolutionary, Charlotte Brontë vowed to write a sweeping social chronicle that focused on “something real and unromantic as Monday morning.” Set in the industrializing England of the Napoleonic wars and Luddite revolts of 1811-12, Shirley (1849) is the story of two contrasting heroines. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, who is trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory and whose bare life symbolizes the plight of single women in the nineteenth century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.

A work that combines social commentary with the more private preoccupations of Jane Eyre, Shirley demonstrates the full range of Brontë’s literary talent. “Shirley is a revolutionary novel,” wrote Brontë biographer Lyndall Gordon. “Shirley follows Jane Eyre as a new exemplar but so much a forerunner of the feminist of the later twentieth century that it is hard to believe in her actual existence in 1811-12. She is a theoretic possibility: what a woman might be if she combined independence and means of her own with intellect. Charlotte Brontë imagined a new form of power, equal to that of men, in a confident young woman [whose] extraordinary freedom has accustomed her to think for herself….Shirley [is] Brontë’s most feminist novel.”

Review:

I was really looking forward to reading this book and loving it and well, I jut didn’t. It’s not like it’s a bad book, I definitely enjoyed it overall, but it just didn’t hook me the way I was hoping it would.

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The book makes it seem like the main character would be a woman named Shirley, and while she does play an important part, there are other characters that I would argue are just as important, such as Caroline and Richard Moore. The book follows the lives of these three characters. Caroline is in love with Richard, who runs a factory, but Richard needs to marry someone with money to keep the factory afloat. She understands and accepts this, although it sends her into a deep sadness. Then comes in Shirley who is a rich heiress and everyone expects her to marry Richard, yet it is not as simple as it seems (gonna leave it at that to avoid spoilers).

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The interesting bit about this book is how it showcased the frustration that many people experienced during the industrial revolution and the move to the factory system. They felt their jobs were being replaced by machines and many people, such as the Luddites, reacted by smashing that machinery and sometimes being violent, so I liked how the book depicted that aspect. However, the pace of the book was rather slow and Shirley kinda annoyed me! But I still encourage others to check it out for themselves!

Happy reading!