Showing results for title "Shirley", by author "Charlotte Brontë" in Historical Fiction

Set in the industrialising England of the Napoleonic wars, a period of bad harvests, Luddite riots, and economic unrest, Shirley is the story of two contrasting heroines and the men they love. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory, whose life represents the plight of single women in the 19th century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.

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.

Shirley è un “romanzo sociale” del 1849 pubblicato dopo il primo fortunato romanzo della stessa autrice, Jane Eyre (che peraltro era stato pubblicato, come questo, sotto lo pseudonimo di Currer Bell). Il romanzo è ambientato nello Yorkshire negli anni 1811-1812 e tratta della depressine industriale dovuta alla guerra Napoleonica, con la conseguente reazione operaia sfociante nel luddismo.

This novel depicts a mill owner, Robert, whose business is struggling and in turn rejects his attraction to an orphaned woman, Carolne, in favour of proposing to a rich landowner, Shirley. In Charlotte Bronte's classic Shirley rejects him as she loves Robert's poor brother, Louis, but has too much pride to admit her feelings.