Shirley

Shirley

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3.62 of 5 stars 3.62  ·  rating details  ·  9,046 ratings  ·  315 reviews

Following the tremendous popular success of Jane Eyre, which earned her lifelong notoriety as a moral revolutionary, Charlotte Bronte; 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 contr...more
Paperback, 624 pages
Published September 26th 2006 by Penguin Classics (first published 1849)
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Jane Eyre by Charlotte BrontëWuthering Heights by Emily BrontëThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne BrontëVillette by Charlotte BrontëAgnes Grey by Anne Brontë
Best of Brontë
7th out of 13 books — 209 voters
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Novels about Business People
5th out of 67 books — 17 voters


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Elizabeth
Oh, Charlotte, why?

I've rarely come across a writer so determined to be contrary to what the fans want.

You know how the massive, runaway success of a book, can have the affect of the author wanting to show the audience another side? Or how criticism that the huge best seller is too this or too that results in a book that is just the opposite of the things that made the first book too, too good? It's like the follow up to Pride and Prejudice was Mansfield Park. It isn't that Mansfield Park isn't...more
MJ Nicholls
Tackling Brontëism #4 — Shirley

Shirley is Charlotte’s sophomore slump. Her Kill Uncle. Her You Shall Know Our Velocity. Her Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. And so on. I don’t care how cute Mr Rochester is, this novel is a deeply vexing mess. Firstly, there are several plotlines and not one has the urge to intersect. The rebelling miners plot launches the novel in tandem with the idle curates poor-versus-rich plot, then dribbles away with the introduction of the second plot: Caroline’s crush...more
El
Favorite tidbit while reading this book: Shirley was largely a male name until this book's publication, at which time more baby girls were given the name. Good job, Charlotte, you changed like... everything.

Shirley's father wanted a boy, didn't get one, so the next best thing was for him to name his new baby chick a boy's name. Which leads me then to wonder if Shirley (as a female character's name) is sort of meant to denote she was a tomboy, kind of like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. In any c...more
Abigail
Apr 29, 2008 Abigail rated it 3 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Charlotte Brontë Fans / Readers Who Like 19th Century Novels with Social Commentary
Review Temporarily Removed.
Alison
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Ayu Palar
Apr 20, 2009 Ayu Palar rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Boof
Compared with other novels by Charlotte Bronte, Shirley is the toughest one for me to read. Narrated through third person POV, it is not easy to get acquainted with the novel. Another reason is because there are too many characters to remember. However, it is still a distinguished novel from the Victorian era. It might not be as enjoyable as Jane Eyre yet it is rich in characterizations and theme.

The novel is set in Napoleon era, in a village where machinery just enters the society. As we often...more
Dolors
Maybe the less romantic novel by Charlotte, but her most mature work, an account of the changing times in the early XIXth century.
The story follows the lives of four main characters. Miss Helstone, a young woman with no prospects, niece of a Curate in Yorkshire, her serious cousin Mr. Moore, a businessman who struggles to earn his living, Miss Shirley, a spirited heiress of a great fortune and her tutor Mr. Moore's brother, Louis.
Being a Brontë's novel though, there's not one, but two romances...more
Sherien
Charlotte Bronte reminds us—readers that Shirley is “…something unromantic as Monday morning” (chapter 1). Well I found it true because I see Shirley more as a social novel than a romance. The social background depicts the Napoleonic War and the industrial depression caused by it. This is where I found hard to get to the core of the book because I do not have a wide knowledge about that historical-social background. Another thing that is hard for me to get through is that this book seems to have...more
SarahC
The novel Shirley was a pleasant addition to my reading this winter. I love the British novel, but I especially love the one that is little-known to me and takes me by surprise. I must admit that after reading last year and being once again blown away (in spite of past readings) by Emily's Wuthering Heights, I had not felt emotionally ready to tackle another Bronte novel. So glad I did this time though, because it was exactly what I needed this winter.

Shirley is so different from Jane Eyre, an...more
Judy
Jun 24, 2011 Judy added it
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Aura
Mar 11, 2012 Aura rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: victorians
Shelves: victorian
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Lynn Andrew
A far more political and philosophical book than i was expecting with suprisingly modern views. Interesting character descriptions though, as the author advises at the beginning, all flawed so not always likeable. I found the book a bit of a slog when i was trying to get through it for bookgroup but now i am finishing it off at my own pace i am really enjoying it. Not a book to rush.
Friend the Girl
Oct 29, 2008 Friend the Girl rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who loves a good Napoleonic love epic
Shelves: yearly-reread
Ahh, Shirley . . . I must read this book once a year, because it affects me so profoundly when I do read it. Though the heroine of Shirley is actually named Caroline, and she isn't a swashbuckling dame or a fiery temptress or really even anything remarkable, she makes for a remarkable read and is surrounded by brilliant people and events. It's a chaotic time in England during the height of the Napoleonic Wars and timid Caroline's world is turned upside-down, but the events that really hook me ar...more
Tara
This is a strange, difficult read, and doesn't capture the imagination as instantly as Jane Eyre. The omniscient narrator reminds me of a male Victorian author like Thackeray, an interesting choice given that the main characters are female, and Bronte deals with women's position in society. The plot and characters are well-drawn and there is some excellent writing here if you look hard enough. But I felt the subplot of industrial unrest wasn't as compelling because it was overshadowed by Charlot...more
Lisa Jones
Trivia time: My middle name is Shirley. I was the only granddaughter named after Grandma Shirley, who was a petite fireball of wit and personality. When I was young, I hated my old-lady middle name, but I have since embraced the retro name, even keeping it when I married. So, when I read that the popularity of Shirley by Charlotte Bronte led to the name’s prevalence among girl babies instead of boy babies, I knew I had to discover my original namesake.
The heroine of Shirley is actually Carolin...more
Matthew Tree
Fascinating to see how England, even the North of England, traditionally more egalitarian, was so caught in the throes of class stratification back in the early 19th century that even the 'liberal' characters in this novel full of small-scale industrialists, clergymen and middle-class young ladies behave like the most repulsive snobs imaginable: something quite normal for the period, to judge by the author's lack of insinuated comment. On the other hand, the strident feminism or proto-feminism o...more
Maya
Well, this book was a lot longer than I thought it would be (not immediately apparent with the Kindle). First, I kept hearing that this was a book about social issues and really only the first 20% were like that. Then the bulk of the book was concerned with relationships. This middle part was pretty good. After [SPOILER] Robert got shot, however, it took a severe turn for the worse. There was a lot of lovely writing in this and wise insight into human nature. I especially liked the character of...more
Laura
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Arukiyomi
0389 | Shirley | Charlotte Brontë

Context: Was reading this when we took a final walk up the hills around Ukarumpa before leaving PNG.

Review: This completed my reading of the canon of Charlotte Brontë’s completed novels. Mind you, she only wrote three. I started off with Jane Eyre which I thought shallow, contrived and fell far short of the place it has in the pantheon of English Lit. I then tackled Villette and was mesmerised by an extremely accomplished author. Those were her first and last books. Shirley falls slap bang in t...more
Melissa
I did not like Shirley.

That could be my entire review. After reading a novel that was at least 200 pages too long, it probably should be. Because it is late and I am not feeling too charitable towards Charlotte Bronte I will make this brief.

There were many things I disliked about Shirley (★★) but the one thing that I did like was the character of Shirley. Where Shirley was lively and engaging, the other characters were dull, overwrought and over described. I may be in the minority but I think it...more
Kadzia Osuch

„Ponieważ najbardziej pragnie się zatrzymać to, co można najłatwiej stracić.”

„Shirley” to książka, którą rozpoczęłam kilka miesięcy temu. Dlaczego więc cały czas ją odkładałam? Czy była aż tak zła?

Powieść rozpoczyna się od spotkania trzech wikarych. Już na początku panowie zaczynają prowadzić zażartą dyskusję na temat polityki. Nagle spotkanie zmierza w złą stronę i wybucha kłótnia, po której mężczyźni się rozchodzą.

Autorka od progu wita nas słowami „Jeśli ten wstęp wzbudził w Tobie, Czytelniku,...more
Anastasia Hobbet
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Greenjasminetea
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Tania Brzovic
I found that I had a difficult time getting into this novel. The first 200 pages (maybe a bit less) were absolute torture. The only thing that made me get through the beginning section was that I liked the characters of Caroline and Robert. This novel is as much, or more, Caroline's story as Shirley's, actually. I'm quite sure that if someone were to do an analysis of which character (Shirley/Caroline) had the most "air time" in the book, Caroline would come out on top. The book is about their r...more
Yvann S
I battled with myself through the first two thirds of the book to keep reading, and it was only a day stuck ill in bed that gave me the opportunity to finish it. I suppose the foreword gave me plenty of warning, claiming that the book is as “unromantic as a Monday morning”, but still.

Shirley is set in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the early nineteenth century, in a collection of villages suffering religious division, economic hardship due to the Napoleonic War and the start of industrialisati...more
Maria Grazia
It took me quite a long time to finish this novel by Charlotte Bronte and it is not because I didn’t like it. I started it in a moment of frantic work and ended up reading only few pages a day , at night, when I was completely exhausted. So I went through the first 100 pages in … two months … but I’ve finished reading the other 442 in the last few days. While reading a book, I suffer from what I call “professional distortion”, I mean, I cannot simply enjoy the reading getting involved in the sto...more
Marie
Coming from an obssessive Brontë devotee who has read all of their works, this was the one that I read last. I tried, several times, to read it, but my interest always wained. Having said that, I am thrilled to have finally finished it and was really impressed with Charlottte's attempt at writing in the third person omniscient...her only attept with regard to her novels, though the technique was prevelant in her juvenilia. "Shirley" is set during the Napoleonic war as England is struggling with...more
Tricia
This is a great story about Caroline.
There are many characters in this story, but I never felt like there were too many, they only added to the richness.
At times I felt like sweet Caroline was a bit of a sap in how she wouldn't give up on her love for Robert. He was a bit of a frustrating character. The book alluded to a dark side to him, but in the end we only saw virtue. I kept trying to see where his dark side would take him, but it wasn't really there. Only a desire for fairness that had s...more
Ann
Set in a woolen mill town in Yorkshire during the Napoleonic Wars, Shirley is the story of the beautiful heiress, Shirley Keeldar, her close friend, Caroline Helstone, impoverished mill owner Robert Moore, and his brother, Louis, who is tutor to Shirley's relatives, the Sympsons, and who is her former tutor as well.

In some ways, I was reminded of North and South by Brontë's friend Elizabeth Gaskell; especially in regards to the background of labor unrest in a woolen mill town. However, Brontë wr...more
James
Shirley is Charlotte Brontë's only historical novel and in that her most topical one. Written at a time of social unrest, it is set during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when economic hardship led to riots in the woollen district of Yorkshire. A mill-owner, Robert Moore, is determined to introduce new machinery despite fierce opposition from his workers; he ignores their suffering, and puts his own life at risk. Robert sees marriage to the wealthy Shirley Keeldar as the solution to his diffi...more
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Charlotte Brontë was a British novelist, the eldest out of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. See also Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë.

Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, the third of six children, to Patrick Brontë (formerly "Patrick Brunty"), an Irish Anglican clergyman, and his wife, Maria Branwell. In April 1820 the fam...more
More about Charlotte Brontë...
Jane Eyre Villette The Professor Emma Charlotte & Emily Brontë: The Complete Novels, Deluxe Edition (Literary Classics)

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“If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about women: they do not read them in a true light: they misapprehend them, both for good and evil: their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend.” 128 people liked it
“God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is becoming to me, among the rest.” 52 people liked it
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