Shirley (Wordsworth Classics) - Softcover

Charlotte Bronte

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853260649 ISBN 13: 9781853260643

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 1998

Synopsis

Following the tremendous popular success of Jane Eyre, which earned her lifelong notoriety as a moral revolutionary, Charlotte Brontė 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.

About this title

About the Author:

Charlotte Brontė was born at Thornton, Yorkshire, on April 21, 1816. Her father, Patrick Brontė, became curate for life of the moorland parish of Haworth, Yorkshire, in 1820, and her mother, Maria Brontė, died the following year, leaving behind five daughters and a son who were cared for in the parsonage by their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell. The eldest daughters, Maria and Elizabeth, died in 1825 from tuberculosis contracted at the religious boarding school to which they (along with Charlotte and her younger sister Emily) had been sent. (All the Brontė children ultimately suffered from lung disease.)

Raised at home thereafter, Charlotte, Emily, their youngest sister, Anne, and brother, Branwell, lived in a fantasy world of their own making, drawing on their voracious reading of Byron, Scott, Shakespeare, The Arabian Nights, and gothic fiction, and writing elaborate poetic and dramatic cycles involving the histories of imaginary countries. Charlotte's early writings revolved around the kingdom of Angria, about which she wrote melodramatic tales of passion and revenge. She spent a year studying at Miss Wooler's school in Roe Head (later relocated to Dewsbury Moor), and went back there to teach from 1835 to 1838; subsequently she worked as a governess.

With Emily, Charlotte traveled in 1842 to study languages at a boarding school in Brussels; her close emotional attachment to her instructor, M. Heger, a married man, would later figure in her fiction. Charlotte and Emily went home after a year because of their aunt's death; Charlotte subsequently returned to Brussels for a year of teaching, 1843 to 1844. A joint collection of poems by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne--published pseudonymously as Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell--appeared in 1846. The three sisters had in the meantime each written a novel, of which Emily's Wuthering Heights and Anne's Agnes Grey were accepted in 1847 for publication the following year. Charlotte's first novel, The Professor, based on her experiences in Brussels, was rejected by a series of publishers (it finally appeared posthumously in 1857).

Jane Eyre was published under Charlotte's pseudonym, Currer Bell, in 1847 and achieved commercial and critical success; it had gone through four editions by the time of Charlotte's death. Jane Eyre won high praises; William Makepeace Thackeray (who later became a friend) declared himself "exceedingly moved and pleased," and George Henry Lewes applauded its "deep significant reality"; it was also criticized by some for the rebelliousness of its heroine and for what the Quarterly Review called "coarseness of language and laxity of tone."

During this period the Brontės underwent repeated tragedies. Branwell, despite his early promise, had been ravaged by the effects of drink and drugs, and when he found work as a tutor in the same household where Anne was a governess, his involvement with his employer's wife led to his dismissal; he died in September of 1848, followed three months later by Emily and the following year by Anne. Charlotte, the sole survivor, published two more novels, Shirley (1849), a novel of Yorkshire during the Napoleonic period, and Villette (1853), a further fictional exploration of her Brussels experiences. In 1850 she met the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, with whom she formed a close friendship; Gaskell later wrote the classic biography of her friend, The Life of Charlotte Brontė (1857). Charlotte married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls, in 1854, and died on March 31, 1855.

From AudioFile:

Performances like this solidify the notion that much of classic literature translates beautifully to audio. Bront‘Õs rich language and multi-layered plot fairly sing in the care of talented narrator Anna Bentinck, whose clear tones enliven each character, no matter how small his or her role. With an added lilt, a quickened pace, or an altered enunciation, Bentinck moves gracefully from one character to another and makes any bit of narration sparkle. Words that might seem stilted or stuffy on the page become as energetic as the social interactions of Bront‘Õs Yorkshire. Growing industrialization is juxtaposed with relationship woes as the title character yearns for love. All in all, this audiobook is full of plot twists and memorable characters. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1853260649
• ISBN 13: 9781853260643
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496