Shirley (Wordsworth Classics)

I think most people will have read 'Jane Eyre' but few have come across 'Shirley'. I was made aware of it recently on a TV programme about the Brontes. The interviewee described it as a 'wonderful book' which everyone should read. I agree. It is very little like 'Jane Eyre' and much more like the bigger books of Victorian fiction - Dickens, George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell (who was of course a friend of CB) and even Thackeray. It really does draw a picture of the developing Industrial Revoluton at a time when manufacturing was growing but manufacturers were unable to sell because of the ongoing European wars. CB points very clearly to the status of women at the time and the very limited options open to them. CB did not live to see the Married Women's Property Acts later in the century, much less the struggle for female franchise or that for female education, but one has the impression that she would have approved of all of them. She laid the foundations for a change in thinking. Whereas Jane Austen writes about a similar time, she seems to accept it all as the 'status quo' - the Bennet daughters' need to marry, for instance. CB goes well beyond.

Another classic for the Charlotte Brontë fan

I have eventually finished this lengthy novel after two failed attempts. I have just read it was written during a time of immense personal difficulty for the author in which she suffered several bereavements. Under these circumstances it is a wonder she managed to write anything at all, and any flaws in the narrative can be readily forgiven. Nevertheless it has weaknesses that need to be aired, but I will start by summarising the novel's strengths.Charlotte Bronte's command of the English language is unsurpassed. I would argue that she is a greater wordmaster than both Austen and Dickens whose books I have cherished. It is a pleasure to read such penmanship. She was also an expert with French and sometimes uses a French word when no English one expresses the precise meaning she desired. I wonder if we will ever see such dedicated attention to the craft of writing again.Her characterisation is superb. She never shies away from bringing minor characters into clear focus. There are lengthy passages dedicated to explaining their personalities in minute detail, none of which moves the plot forward, but remains a pleasant reading experience.The novel's main flaw is that there is no central protagonist. Shirley is not introduced until one third of the book is gone, yet Bronte seems fixed on making her the heroine from then on, putting Caroline, the main character in the early part of the book, into the shade. This was a mistake as Bronte very effectively brings the reader into sympathy with Caroline's troubles until that point.The novel starts very strongly, describing the Luddite uprisings of 1811 amid a background of social and political turmoil. We are promised a gritty drama, but harsh edges are filed away and soon we are in the territory of a rather wan love story.Poverty, ugly and raw, is untroduced then whisked from our sight as if it is unfit for genteel readers. Dickens never flinched from bringing his audience into the squalid realm of the suffering and dying. Bronte has chosen a similar theme, yet her depictions of starvation and hopelessness are sanitised and quickly remedied. Perhaps any other treatment would have been unbearable after watching her siblings die.Twice she hits us with a gritty plot twist, only to do a quick u-turn. It's almost as bad as 'and then they woke up, and the last chapter was all a dream'. What was she afraid of? She was not writing a children's fairy tale.I found the ending a little lacklustre and one of the main characters behaved completely out of character.Despite it's problems and disappointments Shirley was still enjoyable. It is very different to Jane Eyre, but it should never be dismissed.

Great read

I generally love these books, but this one felt rather laboured. I never connected with the characters, and I found them rather irritating.

So Cheap, yet in perfect condition.I couldn't ask for better. I will order again from the Supplier.

Very happy with this item. Exactly what is said I received. Fast delivery many Thanks

There's a lot of French in this book, which could put some readers off, and lengthy biblical sections. It's very long, with a lot of plot digression and side-tracking, but I did want to know what would happen. The background of machinery taking over from workers was interesting.