Shirley1850

<p><i>Shirley</i>, published in 1849, was <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charlotte-bronte">Charlotte Brontë’s</a> second novel after <i><a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charlotte-bronte/jane-eyre">Jane Eyre</a></i>. Published under her pseudonym of “Currer Bell,” it differs in several respects from that earlier work. It is written in the third person with an omniscient narrator, rather than the first-person of <i>Jane Eyre</i>, and incorporates the themes of industrial change and the plight of unemployed workers. It also features strong pleas for the recognition of women’s intellect and right to their independence of thought and action.</p> <p>Set in the West Riding of Yorkshire during the Napoleonic period of the early 19th Century, the novel describes the...