melangell reviewed Shirley by Charlotte Brontë
Review of 'Shirley' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
weird
528 pages
English language
Published Feb. 4, 1972 by Dutton Adult.
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.