Shirley (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Collection)

Paperback, 496 pages

English language

Published April 1, 1998 by Wordsworth Editions Ltd.

ISBN:: 978-1-85326-064-3

(3 reviews)

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.

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