Charlotte Brontë, Shirley

Judy Giles (York St John University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Grace Moore (University of Otago)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1849

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel
- Bildungsroman
Romance

Resources

Shirley, Charlotte Brontë's second novel, published in 1849 two years after JaneEyre, is set in the early years of the nineteenth century at the time of the Napoleonic Wars and the Luddite riots. The first edition, as was standard at the time, was published in three volumes. At the start of the novel Charlotte Brontë, stung by some critics' condemnation of the passion and emotion in Jane Eyre, insists that this new novel will be unlike what has gone before. Addressing her readers she asks: “Do you anticipate sentiment, and poetry, and reverie? Do you expect passion, and stimulus, and melodrama? Calm your expectations; reduce them to a lowly standard. Something real, cool and solid lies before you; something …

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1810 words

Citation: Giles, Judy. "Shirley". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 November 2001 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2086, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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