Shirley

Shirley is Charlotte Bront:e e's only historical novel and her most topical one. Written at a time of social unrest, it is set during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when economic hardship led to riots in the woollen district of Yorkshire. A mill-owner, Robert Moore, is determined to introduce new machinery despite fierce opposition from his workers; he ignores their suffering, and puts his own life at risk .Robert sees marriage to the wealthy Shirley Keeldar as the solution to his difficulties, but he loves his cousin Caroline. She suffers misery and frustration, and Shirley has her own ideas about the man she will choose to marry. The friendship between the two women, and the contrast between their situations, is at the heart of this compelling novel, which is suffused with Bront":'s deep yearning for an earlier time.

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) is the author of Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, and The Professor (published posthumously).
Jessica Cox is a research student and postgraduate tutorial assistant in the Department of English at the University of Wales, Swansea.
Lucasta Miller is the author of The Brontë Myth and writes for the Guardian.
Heather Glen teaches at the University of Cambridge and is the editor of the Penguin Classics edition of Charlotte Brontë's The Professor.