Shirley

Shirley is a social novel by the English novelist Charlotte Brontë, first published in 1849. It was Brontë's second published novel after Jane Eyre (originally published under Brontë's pseudonym, "Currer Bell"). The novel is set in Yorkshire in 1811-12, during the industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. The novel is set against the backdrop of the Luddite uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industry.

    The novel's popularity led to “Shirley” becoming a woman's name. The title character was given the name that her father had intended to give a son. Before the publication of the novel, Shirley was an uncommon but distinctly male name. Today it is regarded as a distinctly female name.

     While Charlotte Brontë was writing Shirley, three of her siblings died. Her brother Branwell died in September 1848, and her sister Emily fell ill and died in December. Brontë resumed writing but then her only remaining sibling, her sister Anne, became ill and died in May 1849.

     Some critics believe that the character of “Caroline Helstone” was loosely based on Anne and it has been speculated that Brontë originally planned to let Caroline die but changed her mind because of her family tragedies; however, Ellen Nussey, Charlotte's lifelong friend, claimed that the character of Caroline was based on herself.

     Charlotte Brontë told Elizabeth Gaskell that “Shirley” is what she believed her sister, Emily Brontë, would have been if she had been born into a wealthy family. Again, Ellen Nussey, who knew Emily as well as anyone outside the family, did not recognise Emily in Shirley.

     The maiden name of “Mrs. Pryor” is “Agnes Grey,” the name of the main character in Anne's first novel. She was based on Margaret Wooler, the principal of Roe Head School, which Brontë attended as both student and teacher.

The Professor

The Professor was the first novel by Charlotte Brontë. It was originally written before Jane Eyre and rejected by many publishing houses but was eventually published posthumously in 1857 by approval of Arthur Bell Nicholls, who accepted the task of reviewing and editing of the novel.

Jane Eyre

Published 1847

Jane Eyre (originally published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography) is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published on October 16, 1847, by Smith, Elder & Co. of London, England, under the pen name “Currer Bell.” The first American edition was published the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York.

     Primarily of the Bildungsroman genre, Jane Eyre follows the emotions and experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr. Rochester, the Byronic master of fictitious Thornfield Hall. In its internalization of the action (the focus on the gradual unfolding of Jane’s moral and spiritual sensibility, and the events colored by a heightened intensity previously the domain of poetry), Jane Eyre revolutionized the art of fiction. Charlotte Brontë has been called the “first historian of the private consciousness” and the literary ancestor of writers such as Joyce and Proust. The novel contains elements of social criticism, with a strong sense of morality at its core, but is nonetheless a novel many consider ahead of its time given the individualistic character of Jane and the novel’s exploration of classism, sexuality, religion, and protofeminism.