Shirley: Collins Classics

Shirley is the second novel of Charlotte Brontë. It was published in 1849, after Charlotte had endured the death of her siblings. Shirley is a work of artistic maturity. Full of wisdom, it explores how modernism can impact individuals whenever societies undergo deeper transformations.
The novel is set in Yorkshire during the Luddite revolts of 1812. It depicts two complementary heroines, the wise and timid Caroline Helstone and the independent Shirley Keeldar. Both are confronted with male authority, social discontent, and their own struggling for love beyond financial considerations.
If you think, from this prelude, that anything like a romance is preparing for you, reader, you never were more mistaken. 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 unromantic as Monday morning, when all who have work wake with the consciousness that they must rise and betake themselves thereto. — Charlotte Brontë