Shirley, The Professor (Everyman's Library CLASSICS) - Hardcover

Bronte, Charlotte

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1857152921 ISBN 13: 9781857152920

Publisher: Everyman, 2008

Synopsis

Struggling manufacturer Robert Moore has introduced labour saving machinery to his Yorkshire mill, arousing a ferment of unemployment and discontent among his workers. Robert considers marriage to the wealthy and independent Shirley Keeldar to solve his financial woes, yet his heart lies with his cousin Caroline, who, bored and desperate, lives as a dependent in her uncle's home with no prospect of a career. Shirley, meanwhile, is in love with Robert's brother, an impoverished tutor - a match opposed by her family. As industrial unrest builds to a potentially fatal pitch, can the four be reconciled? Set during the Napoleonic wars at a time of national economic struggles, "Shirley" (1849) is an unsentimental, yet passionate depiction of conflict between classes, sexes and generations.

About this title

Review:

"We read Charlotte Bronte not for exquisite observation of character, not for comedy, not for a philosophic view of life, but for her poetry. Probably that is so with all writers who have, as she has, an overpowering personality, so that . . . they only have to open the door to make themselves felt. There is in them some untamed ferocity perpetually at war with the accepted order of things." --Virginia Woolf

Book Description:

This work is set among the cloth mills of the author's native Yorkshire. It portrays the drama of the latter part of the Napoleonic Wars when labour-saving machinery was smashed by desperate, unemployed workers. It explores humanity's efforts to reconcile aspirations with social justice.

About this edition

• Publisher: Everyman
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1857152921
• ISBN 13: 9781857152920
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 952