Shirley (The Penguin English Library) - Softcover

The Penguin English Library Edition of Shirley by Charlotte Brontë

'Alas, Experience! No other mentor has so wasted and frozen a face as yours: none wears a robe so black, none bears a rod so heavy ...'

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?

The Penguin English Library - 100 paperbacks of the best fiction written in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War

Charlotte Brontë (1816-55) was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, one of an extraordinary group of siblings who spent their time immersed in reading and writing and between them went on to change the nature of English fiction. Publishing under the pseudonym Currer Bell, Charlotte was a great friend of Elizabeth Gaskell, who wrote her biography, as well as William Makepeace Thackeray and George Henry Lewes.

Brontë's novels Jane Eyre and Villette are also published in the Penguin English Library.