Set against the real violence of the Luddite uprisings, Shirley follows two very different heroines — the quiet, watchful Caroline and the bold, independently wealthy Shirley — as industrial unrest, economic ruin, and matters of the heart collide in a Yorkshire valley on the edge of revolt. Charlotte Brontë's most ambitious novel trades Gothic intensity for something rarer: a clear-eyed, often wickedly funny portrait of what it meant to be a woman with opinions, property, and desires of her own in a world not built to accommodate any of the three. Overshadowed by Jane Eyre, and overdue for rediscovery.
