By Skyler Gomez | On July 8, 2019 | Updated June 5, 2023 | Comments (0)
Shirley was the second published novel by Charlotte Brontë. Published in 1849 under the pseudonym Currer Bell, the author had already become famous with the success of Jane Eyre (1847).
While Charlotte was at work on this book, her remaining siblings died (two sisters had died in childhood). The first to go was her troubled brother Branwell. He was soon followed to the grave by Emily and Anne, who would also come to be celebrated for their literary accomplishments.
The lengthy novel has two female protagonists — the eponymous Shirley Keeldar, as well as Caroline Helstone. Set in Charlotte’s native Yorkshire, it takes place against the background of the textile industry’s Luddite uprisings of 1811 and 1812. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On March 27, 2019 | Updated September 8, 2022 | Comments (2)
Though Jane Eyre was Charlotte Brontë‘s first published novel, The Professor was actually the first novel she completed. It wasn’t published until 1857, two years after her death, with her literary reputation secured.
The resounding failure of a book of poems she produced with sisters Emily and Anne in 1846 didn’t stop Charlotte from spearheading an effort to find a publisher for the novels that they had been working on.
They continued to use the assumed quasi-masculine names that appeared on their book of poetry, styling themselves Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily), and Acton (Anne), all surnamed Bell.
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By Nava Atlas | On March 12, 2019 | Updated December 27, 2024 | Comments (2)
Writing as “Ellis Bell,” Emily Brontë‘s only novel, Wuthering Heights, was published in December 1847. Presented here is a synopsis of Wuthering Heights, its ponderous plot described by 19th-century biographer Mary F. Robinson.
The brooding and complex story follows the intersection of two families — the Earnshaws and the Lintons. The passionate connection of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff have sparked romantic imaginations as star-crossed lovers whose dramas and tragedies reverberate into the next generation.
Upon publication, reviewers were rather perplexed by the novel. Charlotte Brontë felt that her sister Emily’s magnum opus was poorly understood and supplied her own preface to the 1850 edition of Wuthering Heights. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On March 1, 2019 | Updated February 15, 2020 | Comments (0)
Shirley, the second published novel by Charlotte Brontë, came out in 1849 while she was still using the pseudonym Currer Bell. Charlotte had already achieved fame and notoriety with the wildly successful Jane Eyre under her ambiguous nom de plume. The question we’ll be exploring here is how much of Shirley’s character did Charlotte draw from her sister Emily.
A more challenging novel to read than Jane Eyre, Shirley: A Tale is now considered a prime example of the mid-19th century “social novel.” The social novels that emerged from that period were works of fiction dealing with themes like labor injustice, abuse of and bias against women, and poverty. Read More→
By Eleanor Flexner | On January 6, 2019 | Updated March 5, 2026 | Comments (0)
In the classic A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 –1797) argued for equality of men and women — a revolutionary concept at the time.
Men and women, in her view, are born with ability to reason, and therefore power and influence should be equally available to all regardless of gender. This was a unique and radical view in 1792 when the book was first published.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects is considered one of the earliest works of feminist philosophical literature. Read More→
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