Romance Brontë, Charlotte: Shirley. v1, 9 Dec 2015

[AlexBell]

Charlotte Brontë was born in 1816, the third daughter of Revd Patrick and Maria Brontë. Maria was born in 1813, Elizabeth in 1814, Branwell in 1817, Emily in 1818, and Anne in 1820. Mrs Brontë died in 1821. The two elder sisters died in 1825, Branwell and Emily died in 1848, and Anne in 1849, all of tuberculosis. Her father died in 1861.

In 1824 she was sent to Cowan Bridge School with a younger sister to join her older sisters. After one died in 1825 they were sent home where the other soon died. The remaining four children remained at home until 1830 under the supervision of her mother's sister, and wrote many short stories and poems for several years.

Charlotte went to Roe Head school early in 1831 and made two lifelong friends, and left in 1832. She returned to the school as a teacher in 1835 and left in 1838 to return home. She spent short periods as a governess, went to Mme Hegel's school in Brussels in 1842, and returned there as a teacher the next year. She seems to have become infatuated with M. Hegel, and wrote many intense letters to him after she returned home in 1844.

Jane Eyre was published in 1847 to instant acclaim. Despite being painfully shy Charlotte sought and gained the friendship of Harriet Martineau, William Thackeray, and Elizabeth Gaskell. Having refused at least three earlier proposals of marriage from other men she accepted a proposal from her father's curate, married him in June 1854, and died during early pregnancy in March 1855.

Shirley was published in three volumes in 1849, with a one volume second edtion in 1853. It was not instantly popular like Jane Eyre, but made Shirley popular as a girl's name. The story is set in Yorkshire at the end of the Napoleonic wars, touches on the social unrest brought about by the war and on the place of women in society, and is told by a third person narrator who informs, lectures, and teases 'the Reader' about the vicissitudes of two girls during their romances. The character of Shirley is based on the author's sister Emily, and Caroline is based on her sister Anne.

The source text was taken from Project Gutenberg Australia, and checked against the Oxford Classics edition. The text is replete with archaic and literary words which which have been left intact. There are many French words, phrases, and sentences, and English translations for most of them have been provided as end notes. I have silently corrected typos, curled quotes, and made changes to punctuation and hyphenation using oxforddictionaries.com.

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