Hello, Linden! I must say, I agree with your views on Shirley. In fact, I found it so 'unreadable' after Jane Eyre, Vilette, and even The Professor, that I've not been able to bring myself to finish it - started reading it about a year ago! I believe the book was written shortly after Emily's (and Anne's?) death, that is, at a time when Charlotte couldn't have felt particularly inspired, and also wri- ting must have been rather an agonizing event after having written a great deal in the company of her sisters up to that point. Apparently Shirley (and I think that is why she is a fascinating character) was based on Emily. I get the impression that the book was more a kind of therapy or 'mourning ritual' to Charlotte than anything else. It is as if the different issues and plots within the book are simply there to fill the spaces inbetween the parts that don't concern Shirley directly. It all just doesn't come together, it seems that the authoress had no 'master plan', but just let the turmoil in her soul lead the way. In that sense, I suppose, it is indeed an interesting an admirable work, but as I'm no psychoanalyst, I can sympathize, but whether I'll ever finish the book or not, remains a question!

It is her weakest novel, I'd say (even more so than "The Professor"). I read it becuase (a) it was a Bronte novel and (b) more importantly, Shirley was based on Charlotte's perceptions of Emily.

No one seems to like SHIRLEY much. The chapter "In the Shadow of the Valley of Death" was written right after Anne's death. I've read that Charlotte was trying to emulate Thackeray's VANITY FAIR by trying to write an omniscient novel with a cynical narrator, but whereas he was very successful at this, she failed, because her forte' was actually the personal novel. I've also heard that the dialogue is wooden. As you can see, I haven't read it because of all the bad reports. But I'm curious to see how uch Shirley is based on Emily, and the York family on Mary Taylor's. . .

Actually I liked "Shirley." The writing was jumbled and fell apart at the end, but I liked the characters and story in general. Of course her siblings' deaths affected her writing, and I think that with the book she set out to give people a good image of her sisters, especially Emily. Maybe that's why 'shirley' and 'caroline' end up happier in the end than most of her heroines. One interesting thing I noticed was that the mother of Caroline(the character based on Anne) had the real name of Agnes Grey. Amy, it really does seem that Charlotte tries to write like Thackeray. Of course there are parts where she breaks down and gives us a first-person view, as in Louis Moore's journal papers. But I liked the book; I think it showed a lot of Charlotte. Especially in that chapter Amy mentions- it's almost painful reading that, knowing.

There are other gems in "Shirley", such as (IMHO): The line "If her admirers would call her an angel, they could treat her like an idiot." Classic Bimbo put-down. The character of Helstone is beautifully done, (is he based on the Bronte father?) The up-front way in which Shirley decides to organise charity for the poor of the village - it took my breath away when she says openly: "I'll go in for charity to stop them rebelling and attacking my property." As political analysis it beats hell out of anything written by Thackeray.

That is a great line! I also understand that Charlotte was very upfront about the condition of women in this novel -- is this where her famous line "half angel/half doll" comes from? I do think that Charlotte was so consumed with everyone dying around her that the structure of the novel became jumbled, which is certainly understandable. Still, a failure from a great writer can be more interesting than a success from a mediocre one, yes?

I found Shirley totally different to JE like most readers of those novels. Parts of it were quite depressing but this is not surprising given the state of Charlotte's personal life at the time of writing. Mary Taylor, however, found Shirley more to her liking than JE "Shirley is more interesting than Jane Eyre- who indeed never interests you at all until she has something to suffer" (Mary Taylor was the model for Rose Yorke)

I'm sure that SHIRLEY engaged Mary more, since she was such a pioneering feminist! Not to mention her entire family being portrayed as the Yorkes. . . Is SHIRLEY as bad as they say? Does anyone out there think that it's worth reading? Thanks.

Yes I do. I don't think it's fair to say Shirley is a bad novel. It is very different to JE but then Charlotte wasn't a "formula" writer. The novel is popular here in the West Riding probably because Charlotte has told some of the areas history in it. Also the characters in it are more real and like people one is likely meet in these parts. One doesn't meet Rochester types all that often! In some ways Shirley is more real than JE, maybe not for people wanting an escapist read though.

Thanks Mamie. I want to give it a try one of these days. I love Charlotte's writing, and I think a great writer's "failure" can be more interesting than say, one of Jackie Collins' "successes." I'd like to see how Charlotte handles social problems, even those of the past. I actually think if she had had more confidence in this area, she could have been just as influential as Dickens in exposing Victorian cruelty and the rottenness of some of its institutions. But she felt her realm was the personal, as Jane Austen did.

Hi all. My two cents on Shirley is that it's very much worth reading. I don't think it's as great a book as Jane Eyre or Villette, but that doesn't mean it's not very good indeed. In some ways it's easier to read than Villette, which really takes you through the emotional wringer. I think it's very much in an English tradition of books about "what are women to do?"...going back at least to Sarah Fielding's "The Governess." I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was very moved by parts of it.

I enjoyed Shirley. I had read that when she had completed the first thrid of the novel, Emily and Patrick died, and at the end of the second Anne died. I found that the tone changed at the end of the first volume, and by the end of the second it was falling apart. I found that it was wasted potential almost and at the beginning very good, but it didn't turn out the way I had expected it to (in reference to tone, and it got rather predictable, I read CB's novels in this order:The Professor, Vilette, Shirley, Jane Eyre) I must confess that I was rather disappointed with the pupil-teacher love story being used again (and twice in the same book), after having read it in The Professor and in Vilette, and after having read all the biographies I could it seemed rather a tortured retelling of what could have been..