Penguin Classics: Shirley

Its focus is less on individual men and women, although their stories add compulsive drama and tension, than on the individual perceived in close relation with the forces moulding society. Charlotte Bronte chose to set it during the Napoleonic War - a period of bad harvests, Luddite riots, economic unrest and the oppression of women - in order to grapple with social and political issues. In her story of two contrasting heroines and the men they love can be traced her wish to reconcile the world of romantic love and fulfillment with the gritty realities of suffering, obligation and social duty.