Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley Abridged Edited by Emma Laybourn Copyright 2018 Emma Laybourn A free ebook from www.englishliteratureebooks.com Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1 Levitical Chapter 2 The Wagons Chapter 3…Mr. Yorke Chapter 4 Mr. Yorke (continued) Chapter 5 Hollow’s Cottage Chapter 6 Coriolanus Chapter 7 The Curates at Tea Chapter 8 Noah and Moses Chapter 9 Briarmains Chapter 10 Old Maids Chapter 11 Fieldhead Chapter 12 Shirley and Caroline Chapter 13 Further Communications on Business Chapter 14 Shirley Seeks to be saved by Works Chapter 15 Mr. Donne’s Exodus Chapter 16 Whitsuntide Chapter 17 The School Feast Chapter 18 Which the Genteel Reader is recommended to skip, Low Persons being here introduced Chapter 19 A Summer Night Chapter 20 Tomorrow Chapter 21 Mrs. Pryor Chapter 22 Two Lives Chapter 23 An Evening Out Chapter 24 The Valley of the Shadow of Death Chapter 25 The West Wind blows Chapter 26 Old Copy-books Chapter 27 The First Bluestocking Chapter 28 Phœbe Chapter 29 Louis Moore Chapter 30 Rushedge – a Confessional Chapter 31 Uncle and Niece Chapter 32 The Schoolboy and the Wood-nymph Chapter 33 Martin’s Tactics Chapter 34 Case of Domestic Persecution – Remarkable Instance of Pious Perseverance in the Discharge of Religious Duties Chapter 35…Wherein Matters make some Progress, but not much Chapter 36 Written in the Schoolroom Chapter 37 The Winding-up Extracts from Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte Other books in this series Return to the Table of Contents at any time by clicking on the arrow ↑ at the start of every chapter. ↑ Introduction Charlotte Brontë, the oldest of a remarkable trio of sisters, is almost as famous for her life as she is for her work. Born in 1816, she was the third of the six children of Maria and Patrick Brontë. Her father was a clergyman in Haworth, West Yorkshire – an industrialised village near the moors, unhealthy but by no means isolated. When her mother died in 1821, Charlotte and three of her sisters were sent to boarding school, where the two eldest became ill, dying soon afterwards. (The school was to figure in her book Jane Eyre as Lowood School.) Back at home, the four remaining children – Charlotte, Emily, Anne and their brother Branwell – joined together in devising and writing about the imaginary kingdoms of Gondal and Angria, in which they immersed themselves. After completing her education Charlotte worked as a teacher and a governess, before travelling to Brussels in 1842 with Emily to study languages. Here Charlotte became deeply attached to her married teacher, Constantin Heger; this unrequited passion was to have a lifelong effect on her work. On returning to Haworth she compiled a volume of poems by herself and her sisters Emily and Anne, which was published in 1846. At the same time she began to write novels. Her first, The Professor, was rejected by publishers, but her second, Jane Eyre, was published in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell, and was an immediate popular success. While Charlotte was working on her next book, Shirley, her brother Branwell died of lung disease and alcoholism, and both Emily and Anne grew increasingly sick with tuberculosis: Emily died in 1848 and Anne the following year. Shirley was finished soon after Anne’s death. The book came out in 1849 to more muted acclaim than Jane Eyre, but Charlotte’s reputation as a writer was established, enabling her to meet other literary figures of the day – notably Elizabeth Gaskell, who was to become her correspondent, friend and posthumous biographer. Charlotte’s final novel, Villette, was published in 1853. The following year, she married her father’s curate Arthur Bell Nicholls. Despite her initial doubts about the marriage, it was happy, though brief. Charlotte became pregnant and suffered from extreme nausea and sickness which weakened her greatly. She died in 1855 at the age of thirty-eight. * On its publication, Shirley sold well; indeed, the book popularised the use of “Shirley” as a girl’s name (previously it had been occasionally used as a man’s given name, derived from a surname). However, nowadays the novel is much less popular with readers than its predecessor Jane Eyre. Set in the early nineteenth century, in the period just before its author was born, Shirley concerns the lives and aspirations of two young women: the rector’s niece Caroline Helstone and the heiress Shirley Keeldar. Despite its setting during the violent Luddite riots, which play a part in the book, its tone as a whole is subdued, with little of the high drama of Jane Eyre. There may be various reasons for this. Firstly, the deaths of Branwell, Emily and Anne during its writing undoubtedly contributed to the book’s sober quality, and its recurring themes of severe illness and awareness of death. Secondly, critical reaction to Jane Eyre had not been entirely approving: some readers had denounced both that book and Emily’s Wuthering Heights as immoral and godless, while Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was also criticised as improper. It may be that Charlotte was determined to make her next book one at which no such criticisms could be levelled, and to write an intellectual work rather than a passionate one. In this, she succeeded. Although Shirley contains highly perceptive and incisive passages (especially about the restricted role of women), it lacks a dramatic focus. As Juliet Barker has noted in her outstanding biography of the Brontë family, ‘The general consensus of critical opinion was that Shirley was better written than Jane Eyre but lacked the earlier novel’s fire and originality: a worthy successor but not one that would further Currer Bell’s reputation.’ [Juliet Barker, The Brontës (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994)] While Charlotte Brontë looked to history for the events of Shirley, she drew on characters known to her to populate the book. The curates, clergymen and other characters were based on people she had known; and Shirley Keeldar herself was intended to be a representation of her sister Emily. While the curates were easily recognised by readers who knew them, Emily was not. It seems that Shirley was an idealised Emily – Charlotte’s sister as she might have been, had her circumstances been different. Elizabeth Gaskell described the genesis of the novel and its characters at some length in her Life of Charlotte Brontë of 1857. Extracts from the relevant chapter of her biography are included at the end of this ebook, here. Note on the abridgement Shirley is a wordier novel than Jane Eyre, a fact which may have contributed to its comparative unpopularity amongst modern readers. This abridgement reduces the book to about 60% of its original length, and simplifies some language to make its meaning clearer, particularly where words are now little used or have altered in meaning. Those studying Shirley for academic purposes should use this version only as an introduction to the novel. The full book is available free at numerous sites online, including Project Gutenberg, whose edition provided the basis for this abridgement. ↑ Chapter 1 LEVITICAL Lately an abundant shower of curates has fallen upon the north of England: they lie very thick on the hills; every parish has one or more of them. But not of recent years are we about to speak; we are going back to the beginning of this century. Present years are dusty, sunburnt, hot, arid; we will avoid the noon, forget it in siesta, pass the midday in slumber, and dream of dawn. If you think, from this prelude, that a romance is waiting for you, reader, you never were more mistaken. Do you expect sentiment, passion, and melodrama? Calm your expectations. Something real, cool, and solid lies before you; something unromantic as Monday morning, when people wake knowing that they must rise and go to work. You may have a taste of the exciting, perhaps towards the middle and close of the meal, but the first dish set upon the table shall be one that a Catholic might eat on Good Friday: it shall be cold lentils and vinegar; unleavened bread with bitter herbs, and no roast lamb. Lately, I say, an abundant shower of curates has fallen upon the north of England; but in 1811 that rain had not descended. Curates were scarce then: there was no Pastoral Aid to stretch a helping hand to worn-out old rectors, allowing them to pay a vigorous young colleague from Oxford or Cambridge. Yet even in those days of scarcity, curates might be found. A certain favoured district in the West Riding of Yorkshire could boast three blossoming within a circuit of twenty miles. You shall see them, reader. Step into this neat garden-house on the edge of Whinbury; walk forward into the little parlour. There they are at dinner. Allow me to introduce them to you: Mr. Donne, curate of Whinbury; Mr. Malone, curate of Briarfield; Mr. Sweeting, curate of Nunnely. These are Mr. Donne’s lodgings; Mr. Donne has kindly invited his brethren to dine. You and I will join the party, and hear what is to be heard. At present, however, they are only eating; and while they eat we will talk aside. These gentlemen have all the activity of youth – an activity which their moping old vicars wish would be channelled into their pastoral duties, superintending the schools, and visiting the sick. But the young curates feel this to be dull work; they prefer to lavish their energies on visiting each other, rushing backwards and forwards between their respective lodgings – a triangle of visits, which they keep up all the year through.