A Tale.
Shirley A Tale.
Smith, Elder, 1849.
First edition. Three volumes. Original publisher's brown cloth with gilt titles to spine and decorative border stamped in blind to the covers. Three pages of adverts to the rear of vol III, though bound without the terminal catalogue of adverts in vol I. A very good copy indeed, which shows some minor wear with near invisible internal repair to the spine ends and a small nick to the cloth at the upper corner of volume three. Internally fresh with occasional foxing. A handsome copy, rarely encountered in good cloth.
Charlotte Bronte's second novel. It is one of the foremost examples of the Victorian Social Novel, which uses fiction to highlight the impact of social issues, in this case industrialisation and the state of the country's working class rural and urban poor. The novel is set in Yorkshire against the historical backdrop of the economic depression of the Napoleonic Wars and the Luddite Riots.
The period in which Bronte wrote Shirley was a tragic one for her family, as it saw the deaths of her two literary sisters, Emily and Anne and her brother Bramwell. She wrote to her publisher in August, "Whatever now becomes of the work, the occupation of writing it has been a boon to me. It took me out of a dark and desolate reality into an unreal but happier region".
The two principal characters, Shirley Keeldar and Caroline Helstone are loosely based on a homage to Emily and Anne.
PROVENANCE: William Marchbank (1828-1891, Yorkshire mill owner; armorial bookplate to each pastedown)
Smith 5
Stock ID: 28750
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