Shirley is a novel by Charlotte Brontë, published in 1849. Its popularity led to "Shirley" becoming a woman's name. (In the novel, Shirley's father gave her the name he had intended to give a son.)

The novel is set in Yorkshire in the period 1813–1815, during the industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. The four central characters are studies in contrast: brothers Robert Moore (an industrialist whose mill is idle because of the war) and Louis Moore (a schoolmaster); and their two loves Caroline Helstone, timid and uncertain, and Shirley Keeldar, heir to a fortune.

External links

• Text of Shirley