Sign In Join Now
User Accessibility
  • Increase Font

  • Invert Colours

Search for a Book Browse Books Menu
Shirley Cover
Request CD

Share this book:

Shirley

AuthorCharlotte Bronte

NarratorAnna Bentinck

Duration26h 35m

CategoriesAdult Fiction, Classics

Key StageA Level

PublisherIsis

VersionUnabridged

  Add to Favourites List

The Shirley of the title is a woman of independent means; her friend Caroline is not. Both struggle with what a woman's role is and can be. Their male counterparts - Louis, the powerless tutor, and Robert, his cloth-manufacturing brother - also stand at odds to society's expectations. The novel is set in a period of social and political ferment, featuring class disenfranchisement, the drama of Luddite machine-breaking, and the divisive effects of the Napoleonic Wars. But Charlotte Brontes particular strength lies in exploring the hidden psychological drama of love, loss and the quest for identity. Personal and public agitation are brought together against the dramatic backdrop of her native Yorkshire. As always, Bronte challenges convention, exploring the limitations of social justice whilst telling not one but two love stories.

0 (0 Reviews)
0
0
0
0
0

Related Titles

The Plague Cover

The Plague

Author: Albert Camus

The Plague

Author Albert Camus

Narrator James Jenner

Duration 11h 2m

In the small coastal city of Oran, Algeria, rats begin rising up from the filth only to die as bloody heaps in the streets. Shortly after, an outbreak of the bubonic plague erupts and envelops the human population. Albert Camus' The Plague is a brilliant and haunting rendering of human perseverance and futility in the face of a relentless terror bo...

View Book
Villette Cover

Villette

Author: Charlotte Bronte

Villette

Author Charlotte Bronte

Narrator Carole Boyd

Duration 2h 22m

Lucy Snowe, an English girl, goes to work as a governess in Brussels and finds solace in an unlikely suitor. Largely autobiographical fiction. Based on Charlotte's work as a governess in Brussels, Villette concerns the life of Lucy Snowe, an English girl who obtains a post at a girl's school in Belgium. With few friends and little money, Lucy conc...

View Book
Jane Eyre Cover

Jane Eyre

Author: Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre

Author Charlotte Bronte

Narrator Nadia May

Duration 18h 52m

Treated badly as a child by both her aunt and school, Jane leaves to become a governess to the daughter of the mysterious Mr Rochester. Gradually she falls in love with him, but things are not what they seem and life is not straightforward for the rebellious heroine.

View Book
Therese Raquin Cover

Therese Raquin

Author: Emile Zola

Therese Raquin

Author Emile Zola

Narrator Traci Svensgaard

Duration 6h 41m

In a dingy apartment on the Passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, Th‚rŠse Raquin is trapped in a loveless marriage to her sickly cousin, Camille. The numbing tedium of her life is suddenly shattered when she embarks on a turbulent affair with her husband's earthy friend, Laurent. But their passion for each other soon compels the lovers to commit a crime t...

View Book
Villette Cover

Villette

Author: Charlotte Bronte

Villette

Author Charlotte Bronte

Narrator Charlotte Ritchie

Duration 21h 29m

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Charlotte Ritchie, best known for her roles as Oregon in Channel 4's Fresh Meat, Hannah in the BBC Three comedy Siblings, and as Barbara Gilbert in BBC drama Call the Midwife. With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding sch...

View Book
Nicholas Nickleby Cover

Nicholas Nickleby

Author: Charles Dickens

Nicholas Nickleby

Author Charles Dickens

Narrator Simon Vance

Duration 31h 21m

The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby follows the delightful adventures of a hearty young hero in nineteenth-century England. Nicholas, a gentleman's son fallen upon hard times, must set out to make his way in the world. His journey is accompanied by some of the most swaggering scoundrels and unforgettable eccent...

View Book
The Yellow Wall-paper Cover

The Yellow Wall-paper

Author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wall-paper

Author Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Narrator Various

Duration 1h 32m

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Jessica Brown Findlay, Jamael Westman and Sheila Atim. 'The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing' Written with barely controlled fury after she was confined to her room for 'nerves' and forbidden to write, Gilman's pioneer...

View Book
Three Men In A Boat Cover

Three Men In A Boat

Author: Jerome K Jerome

Three Men In A Boat

Author Jerome K Jerome

Narrator Blake Morrison

Duration 7h 33m

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Blake Harrison, star of The Inbetweeners, also known for his role on screen in A Very English Scandal and Todd Margaret, as well as on London's West End in Waitress. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by David Carroll. Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. a...

View Book
The Wind In the Willows Cover

The Wind In the Willows

Author: Kenneth Grahame

The Wind In the Willows

Author Kenneth Grahame

Narrator Alan Bennett

Duration 1h 17m

When the Water Rat invites the unassuming Mole to spend his first day ever in a boat on the river, and wise Badger comes along for the ride as well, so begins a marvellous season of adventure for the three friends. Mr Toad (he of Toad Hall) completes a happy foursome, but his tendency to get into hot water leads him into some rather hair-raising sc...

View Book
Germinal Cover

Germinal

Author: Emile Zola

Germinal

Author Emile Zola

Narrator Leighton Pugh

Duration 19h 55m

Germinal is one of the most striking novels in the French tradition. Widely regarded as Zola's masterpiece, the novel describes the working conditions of French coalminers in the 1860s in harsh and realistic terms it is visceral, graphic and unrelenting. Its strong socialist principles and vivid accounts of the miners' strikes meant that the novel...

View Book