Charlotte Bronte and Her Sisters (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIV SHIRLEY In taking up a copy of Charlotte Bronte's Shirley we find ourselves in an atmosphere more easy of interpretation than that of any other book written by the three sisters. Birstall in Yorkshire, near Batley, is the real centre of the story; not very far away you may come to Oakwell Hall, the " Fieldhead " where Shirley lived, and within easy reach also the Red House at Gomersall, known in the book as "Briarmains," where the family of Yorke lived. The school teacher, Miss Wooler, as Mrs. Gaskell tells us in detail, was in the habit of relating her memories of the great mill riots at the beginning of the century. The attack on Hollow's Mill in the book is but a picturesque record of an actual event in April, 1812,1 when an assault by some hundreds of starving clothdressers, armed with pistols, hatchets and bludgeons, was made upon the factory of Mr. Cartwright at Rawfolds, between Huddersfield and Leeds. Mr. Cartwright, like Mr. Moore, had foreign blood in his veins, dark eyes and complexion; and Mr. Cartwright's successful defence of his mill was but retold in picturesque form in Shirley. Then in Mr. Helstone we have the prototype of a Mr. Hammond Roberson of Heald's Hall, who built a handsome church at Liversedge--a fine old Tory who was intimate with Cartwright, and armed himself and his household in his defence. It is he of whom it is told in Shirley that he put the sweetheart of one of his servants under the pump; "Fanny" is the servant in Shirley; it is "Betty" in Mrs. Gaskell's relation of the actual circumstance. Almost every incident in the book, as for example the meeting of the rival Dissenting and Church of England schools in a narrow lane, has its counterpart in the tradition or the actual experiences of Charlotte...