SOURCE: "The Structure of Shirley," in Brontë Society Transactions, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1962, pp. 27-35.

In the essay below, Holgate describes the changes in the novel from its planning stage to its completion—changes brought about by the tragic events in the author's life in 1848-49.

If any one of Charlotte Brontë's novels could be described as 'ill-starred' it must surely be Shirley.

Its conception was by no means a chance-blown seed; it set out to be an ambitious work; the nucleus and growth started in a decade, and in a district, which offered lush material, rich with incident, for a romance amid industrial strife, such as Charlotte envisaged. It is possible that from the time she first conceived the notion of writing for publication, bearing in mind that the stuff of her novels would be her own experience of life, the idea of such a romance was an...