Brontë tells the reader it was a tradition in the family to only give this surname as a first name to male children.

Brontë resumed writing, but then her only remaining sibling, her sister Anne, became ill and died in May 1849.

[5] She was based on Margaret Wooler, the principal of Roe Head School, which Brontë attended as both student and teacher.

As the novel opens, Robert awaits delivery of new labour-saving machinery for the mill, which will enable him to lay off additional employees.

Robert is very close to his cousin Caroline Helstone, who comes to his house to be taught French by his sister, Hortense.

She suggests that she might take up the role of governess, but her uncle dismisses the idea and assures her that she need not work for a living.

Caroline recovers somewhat when she meets Shirley, an independent heiress whose parents are dead and who lives with Mrs Pryor, her former governess.

Shirley is lively, cheerful, full of ideas about how to use her money and how to help people, and very interested in business.

Shirley likes Robert, is very interested in his work, and is concerned about him and the threats he receives from laid-off millworkers.

Some passages show the real suffering of those who were honest workers and can no longer find good employment; other passages show how some people use losing their jobs as an excuse to get drunk, fight with their previous employers, and incite other people to violence.

She had abandoned her because Caroline looked exactly like her father, the husband who tortured Mrs Pryor and made her life miserable.

There are days when Louis can ask Shirley to come to the schoolroom and recite the French pieces she learned from him when she was younger.

This self-disgust had driven Robert away to London, where he realised that restoring the family name was not as important as maintaining his self-respect.

Robert soon moves back to his own home and persuades his sister that the very thing their house needs to cheer it up is a visit from Caroline.

The four central characters are studies in contrast: the two friends Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar, and their lovers, the brothers Robert and Louis Gérard Moore.

The silent adaptation was directed by A. V. Bramble and Carlotta Breese starred as the title character.

In March 2014, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a ten-episode dramatisation by Rachel Joyce in the station's 15 Minute Drama slot.

Narrated by Lesley Sharp, the series starred Joanne Froggatt as Caroline and Jemima Rooper as Shirley.

[7] Coming soon after Jane Eyre, which was extremely successful, Shirley originally received a muted reception from critics.