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The Industrial Brontës: Advocates for Women's Equality in a Turbulent Age, by Taten Shirley; pp. vi + 139. London and Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2023, £69.00, $90.00.
Taten Shirley's The Industrial Brontés: Advocates for Women's Equality in a Turbulent Age admirably serves an instructive purpose for undergraduates and general readers seeking accurate knowledge of the Victorian era and jargon-free thematic discussions of gender in the Bronté sisters novels. Informative and largely uncontroversial in its claims, it maintains an appealing balance of biography, novel analysis, and historical context. Structurally and stylistically, it is eminently readable, being relatively brief and divided into easily digestible portions. Each of four sections contains its own introduction and conclusion, which bookend four- to eight-page body chapters. A concise general introduction, conclusion, and epilogue enclose this four-section set, yielding a decidedly modular reading experience like that of a handbook or companion (as opposed to a traditional argumentative monograph). Thus, while it is ideal for assigning to undergraduates or consulting during class preparation, it will frustrate scholars who expect detailed, nuanced readings of the novels shaped by a theoretically advanced understanding of the Industrial Revolution or by cutting-edge currents in feminist methodologies.
Section 1, Decentering Marriage, explores how the Bronté sisters novels insist upon women's value apart from marriage, critique the curtailment of women's personal and political liberties upon marriage, and plumb the possibility of creating more equitable couplings. Section...