Ankenbrandt, Katherine Ware. "Charlotte Brontë's Shirley and John Leyden's 'The Cout of Keeldar'." Victorian Newsletter No. 34 (Fall 1968): 33-34.

Traces the possible source of the surname Keeldar in Shirley.

Argyle, Gisela. "Gender and Generic Mixing in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley." Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 35, No. 4 (Autumn 1995): 741-56.

Explores the use of the third-person narrator in Shirley as a departure from Brontë's use of protagonist-narrators in Jane Eyre and Villette.

Bailin, Miriam. '"Varieties of Pain': The Victorian Sickroom and Brontë's Shirley." Modern Language Quarterly 48, No. 3 (September 1987): 254-78.

Examines the roles of nurse and patient in Shirley.

Belkin, Roslyn. "Rejects of the Marketplace: Old Maids in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley." International Journal of Women's Studies 4, No. 1 (January/February 1981): 50-66.

Studies Brontë's parallels between oppressed workers and oppressed single women in Shirley.

Bock, Carol A. "Storytelling and the Multiple Audiences of Shirley." The Journal of Narrative Technique 18, No. 3 (Fall 1988): 226-42.

Refutes conventional criticism of the narratorial intrusions in Shirley.

Dolin, Tim. "Fictional Territory and a Woman's Place: Regional and Sexual Difference in Shirley." ELH 62, No. 1 (Spring 1995): 197-215.

Argues that by examining women's issues through a form that combines the regional novel with the industrial novel, Shirley participates in a larger nineteenth-century discourse on provincialism.

Dupras, Joseph A. "Charlotte Brontë's Shirley and Interpretive Engendering." Papers on Language and Literature 24, No. 3 (Summer 1988): 301-16.

Examines the special problems a male reader faces in interpreting the gender issues raised in Shirley.

Freeman, Janet. "Unity and Diversity in Shirley" Journal of English and Germanic Philology 87, No. 4 (October 1988): 558-75.

Suggests that Brontë's often-criticized failure to reconcile the public and private realms in Shirley is a deliberate attempt to portray truth as complicated and relative, rather than simple and absolute.

Gilead, Sarah. "Liminality and Antiliminality in Charlotte Brontë's Novels: Shirley Reads Jane Eyre." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 29, No. 3 (Fall 1987): 302-22.

Claims that in Shirley, Brontë employs and then undercuts the same themes and metaphors of liminality that appeared in Jane Eyre.

Grayson, Laura. "Shirley: Charlotte Brontë's Own Evidence." Letter to the Editor. The Brontë Society Transactions 14, No. 3 (1963): 31.

Refutes the notion that Brontë discussed plans for Shirley with Francis Butterfield, who allegedly convinced her not to use the Chartist unrest as a theme in the novel.

Hunt, Linda C. "Sustenance and Balm: The Question of Female Friendship in Shirley and Villette." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 1, No. 1 (Spring 1982): 55-66.

Claims that a central theme of Shirley is the importance of strong female friendships for women who are destined to remain unmarried.

Jeffares, A. Norman. "Shirley—A Yorkshire Novel." The Brontë Society Transactions 15 (1969): 281-93.

Discusses Shirley as a regional novel whose strangeness to the readers and critics of southern England accounts for its lukewarm reception there.

Keen, Suzanne. "Narrative Annexes in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley." The Journal of Narrative Technique 20, No. 2 (Spring 1990): 107-19.

Studies Shirley's change of direction from a text that suggests the possibility of women's emancipation to one that relegates them to the regressive limitations of marriage.

Lawson, Kate. "The Dissenting Voice: Shirley's Vision of Women and Christianity." Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 29, No. 4 (Autumn, 1989): 729-43.

Claims that Brontë's treatment of religious dissenters and their challenge to orthodoxy decidedly favors the Church of England.

Myer, Valerie Grosvenor. "Shirley: A Feminist Document?" In Charlotte Brontë: The Truculent Spirit, pp. 174-87. Totowa: Barnes and Noble Books, 1987.

Answers critics who charge that the novel fails as a feminist text.

Ohmann, Carol. "Charlotte Brontë: The Limits of her Feminism." Female Studies VI (1972): 152-63.

Suggests that perceptions of disunity in Shirley result from the author's failure to follow through on criticism aimed at Victorian England's treatment of women.

Rosengarten, Herbert and Margaret Smith. Introduction to Shirley by Charlotte Brontë, edited by Herbert Rosengarten and Margaret Smith, pp. xiii-xxxvi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Relates the prepublication and textual history of the novel.

Smith, Margaret. "The Manuscripts of Charlotte Brontë's Novels." The Brontë Society Transactions 18, No. 3 (1983): 189-205.

Discusses the author's revisions to the original manuscript of Shirley—revisions which seem to reflect the unhappy events of Brontë's personal life at the time.

Smith, Susan Belasco. "'A Yorkshire burr': Language in Shirley" Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 27, No. 4 (Autumn 1987): 637-45.

Explores the use of language as a marker for difference in the novel.

Spacks, Patricia Meyer. "Power and Passivity." In The Female Imagination, pp. 45-96. New York: Avon, 1975.

Suggests that while Brontë's heroines must accept their dependency on men, they are able to retain at least some power in the relationships.

Williams, Judith. "Shirley: False Seeing and Vanishing Truth." In Perception and Expression in the Novels of Charlotte Brontë, pp. 53-78. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1988.

Claims that the full measure of terror and human suffering takes place behind the scenes of the novel.

Additional coverage of Brontë's life and career is contained in the following sources published by Gale Research: Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Vols. 3, 8, and 33; DIScovering Authors; World Literature Criticism, 1500 to the Present; and Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vols. 21 and 159.