Shirley is an 1849 social novel by the English novelist Charlotte Bront . It was Bront 's second published novel after Jane Eyre (originally published under Bront 's pseudonym Currer Bell). The novel is set in Yorkshire in the period 1811-12, during the industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. The novel is set against a backdrop of the Luddite uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industry. The novel's popularity led to Shirley's becoming a woman's name. The title character was given the name that her father had intended to give a son. Before the publication of the novel, Shirley was an uncommon - but distinctly male - name and would have been an unusual name for a woman. 1] Today it is regarded as a distinctly female name and an uncommon male name.