Available Formats
Paperback
Published: 25th August 1988
Paperback, Main
Published: 3rd August 2021
Hardback
Published: 23rd April 2019
Paperback
Published: 1st December 2024
Paperback, New edition
Published: 5th September 1994
Agnes Grey
By (Author) Anne Bront
Introduction by Angeline Goreau
Notes by Angeline Goreau
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Classics
25th August 1988
25th August 1988
United Kingdom
Paperback
288
Width 128mm, Height 197mm, Spine 16mm
215g
When her family becomes impoverished after a disastrous financial speculation, Agnes Grey determines to find work as a governess in order to contribute to their meagre income and assert her independence. But Agnes's enthusiasm is swiftly extinguished as she struggles first with the unmanageable Bloomfield children and then with the painful disdain of the haughty Murray family; the only kindness she receives comes from Mr Weston, the sober young curate. Drawing on her own experience, Anne BrontA"'s first novel offers a compelling personal perspective on the desperate position of unmarried, educated women for whom becoming a governess was the only respectable career open in Victorian society.
The one story in English literature in which style, characters and subject are in perfect keeping. George Moore
Anne Bronte was born in 1820, the youngest of the Bronte family. She was educated at home in the Yorkshire village of Howarth, and later held two positions as a governess, difficult experiences which inspired her first novel, Agnes Grey, in 1847. This was followed by The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in 1848. Anne died of tuberculosis in 1849, aged twenty-nine.