Agnes Grey (Hardcover)
Anne Bronte’s debut novel tells the realistic and moving story of a young governess. For well-educated women of lesser means in the mid-nineteenth century, there was only one option for employment that paid decently and provided a sense of dignity: becoming a governess. These young women were tasked with educating the children of the rich in the ways of the world.
When the Grey family falls into debt, Agnes is forced to find work as a governess and learns of the misery and cruelty that exist in the landed classes. In her first home, she sees a family with spoiled, abusive children; and in the second, she discovers the misery of the elite, who seem from afar to have everything. Drawing from her own experiences as a governess, Brontë has crafted the story of a young woman named "Agnes Grey" with warmth and realism.
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About the Author
Anne Brontë (17 January 1820 – 28 May 1849) was an English novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family. At 19 she left Haworth and worked as a governess between 1839 and 1845. After leaving her teaching position, she fulfilled her literary ambitions. She published a volume of poetry with her sisters and two novels.
Agnes Grey, based upon her experiences as a governess, was published in 1847. Her second and last novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which is considered to be one of the first sustained feminist novels, appeared in 1848. Like her poems, both her novels were first published under the masculine pen name of Acton Bell. Anne's life was cut short when she died of what is now suspected to be pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 29.
Partly because the re-publication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was prevented by Charlotte Brontë after Anne's death, she is not as well known as her sisters. However, her novels, like those of her sisters, have become classics of English literature.