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Agnes Grey
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Agnes Grey Paperback - 1989

by Anne Bronte; Angeline Goreau (Editor)


Summary

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 Bronte'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.

From the publisher

'The name of governess, I soon found, was a mere mockery ... my pupils had no more notion of obedience than a wild, unbroken colt'

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 Bront'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.

This edition also includes Charlotte Bront's memoir of her sisters, theBiographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell. Angeline Goreau examines Anne Bront's complex relationship with her sisters and her unhappy career as a governess as influences in writing Agnes Grey.

First line

ALL TRUE HISTORIES CONTAIN instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.

From the rear cover

Agnes Grey is undoubtedtedly a deeply personal novel, in which Anne Bronte views on the 'contemporary' issue of the treatment of governesses, as well as her passionate religious sympathies, find very deliberate expression; but she also touches on issues of moral behaviour, moral responsibility, and individual integrity and its survival.

Details

  • Title Agnes Grey
  • Author Anne Bronte; Angeline Goreau (Editor)
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition 12th printing
  • Pages 272
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Group, London
  • Date January 3, 1989
  • ISBN 9780140432107 / 0140432108
  • Weight 0.44 lbs (0.20 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.82 x 5.18 x 0.65 in (19.86 x 13.16 x 1.65 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Reading level 1110
  • Library of Congress subjects Autobiographical fiction, Man-woman relationships
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

About the author

Anne Bront, who was born in 1820, was brought up in the Yorkshire village of Haworth where her father was curate. She was educated at home and, as a child, she invented with her sister Emily the imaginary world of Gondal, for which she wrote copious chronicles and poems. She held two positions as governess, with the Inghams at Blake Hall and, from 1840-45, with the Robinson family at Thorp Green. As a religious lyric poet, Anne Bront's hymns and lyrics rank with those of Cowper. Her first novel Agnes Grey (1847), published under the pseudonym Acton Bell, is in the tradition of fictional spiritual autobiography, written with conciseness, integrity and irony. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) is a powerful feminist testament, attacking the marriage laws, double standards of sexual morality and the education of men and women. Anne Bront died at Scarborough in 1849. She was the youngest of the Bront sisters, whose extraordinary gifts are only now receiving just appraisal.
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