![Book Cover of Agnes Grey](/image/book/agnes-grey.webp)
Agnes Grey
by Anne Brontë
'Agnes Grey' Summary
Agnes Grey, A Novel is the debut novel of English author Anne Brontë (writing under the pen name of "Acton Bell"), first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as she works within families of the English gentry. Scholarship and comments by Anne's sister Charlotte Brontë suggest the novel is largely based on Anne Brontë's own experiences as a governess for five years. Like her sister Charlotte's 1847 novel Jane Eyre, it addresses what the precarious position of governess entailed and how it affected a young woman.
The choice of central character allows Anne to deal with issues of oppression and abuse of women and governesses, isolation and ideas of empathy. An additional theme is the fair treatment of animals. Agnes Grey also mimics some of the stylistic approaches of bildungsromans, employing ideas of personal growth and coming to age.
The Irish novelist George Moore praised Agnes Grey as "the most perfect prose narrative in English letters," and went so far as to compare Anne's prose to that of Jane Austen. Modern critics have made more subdued claims admiring Agnes Grey with a less overt praise of Brontë's work than Moore.
Book Details
Author
![Anne Brontë image](/thumbs/image/author/anne-bronte.webp)
Anne Brontë
England
Anne Brontë was an English novelist and poet, and the youngest member of the Brontë literary family. Anne Brontë was the daughter of Patrick Brontë, a poor Irish clergyman in the...
More on Anne BrontëDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
Related books
![The Last Of The Mohicans Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/the-last-of-the-mohicans.webp)
The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is a historical novel written by James Fenimore Cooper in 1826. It is the second book of the Leathersto...
![The Golden Book of Springfield Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/the-golden-book-of-springfield.webp)
The Golden Book of Springfield by Vachel Lindsay
Imagine a city transformed into a utopian paradise, where everyone lives in harmony and abundance. The Golden Book of Springfield is a radical and vi...
![Farewell Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/farewell.webp)
Farewell by Honoré de Balzac
In his startling and tragic novella Farewell (‘Adieu’), Balzac adds to the 19th century’s literature of the hysterical woman: sequestered, confined in...
![Through the Magic Door Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/through-the-magic-door.webp)
Through the Magic Door by Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Through the Magic Door” was serialized in 1906-07 when he was 48. His famous Sherlock Holmes stories appeared in The Strand Maga...
![A Dreadful Temptation Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/a-dreadful-temptation.webp)
A Dreadful Temptation by Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
Jilted by the man she loves, Xenie Carroll has determined that no matter the cost she will exact the ultimate revenge on he who broke her heart. She...
![Miss Lochinvar Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/miss-lochinvar.webp)
Miss Lochinvar by Marion Ames Taggart
At breakfast, Mr. Graham drops the bombshell that his niece -- Joan, Jane or Janet, he's not sure which, will be arriving from the west to live with h...
![Little Miss Joy-Sing Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/little-miss-joy-sing.webp)
Little Miss Joy-Sing by John Luther Long
In the enchanting world of ancient China, where music holds the power to transcend boundaries, lies the captivating tale of Little Miss Joy-Sing by ac...
![So Big Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/so-big.webp)
So Big by Edna Ferber
The story follows the life of a young woman, Selina Peake De Jong, who decides to be a school teacher in farming country. During her stay on the Pool...
![The Quest of the Silver Fleece Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/the-quest-of-the-silver-fleece.webp)
The Quest of the Silver Fleece by William E. B. Du Bois
The Quest of the Silver Fleece is a story of romance, race, economics and politics set around the 1900s. Here, a traditionally educated boy and an uns...
![The House of the Whispering Pines Cover image](/thumbs/image/book/the-house-of-the-whispering-pines.webp)
The House of the Whispering Pines by Anna Katharine Green
The country club house The Whispering Pines was closed for the winter, but only one day after he locked the place personally, the narrator sees smoke...
Reviews for Agnes Grey
No reviews posted or approved, yet...