With some misgivings, she travels to Wellwood house to work for the Bloomfield family. Eventually, she obtains a recommendation from a well-placed acquaintance, is offered a position, and secures her parents' permission. To prove herself and to earn money, she is determined to get a position as a governess. Grey tries to increase the family's financial standing, but the merchant he entrusts his money to dies in a wreck, and the lost investment plunges the family into debt.Īgnes, her sister Mary, and their mother all try to keep expenses low and bring in extra money, but Agnes is frustrated that everyone treats her like a child. Grey, a woman who left her wealthy family and married purely out of love. Grey, a minister of modest means, and Mrs. However, the second edition, published in 1850, had many changes after the careful editing of Charlotte Brontë. The original edition of Agnes Grey, published in 1847, had numerous orthographic, punctuation, and other issues attributed to neglect by the publisher Newby. Anne's novel was eventually published by Thomas Newby in a triple-volume format: Emily's Wuthering Heights made up the first two volumes (by virtue of it being the longer), while Agnes Grey made up the third. It is likely that Anne was the first of the Brontë sisters to write a work of prose for publication, although Agnes Grey, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre were all published within the same year: 1847. The genesis of Agnes Grey was attributed by Edward Chitham to the reflections on life found in Anne's diary of 31 July 1845.

Modern critics have made more subdued claims admiring Agnes Grey with a less overt praise of Brontë's work than Moore. 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. Agnes Grey also mimics some of the stylistic approaches of bildungsromans, employing ideas of personal growth and coming to age. An additional theme is the fair treatment of animals. The choice of central character allows Anne to deal with issues of oppression and abuse of women and governesses, isolation and ideas of empathy.

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. 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. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as she works within families of the English gentry. 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.

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë