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Agnes Grey
Agnes Grey
Agnes Grey
Audiobook8 hours

Agnes Grey

Written by Anne Brontë

Narrated by Virginia Leishman

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

()

About this audiobook

In her daring first novel, the youngest Bronte sister drew upon her own experiences to tell the unvarnished truth about life as a governess. Like Agnes Grey, Anne Bronte was a young middle-class Victorian lady whose family fortunes had faltered. Like so many other unmarried women of the nineteenth century, Bronte accepted the only "respectable" employment available--and entered a world of hardship, humiliation, and loneliness. Written with a realism that shocked critics, this biting social commentary offers a sympathetic portrait of Agnes and a moving indictment of her brutish and haughty employers. Separated from her family and friends by many miles, paid little more than subsistence wages, Agnes stands alone--both in society at large and in a household where she is neither family member nor servant. Agnes Grey remains a landmark in the literature of social history. In addition to its challenge to the era's chauvinism and materialism, it features a first-person narrative that offers a rare opportunity to hear the voice of a Victorian working woman.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 26, 2016
ISBN9781501929328
Author

Anne Brontë

Anne Brontë (1820–1849) was an English poet and novelist—the youngest of the famous Brontë sisters. Throughout her brief career, she developed a reputation as an unwaveringly realistic writer in an era when candor was uncommon. Brontë was first published with her sisters under a pseudonym, with the poetry collection Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell in 1846. She then wrote the semiautobiographical Agnes Grey and followed that with the daring Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Soon after the deaths of her sister Emily and her brother, Branwell, Brontë succumbed to tuberculosis and died.

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Reviews for Agnes Grey

Rating: 3.598244048996655 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

1,196 ratings88 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I thoroughly enjoyed this reading, the book in itself is a very enjoyable account of a governesses life. The narration is light, clear and enjoyable. Excellent.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Shy, retiring Agnes Grey is ill-suited to the role of governess, yet due to her family’s financial problems and the limited job prospects for genteel young women in Victorian England, she is forced to serve in this disagreeable position. The families she works for are caricatures of the haughty and dissolute rich. Agnes always manages to hide her true feelings and carry on. I enjoyed this brief novel even more than I thought I would. Recommended.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Not really a fan of this book. Thought it was kind of bring. I liked the writing though.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Read for TBR takedown, 4/4/22. This is the debut novel of Anne Bronte writing under the name Acton Bell. The story is of the governess who is trying to help her family out by working. She engages with these two different jobs which involves spoiled children. The father is ill, the girls of the family do not have good prospects that they'll be able to find marriages because of their poverty. The governess meets various guys while working for the last family of young ladies who are working on marriages. The author worked as a governess and may be based on her own experiences. The book is a classic and will appeal to readers who enjoy reading classics. Agnes Grey is a strong woman and not a character that is "dependent" on males in anyway. Rating 3.5
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I loved this simple and relatively short classic about a young woman who becomes a governess. It's based on Brontë's own experiences as a governess. Horrendous children abound and she is rather abused but she has to earn her keep. She does eventually find some happiness though and it's all quite lovely. My second book of 2018 #backtotheclassics
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Couldn't do much with this. Flat characters, uninvolving plot (as far as I was able to make it, that is) ... and once animal cruelty set in with a vengeance I was out of there.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Agnes Grey has been on my “to read” list since I read and enjoyed D.M. Denton's novel Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit. I am familiar with the most famous works of her sisters, Charlotte (Jane Eyre) and Emily (Wuthering Heights), so I was expecting a novel that had more excitement in its plot. Instead this is a character study of a strong willed woman living in an era where women have limited options.When Agnes' father loses most of the family savings through a failed investment, Agnes decides to become a governess to help with their financial problems. She has to deal with another problem of that era, class prejudice. The parents of the children she is charged with educating treat her with little respect. The children are even worse. She is supposed to be in charge, yet they run all over her and she receives no backing from the parents.I was somewhat disappointed that Agnes never took responsibility for any of the problems she encountered. Although she was placed in many no-win situations, she often came off sounding whiny and defensive. Later in the book Agnes moves on to a different family and encounters more problems tied to her role, including lies told about her.Agnes Grey presents an interesting picture of the problems working class women faced in nineteenth century England. I intend to read Anne Bronte's other novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which has a reputation as one of the first feminist novels.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Always appealing but never gripping, Anne Brontë’s first novel recalls the well-loved, confiding voices and upright standards from, say, Jane Eyre, or the works of Jane Austen. The tone is all there, but the narrative drive is not. That Anne’s life was cut so tragically short (she wrote only one further novel, then died, still in her 20s) was a great loss too for the works she might have produced as she developed. This edition’s Introduction (by Angeline Goreau) ably makes the case that bossy elder sister Charlotte Brontë tended to minimise the worth of Anne (and Emily) in life, and has likewise led to her works being sidelined by posterity. This reader can affirm that Agnes Grey, at least, is informative, insightful, and a pleasure to read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It's by Bronte, so it must be good. The thing is that I have read this book at least three times, and I still cannot remember a thing about it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey is certainly subpar with the magnificent and pioneering work of feminism The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; more so compared to what’s considered to be the better known, better Brontë works Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. A partly autobiographical work, Agnes Grey takes us to its titular character’s challenges and an expectedly monotonous life as a governess. From one household to another, from a set of bratty kids to vain, spoiled female young adults, Agnes Grey mostly keeps to herself and rebel in the subtlest of ways. Perhaps this subtlety prevents the novel from imparting a lingering emotional punch hence it can be rather dull though thankfully a quick read. As its romance also almost follows this similar vein of subtlety, pack with a lot of religious sentiments, it’s not at all very exciting and intriguing. Rochester and Heathcliff read like the ultimate, problematic bad boys you can’t help but love against the boringly forgettable mr. nice guy Weston. There is also not much of a family drama present save for some expected death and of course, significantly, its inclusion of feministic views much ahead of its time with regards to profession and the “moral responsibility” one have to one’s own parents (which I think is somehow losing its traction in modern times for the better or for worse). Eventually this closes in predictable contentment. As Agnes Grey starts off with a lot of acceptable promises, it does end committing to these promises albeit only acceptably so.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Another hit for Team Anne! I have no idea why I took so long to read this delightful little novel - the threat of animal abuse in the introduction, I think - but I'm glad I finally did. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a triumph of realism over romanticism, and Agnes Grey does the same for the governess tale (I'm not a fan of Jane Eyre!)Agnes Grey, unlike her fictional cousin Jane, volunteers to become a governess in order to support her family. The first family she works for, the Bloomfields, are living example of why some people shouldn't have children just because they can (and why taking charge of the monsters they produce is a thankless task). The three young children are spoiled rotten and Agnes, much like Anne herself, is soon let go because she can do nothing with them. Moving onto a new family, the Murrays, who are of a better class than the Bloomfields, Agnes is given the task of 'improving' the two young ladies, Rosalie and Matilda, while the sons are sent away to school. I actually loved the Murrays, particularly Rosalie, who knows she is a beauty and treats men like playthings! Like Austen's Emma, not a lot happens - Agnes stays with the Murrays and gets ignored and blamed on a regular basis, while finding herself drawn to the local curate - but the eponymous narrator is so delightfully blunt - in her thoughts, if not her speech - that I was instantly drawn into her small world. There is a boring chapter given over to the religious ramblings of a 'cottager' - not in that sense! - who requires Agnes to read the Bible to her and sings the praises of Weston the curate during her visits, and Agnes herself is ridiculously slow to pick up on a proposal towards the end of the book, but overall, I enjoyed Anne's first novel. She is honest about cruelty, ignorance and vanity without going overboard (*cough cough* Charlotte and Emily) and her heroine might be pious in person but she's wonderfully haughty in thought (walk in front of Agnes and ignore her? How very dare!)
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Those Brontë sisters were a wonder. This isn't a masterpiece like Jane Eyre, and it's not epic like Wuthering Heights; at times, characters could have been rounded out more. But I still found it a beautifully written, very human story. More Austen-esque. I found it easy to love and identify with Agnes as she left home and grew up. It's hard not to be moved by her drudgery as a governess (to sociopathic children!), and there is some interesting commentary on class as well as, in Chapter XI, "The Cottagers," some fantastic allusions to tensions within mid-nineteenth-century, post-Oxford Movement CofE churchmanship; I ate that stuff up and wished for more. Oh, yes, and I LOVED the sweetness and restraint between Agnes and Weston near the end of the novel. I eat that stuff up, too.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When some people talk about the Brontë sisters, they refer to Anne as “the other one”. I refer to Anne as “the best one”. Her writing style is notably different to her sisters Charlotte and Emily, who both write romantic fiction. Anne was a realist author, and a damn good one at that.When I first read “Agnes Grey” in 201o, I did so shortly after reading her classic novel “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”. As a result, I was a little disappointed. I expected a story similar to “TTOWH”, but “AG” is very different.Ten years later, to pay tribute to Anne on her 200th birthday, I gave both novels another read, this time starting with “AG”. Must say, I enjoyed infinitely more on the second time around. With no high expectations, I concentrated on the story for what it is, rather than wishing it was like Anne’s greatest work.Anne drew much from her own personal life for this novel, particularly the scenes where Agnes – as a governess – is dealing with children. And what horrid children they are! What’s worse, the parents are utterly useless – total snobs – who have no sympathy or empathy for what poor Agnes has to endure.These scenes featuring Agnes and the “demonic” children are among the highlights in terms of vivid writing and believability. You can picture the scenes clearly, which is owing to Anne’s superb writing skills. I'll go as far as saying the woman was a genius.As the story progresses, we get a mild love story between Agnes and Mr Weston. Again, Anne’s skills as a realist author comes to the fore here. We don’t get overblown drama with the male and female lead expressing their undying love for each other. Instead, we have shyness, uncertainty, lack of confidence, insecurity, and such like, which suits both characters. While neither Agnes nor Mr Weston are charismatic heroes, they are realistic reflections of people of their class in the 1800s, and perhaps any century. It’s a sweet relationship, rather than a sensational one.At times, the narrative becomes didactic, preaching what’s morally right, and so on, which is a reflection of the author’s personality. Some readers may not like this, but personally, this is all fine by me. It suits the characters whilst reflecting values of nineteenth-century England.So, while Anne is overshadowed by her sisters, and while “Agnes Grey” is overshadowed by “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, this shouldn’t put anyone off from reading this novel. Approach it for what it is, and not for what it isn’t, and you should take a lot of pleasure out of it. I’ve read it twice, and I’ve every intention of reading it again.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "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 shriveled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut." Agnes Grey, begins with this great opening line. From Agnes' difficulties of being a governess to horrid kids, to observing class differences, to discussing reading and books with the man she falls in love with — this was a very good although somewhat quiet-feeling novel. All covered in only about 200 pages, but still satisfying. Read for #1001Books, Agnes Grey was better than I expected (it had been TBR for far too long). It's unfortunate that Anne Bronte didn't live long enough to produce more works -- so much lost potential.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Even though not a whole lot happens, I quite enjoyed this short novel, as well as the background material included in the edition I read. This is the start of a bit of a Brontë binge, because, well, what better to do during this oddest of springs?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A young, middle-class woman in mid-1800s England gets a harsh awakening from her sheltered life when she seeks employment as a governess to two different upper-class families. Mistreated by both the snobby employers and her charges *and* the lower-class servants, she leads a snubbed and lonely life.Slow to start (I'm still not certain what the point of the first third of the novel was, really), but once it gets going, I enjoyed Miss Grey's story. I especially enjoyed the quiet simplicity of the love story bit. It was interesting, too, how Anne tells the story of the governess life in a much different, much more realistic and everyday style than her sister, Charlotte.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's not fair that I'm always grouping "The Brontë Sisters" and comparing their respective works with one another. I'm not the only one who does this, though.At this point, I've now read everything from Emily and Anne, and only Jane Eyre from Charlotte. Stylistically, they're similar, but each has their own distinctive flair. Though Anne is probably the least recognized of the three sisters, I'd put her right up there with Emily.I thought Agnes Grey started particularly strong. In fact, of the Brontë works I've read thus far, this one probably hooked me the fastest. The backstory regarding Agnes's family and the details of her first assignment as governess were very entertaining and evocative.Midway, my attention did wane. The subsequent assignment and all that came with it just didn't hold my attention the same. Despite a stellar start, Agnes Grey is probably the least overall memorable of the stories I've read.I regret that more of Anne's and Emily's work doesn't still exist.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Anne is very under appreciated.I like her more realistic style.The book is told in the first person by Agnes. As a governess Agnes is given no real authority to punish her charges. So of course they feel free to disrespect her.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    (Original Review, 1981-02-06)I read "Agnes Grey" after a visit to the Mosteiros dos Jerónimos, supposing I ought to try the lesser known sister after reading so much of Charlotte's work and of course “Wuthering Heights.” What a wonderful surprise. Anne had me at "...she would rather live in a cottage with Richard Grey than in a palace with any other man in the world." It's a beautiful novel and undeservedly overlooked. The tone is on the surface much less dark, but Anne pulls no punches about women's oppression and the appalling behaviour of the 'noble' families she had the misfortune to encounter in her time as a governess. The dialogue reminds me of Jane Austen in places, exchanges that are gently witty and scathing. Mr. Weston is something of an unassuming romantic interest, but coming to the novel as an adult I rather more appreciate Anne's quietly decent men than the Byronic sociopaths her sisters were obsessed with. For me the novel is more about women. Agnes' relationship with her mother is genuinely touching, imbued with Anne's longing for her own. The final meeting between Agnes and Rosalie juxtaposing their characters and fates, now firmly fixed, is haunting stuff. Anne's heroines are not defined by the men they love, but by their own convictions and resources - how refreshing even in 1981!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    # 13 of 100 Classics Challenge

    Agnes Grey🍒🍒🍒🍒
    By Anne Bronte
    1847

    Partially influenced by her personal experience as a governess, Anne Bronte takes us into her world of the humble, mistreated and overworked governesses, with horribly undisciplined mean children of the rich.She falls for an impossible man, but eventually finds true love. And happiness.A great classic. My first Anne Bronte and not my last.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I looked at several reviews of Agnes Grey before reading it, but they were so varied in opinion I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t find the heroine as insipid as many readers did; although she mostly failed to change the children in her charge she never failed to try to the best of her abilities, including physical means; and remaining polite and ‘in her place’ didn’t mean she lacked strong feelings.Where I felt the novel lacked power was in its romance. The only thing holding the two apart was their inability to meet often. There was nothing like Pride and Prejudice’s Elizabeth and Darcy having to accept their own faults and evolve into better people - Agnes and Mr Weston are both essentially perfect and only require a little leisure time to get to know each other so that doubts about each other’s feelings can be overcome.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Anne Bronte delivers a finely detailed account of the depressing trials of a untrained and timid young governess and her ruthless charges.She unfortunately gains little in self confidence as she moves with her mother to teach in their own school at the seaside.Mr. Weston, her concealed love interest, acts in his own secretive manner, as artful as the manipulations Agnes Grey despises in Miss Matilda,yet Agnes does not fault him for his many months of needless silence.His sterling act in her direction is the purchase of the dog, Snap. There is no reason given why Agnes did not purchase and so save the dog from cruelty herself.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I am glad I read this. It wasn't terrible but compared to "Tenant" I would never believe it was written by the same woman. It's just rather dull. Agnes is self-righteous and to our modern eyes rather a wimp. Yes her charges are horrible little monsters and a reader can't judge her by our modern standards but "Tenant" has issues which are no longer relevant in it and it's still a great book. So of some interest but flawed. The fact that it has never been filmed probably about sums it up.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I am resolved to work my way through all the novels by the Brontë sisters – Ann, Emily, and Charlotte. Agnes Grey is Anne’s first of her two novels. Anne was born January 17, 1820. She was a novelist and a poet. She spent most of her life with her family at the parish church of Haworth on the Yorkshire moors. She was a governess from 1839 to 1845. Agnes Grey was published in 1847. Anne died May 28, 1849.She drew on her experiences at Haworth and as a governess in writing the novel. The first paragraph sets forth her ideas on writing a novel. She wrote, “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 shriveled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge; I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to others, but the world my judge for itself: shielded by my own obscurity, and by the lapse of years, and a few fictitious names, I do not fear to venture, and will candidly lay before the public what I would not disclose to the most intimate friend” (1). Every time I delve into one of the Brontës, I can not help to hear their voices—soft, gentle, erudite—as I imagine them to be.As was frequently the case in those days, a writer was at the mercy of the typesetters. In a letter to her publisher, she wrote, “There are numerous literal errors, and the text of Agnes Grey is marred by various peculiarities of punctuation, especially in the use of commas (some of these, however, may be authorial)” (xi). She began revising the text, and a copy of the third volume has “some 121 revisions made in pencil in her hand, many of them involving quite significant substantive alterations” (xi). James Joyce faced the same problem with Ulysses with typesetters who could not read English. I corrected the text for many years—nearly up to his death.Anne’s novel is considered quite an achievement. As the novel proceeds, she becomes more confident. Here is a conversation between Anne and Rosalie: “‘If you mean Mr. Weston to be one of your victims,’ said I, with affected indifference, ‘you will have to make such overtures yourself, that you will find it difficult to draw back when he asks you to fulfil the expectations you have raised’ // [Anne’s reply] ‘I don’t suppose he will ask me to marry him—nor should I desire it … that would be rather too much presumption! But I intend him to feel my power—he has felt it already, indeed—but he shall acknowledge it too; and what visionary hopes he may have, he must keep to himself, and only amuse me with the result of them—for a time’” (xii).As the Introduction to my paperback copy points out, “Agnes Grey is undoubtedly in many ways a deeply personal novel’ (xii). “Charlotte Brontë described the work as ‘the mirror of the mind of the writer” (xii-xiii). One of the things that Anne emphasized in her novels, comes right out of her experiences as a governess. The treatment of these young women was nothing less than atrocious. Agnes Grey speaks with the authority of experience. In addition, her moral and religious sensibilities are evident throughout the novel.I hope this taste of a fantastically talented young writer will inspire you to snuggle up with Anne Brontë and delve into Agnes Grey. All you need is a cup of tea, some patience, and the reward is a thoroughly satisfying picture of young women in England of the 1840s. 5 stars!--Jim, 12/6/17
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Slowly working my way through the Brontë novels. Anne was the youngest Brontë sister (there were five altogether; Maria and Elizabeth died young). After experimenting with juvenilia stories about the imaginary countries of Angria and Gondal, the sisters sent off full-fledged novels to various publishers (Agnes Grey from Anne, The Professor from Charlotte, and Wuthering Heights from Emily). All were rejected. Charlotte came back with a second novel, Jane Eyre, which was accepted and led to the publication of the other sister’s works (publishers originally believed that all were the works of the same author, and that author was male; the sister’s use of the male pseudonyms Acton, Currer, and Ellis Bell contributed to the belief).
    Literary critics consider Anne the most “controversial” of the sisters. Agnes Grey is an autobiographical account of Anne’s experience as a governess; her other novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, was even more “scandalous”. The main controversy in highly autobiographical Agnes Grey is the revelation that English governesses were poorly treated by the families that hired them; this doesn’t seem particular surprising nowadays but it may have been shocking to contemporaries that somebody actually bothered to write it down. The most risqué comment in the whole book is an observation that the wealthy husband of one of the characters has “opera girls” in London.
    The account of child-rearing makes an interesting contrast to today’s “helicopter parents”; the parents of Agnes’ charges don’t usually see them as often as once a day. The children of her first family are horribly misbehaved by modern (and probably contemporary) standards; the most shocking revelation to modern sensibilities would probably be the gentle Agnes suggesting that the children’s manners could be considerably improved with a “stout birch rod”. The second batch is more tractable but also turns out rather poorly; Agnes (who actually seems to be something of a wimp) can’t bring them into conformity with her standards of behavior.
    A good chunk of the second half of the novel is a romance – or what passes for one in Victorian England. Agnes eventually hooks up (not in the modern sense) with a local clergyman and Lives Happily Ever After.
    Not so the actual Brontës, alas. In confirmation of a recent book I read about the historical incidence of disease in England, Maria died at 11 from unknown causes, but probably tuberculosis; Elizabeth at 10 also from unknown causes (but again probably tuberculosis); Charlotte at 38 (probably from tuberculosis, but typhus and dehydration have also been suggested); Patrick at 31 from tuberculosis exacerbated by alcoholism and laudanum addiction; Emily at 30 from tuberculosis; Anne at 29 from tuberculosis. Living in Yorkshire was apparently hard on the lungs.
    Worth reading for the historical value. The degree that religion figures in Anne’s narrative – a lot of the dialog takes place after church services, and Agnes is always conveniently running into her clergyman while delivering uplifting reading to the poor – should serve to disabuse 19th century romance novel fans of the notion that life was all balls and hunts.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte; (2 1/2*)A clergyman's family falls into difficult financial times and one of the daughters must go into service as a governess. How many times and how many ways have we read this one? To give Bronte her due, she was young at the time she wrote this and she did have some experience of that which she wrote. I have to admit part of the reason I read this is that I was quite curious as to how this sister held up against her sisters and the outcome was 'rather poorly'. But then who can stand up against Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights? I found Agnes Grey rather predictable and somewhat of a snooze. Anne Bronte does bring some nice bits of writing to the table throughout her novel but I doubt I would have completed the read had it not been that I was taking part in a tutored & group read. I did love the very last part of the novel so the author did score some marks.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A largely biographical novel, telling the trials and tribulations of a daughter of a clergyman who resorts to being a governess in order to reduce her burden on the family finances. Unfortunately, Agnes is allowed too little authority over her spoilt charges and has too little experience, character and authority in herself to be able to exert what little authority she does have over the brats. And they are uniformly brats who are neglected and over indulged by their parents. It is also a cycle that is difficult to break, with Rosalie Murray looking set to treat her child in the same manner as she was, thus perpetuating the cycle of bad behaviour. Agnes herself is not someone I'd want to spend a great deal of time with. Too innocent to know much of the ways of the world, she is entirely out of her depth for most of the novel. She is also too insipid to do much about it. She always takes the back seat and does little to develop her own character. I accept she's in a difficult situation, the governess sitting uncomfortably between the servants and the family, being a part of neither circle. It leads to a isolating position, despite Agnes' claim (about which she then does nothing) that she is the equal of the ladies and their friends that she has been employed to educate. The other topic this book covers is courtship & marriage. There are two very different end results, and, one suspects, one is supposed to take the message that a good marriage is deserved by the more godly (preachy and pious) person. I, however, take from it that I'm amazed any marriage was ever good, in that they seem to be based on a mere handful of meetings and those barely seem to scratch the surface of the kind of exploratory conversations you'd have on a modern date. Rosalie discovers her husband is not at all what she imagined he would be, and has no skills to manage him. I occasionally complain my husband is not at all romantic, but I did know that before I married him. Not the longest book, and not a difficult read. But it has that 19th century preaching tone about it - you're supposed to take a lesson from it. And so it's unlikely to be one I'll come back to.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I am a big fan of the Brontes. While Charlotte's Jane Eyre and Emily's Wuthering Heights are deservedly all time classics, Anne's two novels are less well known and comparatively neglected; and Agnes Grey is probably less known than Anne's other novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Agnes Grey is comparatively short and is a semi-autobiographical novel where Anne recounts the eponymous young lady's experiences as a governess to the children of wealthy families. When her father's business ventures fall apart after the sinking of a ship of his merchant business partner, young Agnes goes to work as a governess to earn the family some money, despite discouragement from her family. Her experiences are actually quite hilarious, dealing with spoiled and delinquent children and their oblivious parents who refuse to see any wrong in their offspring, particularly in the case of the Bloomfields. Later she looks after the older daughters of the Murrays, who are also a trial, being self-centred and needy, but with whom she is able eventually to establish a modus vivendi. She also falls in love with a vicar in the Murrays' local village, Mr Weston. This is a lovely and very satisfying novel, in some ways ahead of its time in dealing with "feral" children, as is Wildfell Hall in dealing with domestic abuse. A great read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte was originally published in 1847 and feels much like a biography, based as it is on the author’s experiences as a governess working among families of the English gentry. Becoming a governess was at that time pretty much the only way a woman could earn a respectable living. The author does capture the awkwardness of being caught between the classes, she is above the servants, but not on the same level as those she works for. Even bearing in mind her upbringing and the time, I didn’t really like Agnes Grey, finding her rather judgmental and stiff although she did mellow quite a bit by the end of the book.The story tells of the two positions that Miss Grey was in, first with the Bloomfield family and then with the Murray family. The Bloomfield children were absolute horrors and she had no back up from the parents whatsoever. The Murray children were somewhat older and presented Miss Grey with a whole new set of behavioral problems. The eldest daughter was vain and self-centered and the other daughter was given to rough behavior and cursing like a stable boy. Being a governess was a very difficult job as on the one hand you are held responsible for the behavior of your charges but on the other you are meant to be invisible, there, but in the background.Being the daughter of a minister, herself, it came as no surprise that it is the local curate that sees beyond the governess to the woman that she is. Agnes returns his regard, but at the same time her elder charge was using all the men in the neighborhood to practice her wiles one, including the curate, Mr. Weston. Then Agnes gives up her position and returns home when her father dies. She and her mother open a small school but one day, while on a walk she again meets Mr. Weston who now lives in a nearby parsonage. The character of Agnes Grey was that of a very moral and religious young woman and it was very easy to see the parallels between this fictional character and the author herself. And although the book seemed to have an abrupt ending, I thought it was nice that the author wanted her governess to have that happy ending that she herself did not.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The book reads much like her sister's books although the subject manner may be less universal. It deals with the British class system and how it leaves many, particularly governesses in an isolated condition.