Agnes Grey

by Anne Bronte

Overview

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 meager 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. Anne Brontë’s first novel, which draws on her own experiences, offers a compelling personal perspective on the desperate position of unmarried, educated women for whom becoming a governess was the only respectable career open to them in Victorian society. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781435172715
Publisher:	Union Square & Co.
Publication date:	07/16/2024
Series:	Signature Editions
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 5.30(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Anne Brontë (1820–1849) was a member of one of the most famous literary families in English letters and the author of two novels, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Anne Brontë: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

Agnes Grey

Appendix A: Other Writings by and about Anne Brontë

• 1. From Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey (letter, 15 April 1839)
• 2. From Anne Brontë, Diary Paper (30 July 1841)
• 3. From Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey (letter, 7 August 1841)
• 4. From Anne Brontë, Diary Paper (31 July 1845)
• 5. Anne Brontë, “The Bluebell” (22 August 1840)
• 6. Acton Bell [Anne Brontë], “Appeal” (28 August 1840)
• 7. Anne Brontë, “Lines Written at [Thorp] Green” (19 August 1841)
• 8. Acton Bell [Anne Brontë], “Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day” (30 December 1842)
• 9. From Ellen Nussey, “Reminiscences of Charlotte Brontë” (1871)
• 10. From Currer Bell [Charlotte Brontë], “Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell” (1850)

Appendix B: Contemporary and Early Reviews and Responses

• 1. From Spectator (18 December 1847)
• 2. From Henry F. Chorley, Athenaeum (25 December 1847)
• 3. From Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper (15 January 1848)
• 4. From New Monthly Magazine (January 1848)
• 5. From Atlas (22 January 1848)
• 6. From Portland [Maine] Transcript (5 January 1850)
• 7. From Graham’s Magazine [Philadelphia] (1 February 1850)
• 8. From W.C. Roscoe, “Miss Brontë,” National Review (July 1857)
• 9. From Mary Augusta Ward, “Introduction,” The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1900)
• 10. From George Moore, Conversations in Ebury Street (1910)

Appendix C: The Governess in Society

• 1. Maria Smith Abdy, “A Governess Wanted,” Metropolitan Magazine (May 1836)
• 2. From George Stephen, The Guide to Service: The Governess (1844)
• 3. From “Hints on the Modern Governess System,” Fraser’s Magazine (November 1844)

Appendix D: Humane Treatment of Animals

• 1. From Isaac Watts, A Discourse on the Education of Children and Youth (1725)
• 2. From Thomas Erskine, Speech … On … Preventing … Cruelty to Animals (1809)
• 3. From “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,” Times (17 June 1824)
• 4. From Sarah Burdett, The Rights of Animals (1839)
• 5. From Charlotte Elizabeth [Tonna], Kindness to Animals (c. 1845)
• 6. C.S., “The Lost Nestlings,” A Mother’s Lessons in Kindness to Animals (c. 1862)

Works Cited and Select Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

This engaging new edition makes a strong case for the radical nature of Anne Brontë’s novel and for its place as a seminal feminist work. It contains a wealth of important material for students, especially texts from the Victorian period about the plight of governesses and the issues of animal cruelty and animal rights—key historical contexts for the novel. The introduction provides an excellent grounding in the period and in the place of Anne Brontë’s novel in relation to its era and to the books of her more-famous sisters. It’s a timely and necessary contribution to Brontë studies.” — Deborah Lutz, University of Louisville

“Anne Brontë has been the frequent recipient of barbed faint praise that inevitably positions her as ‘the other’ Brontë sister. But in this well-conceived and reader-friendly new edition of Anne’s debut 1847 novel, Agnes Grey, Robin Inboden lays out a persuasive case for why we should care about Brontë’s writing for its own sake. Even if we may not quite join late-Victorian Irish novelist George Moore in his startling judgment that Agnes Grey is ‘the most perfect prose narrative in English literature,’ Inboden’s resourcefully intelligent editorial work allows us to appreciate this novel for the rich and fascinating text that it is. Especially welcome here is the extensive appendix containing a range of materials contextualizing the novel in relation to the early-Victorian animal welfare movement.” — Ivan Kreilkamp, Indiana University

“Broadview’s edition of Agnes Grey is a welcome contribution to the rehabilitation of Anne Brontë’s reputation and her place in Victorian literary and cultural studies.… Broadview’s editions are wonderfully affordable and feature a wealth of secondary sources, reception history, and criticism in their apparatus, making them extremely valuable and relevant for teaching and research. Robin Inboden’s new edition provides teachers, students, and literary scholars with a most welcome resource, well-timed to coincide with Anne’s bicentenary year.” — Deborah A. Logan, Victorians: A Journal of Culture and Literature

From the Publisher

Agnes Grey is a charming novel, full of fine character painting and strongly marked by the exquisite development and analysis of the female heart…Agnes Grey, the heroine, herself, is one of the most vigorous and truthful drawings of character, one of the finest pieces of pen-limning that we have encountered anywhere.”

Graham’s Magazine (1850)

The most perfect prose narrative in English letters.”

novelist George Moore

I should like to give it to every family with a governess and shall read it through again when I have a governess to remind me to be human.”

Lady Amberly

Anne Brontë attacks her problem with a freedom and audacity before which her sisters boldest enterprises seem cowardly and restrained…Her behavior is revolutionary.”

novelist and suffragist May Sinclair

[McCaddon] makes the young protagonist come to life in her nuanced first-person reading; her crisp and educated voice conveying the narrator’s energy and persistent optimism, while renderings of Agnes’ masters, mistresses, and young charges show them for the uncouth bullies that they actually are, despite their superior airs and flaunted gentility.

Kliatt