Agnes Grey

**A Governess Speaks from Inside the Schoolroom**

**Anne Brontë's Quietly Radical First Novel**

**Work, Isolation, and the Education of Empathy**

**A Personal Story Reclaimed as a Feminist Classic**

*Before the celebrated masterpieces came Agnes Grey: a first book in which Anne Brontë's defining concerns were already taking shape.*

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Agnes Grey, A Novel is the first novel by 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, 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 a bildungsroman, employing ideas of personal growth and coming of age.

Agnes Grey is the daughter of Mr Grey, a minister of modest means, and Mrs Grey, a woman who left her wealthy family and married purely out of love. Mr Grey tries to increase the family's financial standing, but the merchant to whom he entrusts his money dies in a shipwreck, and the lost investment plunges the family into debt. Agnes, 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. To prove herself and to earn money, she is determined to get a position as a governess. Eventually, she obtains a recommendation from a well-placed acquaintance, is offered a position, and secures her parents' permission. With some misgivings, she travels to Wellwood house to work for the Bloomfield family.

Agnes Grey was popular during what remained of Anne Brontë's life despite the belief of many critics at the time that the novel was marred by "coarseness" and "vulgarity," but it lost some of its popularity afterwards because of its perceived moralising. However, in the 20th century, there was an increase in examination by scholars of Agnes Grey and of Anne Brontë. In Conversation in Ebury Street, the Irish novelist George Moore provided a commonly cited example of these newer reviews, overtly praising the style of the novel. F. B. Pinion agreed to a large extent that Agnes Grey was a masterwork. However, Pinion felt that Moore's examination of the piece was a little extreme and that his "preoccupation with style must have blinded him to the persistence of her moral purpose" of Agnes Grey.

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*“preoccupation with style must have blinded him to the persistence of her moral purpose”*

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**Why Agnes Grey Still Matters**

Read today, Agnes Grey offers more than the curiosity of a famous writer's beginning. It preserves the risks, experiments, and unresolved tensions of a literary voice before later success made that voice familiar.

*Return to the beginning, and discover how Agnes Grey first opened the path ahead.*