Agnes Grey is a novel of Anne Bronte. The novel follows Agnes Grey, a governess, as she works in several bourgeois families. Scholarship and comments by Anne's sister Charlotte Bronte suggest the novel is largely based on Anne Bronte's own experiences as a governess for five years. Like her sister Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre, it addresses what the precarious position of governess entailed and how it affected a young woman. Anne deals with issues of oppression and abuse of women and governesses, isolation and ideas of empathy. Agnes Grey also mimics some of the stylistic approaches of bildungsromans, employing ideas of personal growth and coming to age, but representing a character who in fact does not gain in virtue. 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.
- ISBN13 9798615755637
- Publish Date 19 February 2020 (first published 23 April 2013)
- Publish Status Active
- Imprint Independently Published
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 244
- Language English