Anne Bront

Agnes Grey Anne Bront

Written when she was twenty-six, Agnes Grey is Anne Bronts first novel. It tells the story of a rectors daughter who has to earn her living as a governess. Drawing directly from her own experiences, Anne Bront set out to describe the immense pressures that the governesss life involved: the frustration, the isolation, and the insensitive and cruel treatment on the part of employers and their families. Mature, insightful, and edged with a quiet irony, this debut displays a keen sense of moral responsibility and a sharp eye for bourgeois attitudes and behavior. May makes the young protagonist come to life in her nuanced first-person reading; her crisp and educated voice conveying the narrators 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