Agnes Grey

by Bronte, Anne; Suess, Barbara A.

• ISBN13: 9780812967135
• ISBN10: 0812967135
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-08
• Publisher: Modern Library

Summary

Concerned for her family's financial welfare and eager to expand her own horizons, Agnes Grey takes up the position of governess, the only respectable employment for an unmarried woman in the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, Agnes cannot anticipate the hardship, humiliation, and loneliness that await her in the brutish Bloomfield and haughty Murray households. Drawn from Anne Bronte's own experiences, Agnes Grey depicts the harsh conditions and class snobbery that governesses were often forced to endure. As Barbara A. Suess writes in her Introduction, "Bronte provides a portrait of the governess that is as sympathetic as her fictional indictment of the shallow, selfish moneyed class is biting." From the Trade Paperback edition.

Author Biography

<b>Barbara A. Suess</b>, assistant professor of English at William Patterson University, is the co-editor of <i>New Approaches to the Literary Art of Anne Brontë</i> and the author of <i>Progress and Identity in the Plays of W. B. Yeats, 1892–1907</i>.

Table of Contents

Biographical Note	v
Introduction: Cultural Critique and the Imperative of Experience in Agnes Grey	xi
Barbara A. Suess
A Note on the Text	xxi
AGNES GREY
The Parsonage	3	(12)
First Lessons in the Art of Instruction	15	(8)
A Few More Lessons	23	(11)
The Grandmamma	34	(9)
The Uncle	43	(7)
The Parsonage Again	50	(6)
Horton Lodge	56	(15)
The ``Coming Out''	71	(3)
The Ball	74	(5)
The Church	79	(6)
The Cottagers	85	(14)
The Shower	99	(5)
The Primroses	104	(7)
The Rector	111	(13)
The Walk	124	(7)
The Substitution	131	(4)
Confessions	135	(11)
Mirth and Mourning	146	(9)
The Letter	155	(4)
The Farewell	159	(6)
The School	165	(6)
The Visit	171	(8)
The Park	179	(4)
The Sands	183	(6)
Conclusion	189	(6)
Notes	195	(10)
Reading Group Guide	205