Agnes Grey is the debut novel of English author Anne Bronte, first published in December 1847, and republished in a second edition in 1850. 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.
The choice of central character allows Anne to deal with issues of oppression and 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 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. Modern critics have made more subdued claims admiring Agnes Grey with a less overt praise of Bronte's work than Moore.
Critical reception
Agnes Grey was popular during Anne Bronte's life, despite the belief of critics at the time that the novel was marred by 'coarseness' and 'vulgarity.' The novel lost some of its popularity after Bronte's death due to disfavour of its perceived moralising. There has, however, been a recent increase in examination by scholars of Agnes Grey and Anne Bronte herself.
In Conversation in Ebury Street, the Irish novelist George Moore provides a commonly cited example of these newer reviews, overtly praising the style of Anne in the book. F.B. Pinion agreed to a large extent that Agnes Grey was quite a masterwork. However, Pinion felt that Moore's examination of the piece was a little extreme and his "preoccupation with style must have blinded him to the persistence of her moral purpose" of Agnes Grey."