Showing results for title "Agnes Grey", by author "Anne Brontë" in Historical Fiction

Agnes Grey is the debut novel of English author Anne Bronte (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 Bronte suggest the novel is largely based on Anne Bronte's own experiences as a governess for five years.

Written when women---and workers generally---had few rights in England, Agnes Grey exposes the brutal inequities of the rigid class system in mid-19th-century Britain. Agnes comes from a respectable middle-class family, but their financial reverses have forced her to seek work as a governess.