Agnes Gray

In her Introduction to an edition of "Agnes Grey," Barbara A. Suess writes "Bronte provides a portrait of the governess that is as sympathetic as her fictional indictment of the shallow, selfish moneyed class is biting." Anne Bronte relies on her own personal involvement in her duties as a home teacher to bring Agnes Grey to life. Agnes, a rector's daughter, must take employment as a governess to help her family make financial ends meet. But her situations with the spoiled, self-obsessed Bloomfield children and later with the ruthless Murray family forces her into a lonely, humiliating experience that is a wearying one extraordinarily blossoming into a romantic relationship with the local vicar, Edward Weston. Agnes' concern for her family brings her to these unfortunate trials where she suffers stupid and egotistic proprietors and their over-indulged progeny. She was not able to foresee the hardships she would have to undergo along with the class snobbery to which she was also subjected. And yet a career as a governess was the only "respectable" job available to an unmarried woman in Victorian England. Bronte's simple and uncomplicated rendition of these sordid affairs made circumstances surrounding such brutish conditions authentic enough to necessitate investigation and improvement.

Предлагаем вниманию любителей английской классической литературы книгу младшей из сестер Бронте. "Агнес Грей" – роман во многом автобиографический, в его основе личные впечатления и переживания автора: Энн Бронте, как и ее героиня Агнес, работала гувернанткой. В 40-х годах XIX века в Англии появилось множество женщин-романисток разной степени таланта, часто публиковавшихся анонимно или под псевдонимами. В центре сюжета их произведений были гувернантки, и даже возник специальный термин "governess novel" – роман о гувернантке.

В книге приводится неадаптированный текст романа с комментариями и словарем.