Agnes Grey, by Anne Brontë
One-line summary: Perfect Agnes goes out into the world to help support her family, learns that most other people are not as perfect as she, finds love and marriage and lives happily ever after.
This book could be divided into four sections, each described by a well-known proverb: A fool and his money are soon parted, Spare the rod and spoil the child, Handsome is as handsome does and Virtue is its own reward. Young Agnes Grey lives a sheltered life with her father (a vicar), her mother and sister. When the family fortune is lost, Agnes begs to be allowed to become a governess to a wealthy family to ease their financial plight. The children of the first family are young, ill-behaved and unruly. Agnes is not allowed to beat them and is therefore unable to teach them much, despite her strenuous efforts. The children of the next family are what we know call teen-aged girls and Agnes watches as the older demeans those she considers beneath her (most notably Mr. Hatfield the vicar), and schemes with her mother to snare a rich husband, resulting in a loveless marriage. Meanwhile, Agnes returns home to help support her mother at the death of her father. Her perfect suitor finds her and marriage ensues. We aren't actually taken clear through to "forever after", but we hear briefly about their three perfect children and the book ends with this bit of perfect life:
Our children, Edward, Agnes, and little Mary, promise well; their
education, for the time being, is chiefly committed to me; and they shall
want no good thing that a mother’s care can give. Our modest income is
amply sufficient for our requirements: and by practising the economy we
learnt in harder times, and never attempting to imitate our richer
neighbours, we manage not only to enjoy comfort and contentment
ourselves, but to have every year something to lay by for our children,
and something to give to those who need it.
And now I think I have said sufficient.
More than sufficient is my verdict.
I have read worse books, but not recently. There are other opinions, for example the creator of the 1001 book list that we are reading and reviewing. Another example (quoting from Wikipedia): The Irish novelist George Moore praised Agnes Grey as "the most perfect prose narrative in English letters." The part of that I agree with is that this book is a narrative or perhaps closer to a parable but not much of a novel. Anne is credited by critics with "a wonderful style, sharp and ironic as contrasted to her sisters' Romanticism." The prose is certainly passable, if dated but somewhere I missed the ironic part.
Before I even finished this book, I began to wonder if it had only managed to be published because of her more famous sisters. A quick look at Wikipedia revealed that "Agnes Grey, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre were all published within the same year: 1847." and in addition, both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were published under pseudonyms ("Currer Bell" and "Ellis Bell" , respectively.) I guess Anne wasn’t ridding on the coattails of Charlotte and Emily.
A second theory was that all the Brontë's books were similarly didactically strident in their moral purpose and devoid of plot and character development, perhaps in keeping with the era, although it wasn't long after the Jane Austen era and her books certainly had plot and character development. After I finished Agnes Grey, I read Jane Eyre to test my second theory. While the latter is not my favorite book and has its own share of moralizing and virtue rewarded, I was anxious to get to the end of Jane Eyre to find out what happened to the characters, as opposed to just wanting to get the whole thing over with, since I already knew what was going to happen to Agnes. At some level I cared about the characters in Jane Eyre despite the melodrama and supernatural plot elements. As an atheist, my tolerance for Christian piety is admittedly limited but I don't think my intolerance was the source of my bias against dear Agnes.
Normally I might hesitate before revealing too many plot elements for fear that readers of this review might want to savor the plot twists for themselves. However, Anne Brontë is such a transparent writer that there are no surprises. As soon as the possibility of Agnes' father doubling his wealth by investing in a merchandising venture arises, we know that disaster will ensue and the family fall on hard times-and sure enough the ship and the honest but unlucky merchant sink beneath the waves and the entire investment is lost. (It should be noted that hard times means that the family is reduced to only one maid-servant.) I was initially willing to believe that this was a plot device to get Agnes out into the world quickly and held out some hope for her success in her first job. After her failure there, due entirely to the fault of the children, the parents, the aunts and uncles, the grandmother and all the guests at the manor, with no blame to be found in Agnes' conduct, I had the game figured out. Young Rosalie, the older of the two girls at her second position, was sure to come to a bad end and did, marrying the master of Asbury Park, the finest manor in the area. After a blissful honeymoon tour of the continent she returned to gay life in London and started flirting with an old friend. Her husband immediately sent her back to Asbury Park where she faced a lonely and loveless (if pampered) life stranded in the manor with her mother-in-law and her children while he spent his time in London running around with other women. The perfect ending for Agnes has been outlined above, and it was clear that it would happen from the first time that Rosalie and her sister pronounced the new curate to be "an ugly man" while Agnes weighed his character and his merits as a clergyman and found Edward Weston perfect. It should come as no surprise to you that her Agnes' sister's name is Mary, thus completing the explanation for the names of her three children because what could round out a perfect family better than naming them after her husband, herself and her beloved sister?
I read the Project Gutenberg version, but Amazon.com shows one edition as being 240 pages long. As mentioned above, the original publication date was 1847 and a second edition, edited by her sister Charlotte, was published in 1850, the year after the Anne’s death.
There are only two reasons to read this book: you are assigned to do so or you want to read all of the books by the Brontës for your own perverse reasons.
Not recommended.
This book could be divided into four sections, each described by a well-known proverb: A fool and his money are soon parted, Spare the rod and spoil the child, Handsome is as handsome does and Virtue is its own reward. Young Agnes Grey lives a sheltered life with her father (a vicar), her mother and sister. When the family fortune is lost, Agnes begs to be allowed to become a governess to a wealthy family to ease their financial plight. The children of the first family are young, ill-behaved and unruly. Agnes is not allowed to beat them and is therefore unable to teach them much, despite her strenuous efforts. The children of the next family are what we know call teen-aged girls and Agnes watches as the older demeans those she considers beneath her (most notably Mr. Hatfield the vicar), and schemes with her mother to snare a rich husband, resulting in a loveless marriage. Meanwhile, Agnes returns home to help support her mother at the death of her father. Her perfect suitor finds her and marriage ensues. We aren't actually taken clear through to "forever after", but we hear briefly about their three perfect children and the book ends with this bit of perfect life:
Our children, Edward, Agnes, and little Mary, promise well; their
education, for the time being, is chiefly committed to me; and they shall
want no good thing that a mother’s care can give. Our modest income is
amply sufficient for our requirements: and by practising the economy we
learnt in harder times, and never attempting to imitate our richer
neighbours, we manage not only to enjoy comfort and contentment
ourselves, but to have every year something to lay by for our children,
and something to give to those who need it.
And now I think I have said sufficient.
More than sufficient is my verdict.
I have read worse books, but not recently. There are other opinions, for example the creator of the 1001 book list that we are reading and reviewing. Another example (quoting from Wikipedia): The Irish novelist George Moore praised Agnes Grey as "the most perfect prose narrative in English letters." The part of that I agree with is that this book is a narrative or perhaps closer to a parable but not much of a novel. Anne is credited by critics with "a wonderful style, sharp and ironic as contrasted to her sisters' Romanticism." The prose is certainly passable, if dated but somewhere I missed the ironic part.
Before I even finished this book, I began to wonder if it had only managed to be published because of her more famous sisters. A quick look at Wikipedia revealed that "Agnes Grey, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre were all published within the same year: 1847." and in addition, both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were published under pseudonyms ("Currer Bell" and "Ellis Bell" , respectively.) I guess Anne wasn’t ridding on the coattails of Charlotte and Emily.
A second theory was that all the Brontë's books were similarly didactically strident in their moral purpose and devoid of plot and character development, perhaps in keeping with the era, although it wasn't long after the Jane Austen era and her books certainly had plot and character development. After I finished Agnes Grey, I read Jane Eyre to test my second theory. While the latter is not my favorite book and has its own share of moralizing and virtue rewarded, I was anxious to get to the end of Jane Eyre to find out what happened to the characters, as opposed to just wanting to get the whole thing over with, since I already knew what was going to happen to Agnes. At some level I cared about the characters in Jane Eyre despite the melodrama and supernatural plot elements. As an atheist, my tolerance for Christian piety is admittedly limited but I don't think my intolerance was the source of my bias against dear Agnes.
Normally I might hesitate before revealing too many plot elements for fear that readers of this review might want to savor the plot twists for themselves. However, Anne Brontë is such a transparent writer that there are no surprises. As soon as the possibility of Agnes' father doubling his wealth by investing in a merchandising venture arises, we know that disaster will ensue and the family fall on hard times-and sure enough the ship and the honest but unlucky merchant sink beneath the waves and the entire investment is lost. (It should be noted that hard times means that the family is reduced to only one maid-servant.) I was initially willing to believe that this was a plot device to get Agnes out into the world quickly and held out some hope for her success in her first job. After her failure there, due entirely to the fault of the children, the parents, the aunts and uncles, the grandmother and all the guests at the manor, with no blame to be found in Agnes' conduct, I had the game figured out. Young Rosalie, the older of the two girls at her second position, was sure to come to a bad end and did, marrying the master of Asbury Park, the finest manor in the area. After a blissful honeymoon tour of the continent she returned to gay life in London and started flirting with an old friend. Her husband immediately sent her back to Asbury Park where she faced a lonely and loveless (if pampered) life stranded in the manor with her mother-in-law and her children while he spent his time in London running around with other women. The perfect ending for Agnes has been outlined above, and it was clear that it would happen from the first time that Rosalie and her sister pronounced the new curate to be "an ugly man" while Agnes weighed his character and his merits as a clergyman and found Edward Weston perfect. It should come as no surprise to you that her Agnes' sister's name is Mary, thus completing the explanation for the names of her three children because what could round out a perfect family better than naming them after her husband, herself and her beloved sister?
I read the Project Gutenberg version, but Amazon.com shows one edition as being 240 pages long. As mentioned above, the original publication date was 1847 and a second edition, edited by her sister Charlotte, was published in 1850, the year after the Anne’s death.
There are only two reasons to read this book: you are assigned to do so or you want to read all of the books by the Brontës for your own perverse reasons.
Not recommended.