Audiobook · read by volunteers
Agnes Grey
Anne Brontë (1820–1849)
Read by Melissa, hpark, Christine Blachford, Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014), Neeru Iyer, Collee McKinnon, Gesine · 25 chapters · 6 h 41
About the book
Agnes Grey is the daughter of a country clergyman, and when her family falls into money trouble she decides to help by becoming a governess. She is young, gentle and eager to do good. What she finds in the houses of the wealthy is quite different from her hopes: spoiled children, careless parents and a daily round of small humiliations. Through two very different families she learns how hard it is to teach those who do not want to learn, and how lonely it can be to live among people who do not see her. Then a kind and thoughtful curate enters her life. Anne Brontë tells the story quietly and truthfully, with a dry humour and a steady moral strength. It is a short, honest novel, and it is deeply affecting.
Introduction
Anne Brontë was born in 1820 and died in 1849, the youngest of the three Brontë sisters who wrote some of the best-known novels in English. Like her heroine, she worked as a governess, and she drew on that experience to write Agnes Grey, which was published in 1847 together with Emily’s Wuthering Heights. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre appeared in the same year. Her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, followed in 1848.
For a long time, Anne was considered the least of the sisters, and her books were overshadowed by those of Charlotte and Emily. In recent decades, readers and critics have given her work more attention. They admire her clarity, her moral seriousness and the courage with which she looked at the realities of women’s lives. Agnes Grey, in particular, offers a frank picture of the position of governesses, who were neither servants nor members of the family.
This LibriVox recording has twenty-five chapters and lasts nearly seven hours. It is read by seven volunteers. If you have enjoyed novels about Victorian life, or if you want to meet the Brontë who is often forgotten, this is a satisfying choice. It is short enough to enjoy in a few sittings, and its plain, direct voice has lost none of its force.
The novel draws on the author’s own experience, but it never complains or exaggerates. Its strength lies in its restraint: small incidents, such as a rude remark, an unkind game or a kindness from a stranger, are given just enough weight to show what they mean to the person who endures them. A quiet novel, yet one that stays in the mind.
Public domain
Anne Brontë died in 1849: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text