Agnes Grey (Modern Library Classics) - Softcover

Bronte, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812967135 ISBN 13: 9780812967135

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2003

Synopsis

Since 1917 The Modern Library prides itself as The modern Library of the world s Best Books . Its paperback series feature treasured classics, major translations of great works, and rediscoveries of keen literary and historical merit. Featuring introductions by leading writers, stunning translations, scholarly endnotes and reading group guides. Production values emphasize superior quality and readability. Competitive prices, coupled with exciting cover design make these an ideal gift to be cherished by the avid reader Drawing directly on her own unhappy experiences, Anne Brontë's first-person narrative describes the almost unbelievable pressures endured by nineteenth-century governesses - the isolation, the frustration, and the insensitive and sometimes cruel treatment meted out by employers and their families. Distinguished by its sharp, often ironic observation of middle-class social behaviour, this deeply personal novel also touches on religious belief, moral responsibility, and individual integrity and its survival. Using the text of the definitive Clarendon edition, this volume also incorporates Anne Brontë's previously unpublished manuscript revisions.

About this title

About the Author

Barbara A. Suess, assistant professor of English at William Patterson University, is the co-editor of New Approaches to the Literary Art of Anne Brontë and the author of Progress and Identity in the Plays of W. B. Yeats, 1892 1907

From the Back Cover

Concerned for her family's financial welfare and eager to expand her own horizons, Agnes Grey takes up the position of governess, the only respectable employment for an unmarried woman in the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, Agnes cannot anticipate the hardship, humiliation, and loneliness that await her in the brutish Bloomfield and haughty Murray households. Drawn from Anne Bronte's own experiences, "Agnes Grey depicts the harsh conditions and class snobbery that governesses were often forced to endure. As Barbara A. Suess writes in her Introduction, "Bronte provides a portrait of the governess that is as sympathetic as her fictional indictment of the shallow, selfish moneyed class is biting."

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0812967135
• ISBN 13: 9780812967135
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240