Agnes Grey (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

Brontė, Anne; Inglesfield, Robert; Marsden, Hilda; Shuttleworth, Sally

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199296987 ISBN 13: 9780199296989

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2010

Synopsis

Anne Brontė's first novel, Agnes Grey, combines an astute dissection of middle-class social behavior and class attitudes with a wonderful study of Victorian responses to young children which has parallels with debates about education that continue to this day. In writing the novel, Brontė drew on her own experiences, and one can trace in the work many of the trials of the Victorian governess, often stranded far from home, and treated with little respect by her employers, yet expected to control and educate her young charges. Agnes Grey looks at childhood from nursery to adolescence, and it also charts the frustrations of romantic love, as Agnes starts to nurse warmer feelings towards the local curate, Mr. Weston. Sally Shuttleworth's fascinating introduction considers the book's fictional and narrative qualities, its relationship with Victorian child-rearing and the responsibilities of parents, and the changing attitudes to the book influenced by modern concerns for children's rights. The new edition includes a revised and updated bibliography as well as revised notes drawing on the latest critical material.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

About this title

From the Publisher:

This book is in Electronic Paperback Format. If you view this book on any of the computer systems below, it will look like a book. Simple to run, no program to install. Just put the CD in your CDROM drive and start reading. The simple easy to use interface is child tested at pre-school levels.

Windows 3.11, Windows/95, Windows/98, OS/2 and MacIntosh and Linux with Windows Emulation.

Includes Quiet Vision's Dynamic Index. the abilty to build a index for any set of characters or words.

From the Inside Flap:

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."

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0199296987
• ISBN 13: 9780199296989
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240