Agnes Grey is the debut novel of English novelist and poet Anne Brontë (youngest of the famous Brontë sisters), first published in 1847 under the male pseudonym Acton Bell. Drawing heavily on Anne’s own experiences as a governess, the novel is a sharp, realistic, and deeply moral critique of the vulnerable, isolated position of working women in Victorian society.
The story is framed as a series of letters from a prosperous young Yorkshire farmer, Gilbert Markham, to his friend, detailing the dramatic arrival of a mysterious, reclusive young widow who calls herself Helen Graham. She moves into the decaying, semi-abandoned Elizabethan mansion Wildfell Hall with her young son, Arthur, attempting to earn a living by selling her oil paintings. Because she…