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Zusatztext “The one story in English literature in which style! characters and subject are in perfect keeping.” —George Moore Informationen zum Autor 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 . Klappentext 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 Brontë'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, "Brontë provides a portrait of the governess that is as sympathetic as her fictional indictment of the shallow, selfish moneyed class is biting.” Leseprobe I THE PARSONAGE All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge; I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to others, but the world may judge for itself: shielded by my own obscurity, and by the lapse of years, and a few fictitious names, I do not fear to venture, and will candidly lay before the public what I would not disclose to the most intimate friend. My father was a clergyman of the north of England, who was deservedly respected by all who knew him, and, in his younger days, lived pretty comfortably on the joint income of a small incumbency, and a snug little property of his own. My mother, who married him against the wishes of her friends, was a squire’s daughter, and a woman of spirit. In vain it was represented to her that, if she became the poor parson’s wife, she must relinquish her carriage and her lady’s-maid, and all the luxuries and elegancies of affluence, which to her were little less than the necessaries of life. A carriage and a lady’s-maid were great conveniences; but, thank Heaven, she had feet to carry her, and hands to minister to her own necessities. An elegant house, and spacious grounds were not to be despised, but she would rather live in a cottage with Richard Grey, than in a palace with any other man in the world. Finding arguments of no avail, her father, at length, told the lovers they might marry if they pleased, but, in so doing, his daughter would forfeit every fraction of her fortune. He expected this would cool the ardour of both; but he was mistaken. My father knew too well my mother’s superior worth, not to be sensible that she was a valuable fortune in herself; and if she would but consent to embellish his humble hearth, he should be happy to take her on any terms; while she, on her part, would rather labour with her own hands than be divided from the man she loved, whose happiness it would be her joy to make, and who was already one with her in heart and soul. So her fortune went to swell the purse of a wiser sister, who had married a rich nabob,1 and she, to the wonder and compassionate regret of all who knew her, went to bury herself in the homely village parsonage among the hills of———.2 And yet, in spite of all this, and in spite of my mother’s high spirit, and my father’s whims, I believe you might search all England through, and fail to find a happier couple. Of six children, my sister Mary and myself were the only two that survived the perils of infancy and early childhood.3 I, being the younger...
