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When her family turns into impoverished after a disastrous financial speculation, Agnes Grey decides to find work as a governess to be able to donate to their meagre income and assert her independence. But Agnes’s excitement is swiftly extinguished as she problems first with the unmanageable Bloomfield children and then with the unpleasant disdain of the haughty Murray family; the just kindness she receives originates from Mr Weston, the sober youthful curate. Drawing on her own knowledge, Anne Brontë’s initial novel gives a convincing personal perspective on the desperate position of unmarried, informed ladies for whom learning to be a governess was the just respectable career open up in Victorian culture.

© Angeline Goreau, 1988, 2004 (P) Penguin Audio