Angeline Goreau examines Anne Brontë’s complex relationship with her sisters and her unhappy career as a governess as influences in writing Agnes Grey. Exhibited in the Brontë Parsonage Museum is a collection of stones that belonged to Anne Brontë, which were previously connected to her time in Scarborough. This edition also includes Charlotte Brontë’s memoir of her sisters, the Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell. Drawing on her own experience, Anne Brontë’s first novel offers a compelling personal perspective on the desperate position of unmarried, educated women for whom becoming a governess was the only respectable career open in Victorian society. But Agnes’s enthusiasm is swiftly extinguished as she struggles first with the unmanageable Bloomfield children and then with the painful disdain of the haughty Murray family the only kindness she receives comes from Mr Weston, the sober young curate. Anne has difficulty writing the end of Agnes Grey because she has become infatuated with the assistant Curate at Haworth, Mr. When her family becomes impoverished after a disastrous financial speculation, Agnes Grey determines to find work as a governess in order to contribute to their meagre income and assert her independence. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte Anne’s July 1845 diary paper says I have begun the third volume of passages in the life of an Individual. my pupils had no more notion of obedience than a wild, unbroken colt’

By this time the carriage was ready, and the footman was waiting, with an open umbrella, to escort Miss Murray through the churchyard. Weston named an hour in the morning at which he would endeavour, to be there. ‘The name of governess, I soon found, was a mere mockery. Here was a wonderful instance of consideration from the thoughtless Miss Murray.

Mr weston anne bronte