Anne is the forgotten Bronte and Agnes Grey is her forgotten novel. Now, some novels are forgotten for good reason, and some are forgotten because they were dark, strange, or ahead of their time. So in which category does Agnes Grey belong? The book could be an overlooked masterpiece, or it could be just a sideshow to the more important work of Anne's sisters. I'll try to settle the matter in this article.
Very few people give Agnes Grey any credit. And those who do are frowned upon. People trying to sell copies of the book usually fall back on what seems to be the only available positive appraisal of the book currently floating out there in the litmosphere: that of George Moore, the Irish novelist. He claimed it was, "the one story in English literature in which style, characters, and subject are in perfect keeping," and, even more dramatically, "the most perfect prose narrative in English literature." Mr. Moore is given a hard time for that. Cyril Connolly, for instance, the literary critic, wrote that Moore was too poorly read to be much of a critic anyway and that we shouldn't listen to him. And in the Modern Library edition of Agnes Grey, Barbara Suess, who wrote the introduction, is quick to point out that Moore is wrong on all counts. In particular, she makes it clear that the subject matter of Agnes Grey was nothing unusual for its time. Maybe so, but no one seems willing to give George Moore credit for this: he was a student of Emile Zola's naturalism and other forms of literary realism, and as a critic, he was able to return to this forgotten book and see a bit of his own literary philosophy in its pages.
When critics take the wind out of Moore's sails, they implicitly do the same to Agnes Grey. They are quick to sniff that the book is nothing special. Even Barbara Suess downplays the Moore quip as a "tired bit of Bronte lore"-and she's an Anne Bronte scholar! But whether or not we agree with George Moore, we have to admit this: Anne certainly was unique. True, other writers wrote about governesses-most notably her older sister Charlotte. Jane Eyre, you recall, is a governess, after working briefly at a girl's school. In Charlotte Bronte's third novel, Villette, the protagonist also teaches at such a school. And Agnes Grey is, you guessed it, a governess and a teacher at a girl's school. (Although to be fair, her novel was published before any of Charlotte's works.) But there are several key differences between Anne's book and those of her sister. I have to admit that the character of Jane Eyre is very much like Agnes Grey. If you've read both novels, they even seem to blend into one individual at times-that's how similar they are. They certainly seem like they could have been created by one author. What is different is not who the characters are, but what happens to them. A typical day for Jane involves the discovery of a long-lost family fortune. Or the sudden appearance of a crazed woman in the attic. Or a glorious, blissful romance with her employer. Or a nighttime fire.
Not only do improbable things befall her, the events all follow the rubric of the Victorian novel. First of all, there has to be the serpentine plot, in which it turns out that everyone is secretly related to everyone else, and characters you thought were forgotten suddenly turn out to be central figures in the machinations of a family will. Then there are the improbable punishments for sin. Jane is offered, at one point, the chance to travel across Europe with the love of her life. The only catch is that he's already married (to an insane, dying woman who probably wouldn't mind). Most people would take the trip and never look back. But Jane is a Victorian heroine, and must listen to her conscience (even though by doing so she only makes everyone, herself included, less happy). Eventually, she is reunited with her love, but only after the crazed wife is conveniently bumped off and he is blinded for life for his wicked ways.
Agnes Grey, on the other hand, is, more than most novels, a book about real life. No, scratch that, a book about daily life. Few novels tell us more about the day to day business of simply having and keeping a job. The style of the writing is also very different. While Charlotte's novels and Emily's Wuthering Heights are written in a lurid, romantic style, Anne is more straightforward. Agnes Grey's style is punchy, quick, with much of the action told through dialogue. Of all the Bronte books, it is the most accessible to modern readers thanks to the way it is written. What's more, it is tinged with irony throughout-a very rare flavor for the time. True, Agnes Grey is not as good a book as Jane Eyre. And neither is as good as Wuthering Heights which, taken just as a novel, is probably the best work to come from a Bronte.
