Books by Anne Bronte

Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics)

by Anne Bronte

‘The name of governess, I soon found, was a mere mockery … my pupils had no more notion of obedience than a wild, unbroken colt’
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. 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. 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.
This edition also includes Charlotte Brontë’s memoir of her sisters, theBiographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell. Angeline Goreau examines Anne Brontë’s complex relationship with her sisters and her unhappy career as a governess as influences in writing Agnes Grey.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Penguin Classics)

by Anne Bronte

A powerful depiction of a woman's fight for domestic independence and creative freedom, from the youngest of the Brontë sisters

Gilbert Markham is deeply intrigued by Helen Graham, a beautiful and secretive young woman who has moved into nearby Wildfell Hall with her young son. He is quick to offer Helen his friendship, but when her reclusive behaviour becomes the subject of local gossip and speculation, Gilbert begins to wonder whether his trust in her has been misplaced. It is only when she allows Gilbert to read her diary that the truth is revealed and the shocking details of the disastrous marriage she has left behind emerge. Told with great immediacy, combined with wit and irony, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a powerful depiction of a woman's fight for domestic independence and creative freedom.

This Penguin Classics edition of Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, her groundbreaking study of a woman's valiant struggle for independence from an abusive husband, is edited with an introduction and notes by Stevie Davis. In her introduction Davies discusses The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as feminist testament, inspired by Anne Brontë's experiences as a governess and by the death of her brother Branwell Brontë, and examines the novel's language, biblical references and narrative styles.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

by Anne Bronte

A beautiful clothbound edition of Anne Brontë's most enduring novel, to accompany her sisters' greatest books in Penguin Hardcover Classics

Gilbert Markham is deeply intrigued by Helen Graham, a beautiful and secretive young woman who has moved into nearby Wildfell Hall with her young son. He is quick to offer Helen his friendship, but when her reclusive behaviour becomes the subject of local gossip and speculation, Gilbert begins to wonder whether his trust in her has been misplaced. Anne Brontë's bold novel is an exploration of a woman's struggle for creative freedom and domestic independence that caused a scandal upon publication and continues to speak powerfully almost 170 years afters its publication.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Agnes Grey (Oxford World's Classics)

by Anne Bronte, Robert Inglesfield, Hilda Marsden, Sally Shuttleworth

Anne Brontë's first novel, Agnes Grey, combines an astute dissection of middle-class social behavior and class attitudes with a wonderful study of Victorian responses to young children which has parallels with debates about education that continue to this day. In writing the novel, Brontë drew on her own experiences, and one can trace in the work many of the trials of the Victorian governess, often stranded far from home, and treated with little respect by her employers, yet expected to control and educate her young charges. Agnes Grey looks at childhood from nursery to adolescence, and it also charts the frustrations of romantic love, as Agnes starts to nurse warmer feelings towards the local curate, Mr. Weston. Sally Shuttleworth's fascinating introduction considers the book's fictional and narrative qualities, its relationship with Victorian child-rearing and the responsibilities of parents, and the changing attitudes to the book influenced by modern concerns for children's rights. The new edition includes a revised and updated bibliography as well as revised notes drawing on the latest critical material.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Oxford World's Classics)

by Anne Bronte, Josephine McDonagh

Combining a sensational story of a man's physical and moral decline through alcohol, a study of marital breakdown, a disquisition on the care and upbringing of children, and a hard-hitting critique of the position of women in Victorian society, this passionate tale of betrayal is set within a stern moral framework tempered by Anne Bront�'s optimistic belief in universal redemption. It tells the story of the estranged wife of a dissolute rake, desperate to protect her son from his destructive influence, in full flight from a shocking world of debauchery and cruelty. Drawing on her first-hand experiences with her brother Branwell, Bront�'s novel scandalized contemporary readers and still retains its power to shock today. The new introduction by Josephine McDonagh sheds light on the intellectual and cultural context of the novel, its complex narrative structure, and the contemporary moral and medical debates about alcohol and the body with which the novel engages. Based on the authoritative Clarendon text, the book has an improved chronology, an up-to-date bibliography, and many informative notes.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

by Anne Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte

The most cherished novels from England's talented sisters, all in one gorgeously packaged volume

The Brontë family was a literary phenomenon unequalled before or since. Both Charlotte's Jane Eyre and Emily's Wuthering Heights have won lofty places in the pantheon and stirred the romantic sensibilities of generations of readers. For the first time ever, Penguin Classics unites these two enduring favorites with the lesser known but no less powerful work by their youngest sister, Anne. Drawn from Anne's own experiences as a governess, Agnes Grey offers a compelling view of Victorian chauvinism and materialism. Its inclusion makes The Brontë Sisters a must-have volume for anyone fascinated by this singularly talented family.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Chiltern Classic)

by Anne Bronte

Chiltern creates the most beautiful editions of the World’s finest literature.
Your favorite classic titles in a way you have never seen them before; the tactile layers, fine details and beautiful colors of these remarkable covers make Chiltern classics feel extra special and look striking on any shelf.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, tells the story of young Helen Graham’s disastrous marriage to the dashing drunkard Arthur Huntingdon―said to be modeled on the author’s brother Branwell―and her flight from him to the seclusion of Wildfell Hall. Pursued by Gilbert Markham, who is in love with her, Graham refuses him and, by way of explanation, gives him her journal. There he reads of her wretched married life. Eventually, after Huntingdon’s death, they marry. Anne Bronte's second but last novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym of Acton Bell, and was an immediate success. It is now considered to be the one of the first feminist novels.

Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Introduction by Lucy Hughes-Hallett (Everyman's Library Classics Series)

by Anne Bronte

The only one-volume hardcover edition of the two uncommonly powerful novels written by the youngest of the famous Brontë sisters.

Anne Brontë wrote these two fantastically successful novels just before her tragically early death, both of them in a much more grittily realistic mode than the more romantic ones favored by her sisters. Agnes Grey, the story of a governess working for disdainful and cruel employers, is a wrenching account of the desperate straits faced by Victorian women without money or husband. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall tells a story that was shocking for its time: a woman leaves her alcoholic and abusive husband in order to protect their young son and must live in hiding to prevent the law from taking her child away from her. These novels have become classics not only by dint of the subtle and ironic force of Anne Brontë's prose but because of the passionate indictments of social injustice that animate them.

Agnes Grey (Modern Library Classics)

by Anne Bronte

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.”

The Brontë Sisters (Boxed Set) Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Villette

by Anne Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte

A beautiful clothbound boxed set designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith of four classics by the Brontë sisters: Wuthering Heights, Villette, Jane Eyre, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Penguin Classics presents the Brontë sisters' four greatest works in a boxed set of lavish, clothbound Hardcover Classics editions designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. From the bleak moors of Wuthering Heights to the French boarding school of Villette to the gloomy, mysterious country estates of Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, these four novels show the most famous siblings in literature at the peak of their powers.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.