<DIV><p><span style="font-size: larger"><span style="font-family: Arial"><i><span style="line-height: 150%; font-style: italic">‘Patience, Firmness, and Perseverance were my only weapons.’</span></i></span></span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size: larger"><span style="font-family: Arial"><i><span style="line-height: 150%; font-style: italic">Agnes Grey</span></i><span style="line-height: 150%"> (1847) was Anne Bronte’s first novel and a poignant account of her own experience as a struggling governess, obliged to earn her living in one of the few ways open to an educated Victorian girl. </span></span></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: 150%"><span style="font-size: larger"><span style="font-family: Arial"><font size="3"><span style="line-height: 150%">Agnes is not a romantic heroine such as those we find in the books of Anne’s sisters Charlotte and Emily, but her story paints a more realistic picture of what happens when an intelligent, sensitive young woman has to endure months of isolation and frustration in an unsympathetic household that is not her home.</span></font></span></span></div></DIV>