Listen to Agnes Grey on BBC7

Unheard of news! Agnes Grey has been broadcast on the digital radio station BBC 7. We think it was previously broadcast on BBC4, though, so it's not brand-new.

We are listening to it right now. The cast sounds pretty good and the script includes whole dialogues taken literally from the book, though they have taken away the memorable "All true histories contain instruction" and several "secondary" passages of the book to make it fit into a little over an hour.

"It leaves no painful impression on the mind - some may think it leaves no impression at all," wrote a harsh Victorian critic of Anne Brontë's first novel, comparing its well-crafted realism in an unfavourable light to the dramatic sentiment and wild romance of her sisters' books. Much of the story centres around the realities of being employed by wealthy families as a governess, a role that Anne Brontë knew all too well, having worked as one herself. In this dramatisation, Poppy Miller portrays the struggles faced by the overworked and undervalued Agnes without resorting to mawkishness, and perfectly conveys the emotional isolation of being deprived of all human warmth. This may not be as sexy as Wuthering Heights or as sad as Jane Eyre, but Agnes Grey is the closest any of the Brontës got to painting a picture of a believable, bold young woman. RT reviewer: Jane Anderson

Why Anne's books are always "not as..." and "not so..." is beyond us. But we will paraphrase what Sidney Dobell said of it: "it contains the most beautiful prose in English literature". So there.

Click here to launch the broadcast. And enjoy yourself!

Categories: Agnes_Grey, Audio-Radio