Agnes Grey revolves around a family that becomes impoverished after a financial breakdown.

The central character in the novel is Agnes Grey, who is determined to find work as a governess and help her family by working her way out. The storyline portrays the hurdles that Agnes faces because of the unmanageable Bloomfield children and again due to the apathy of the arrogant Murray family.

This novel is a trenchant expose of the frequently isolated, intellectually stagnant and emotionally-starved conditions under which many governesses worked in the mid-19th century.

This is a deeply personal novel written from the author's own experience and as such Agnes Grey has a power and poignancy which mark it out as a landmark work of literature dealing with the social and moral evolution of English society during the last century.