The novel is written in first person, and tells the story of Agnes Grey, the younger of two sisters of a family struck by an unexpected economic meltdown, that does not weigh on the parents leave home to do the job of a governess in rich middle-class families. The educational experiences at Bloomfield and Murray before then, the reflections on the plight of his status as a housekeeper, mundane description of the environment and vacuous where you do most of the narrative, paint a "microcosm of Victorian society", read through the author's moral beliefs.