Esther Waters. A Novel.

£125 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Esther Waters is one of the great ‘fallen women’ novels of the late 19th century. It tells the story of a working girl, Esther, who escapes a drunken step-father by finding gainful employment; but soon-after falls pregnant by an inconstant lover (a footman of the family for whom she also works). Determined to keep her child, Jackie, and to keep him in relative health and happiness the novel follows her path through employment in various service roles including as a wet nurse and a maid. There are strokes of luck; reconnections with old friends (some, more beneficial to Esther than others). Through the peaks and valleys of fickle fortune our heroine keeps moving forward. She is finally rewarded for her graft, and achieves relative happiness, stability, and comfort towards the end of the book - and her son, now old enough to strike out on his own in the world - does so from a solid footing. “The novel is a conscious attempt by Moore to emulate Zola and Turgenev. Because of the frankness of its sexual episodes, circulating libraries refused to stock it.” (Sutherland, The Stanford Companion to Victorian Literature , 1990, p.216). Gilcher, A19a: “In May a second impression, advertised as ‘Second Edition’, was issued, and this and subsequent impressions have the front cover lettered in gilt at top ESTHER WATERS / A NOVEL / GEORGE MOORE and a spray of flowers in gilt in lower left corner“ (p.43). Published two months after the first edition. Corners slightly rubbed, one bumped, book

• Year: 1894

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