Product Description

Esther Waters (1894) was one of the first English novels to defeat Victorian moral censorship. George Moore's story of a mother's fight for the life of her illegitimate son won Mr Gladstone's approval and was admitted, unaltered, into those bastions of Victorian conformity, the circulating libraries. Esther Waters is forced to leave home and become a servant in a well-to-do household. Seduced in a moment of weakness she has to leave her position and the novel charts her poignant story of poverty and hardship: first the lying-in hospital, then service as a wet-nurse, and even the workhouse as she struggles to look after her child. Adapting the French literary practices of sexual frankness and social exploration to the British climate, Moore produced his masterpiece in Esther Waters. A landmark in publishing history, it is also one of the finest of naturalistic novels.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4285 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Customer Reviews

Much, much, better than that
Describing this novel as 'boring' is a great injustice, and fails to grasp the essential power of this truly heroic tale
Esther Waters is the story of an illiterate young girl who is brought up to believe in the strict Christian teachings of the Plymouth Brethren. Leaving her home in London (and with it a loving mother but a viscious and drunken step-father) she heads to a country house in order to earn a living as a kitchen hand. Here she meets a fellow servant, William, who gets her pregnant before eloping with another woman. The novel is essentially the tale of Esther's struggles to bring her illegitimate son to manhood.
The power of the novel comes from two sources: firstly as a study of the manner in which a single mother was treated by late Victorian society, and secondly the ways in which Esther tries to reconcile her religious beliefs with her daily life as a working mother.
While the first of these themes might be better dealt with in Tess, the fact that Esther's child grows into manhood, and the pleasure that this gives her, adds an interesting counterpoint to the argument often felt in realist literature: that children were a dreadful burden on their poor parents, a burden that it would often seem better to be rid of.
However it is the religious theme that is perhaps the one in which the modern reader might take most interest, partly as a study of the religious attitudes of the time, but primarily as it adds a layer of depth to Esther's character that might otherwise be lacking. Through showing the way she uses religion as a medium to view the world, and how the thickness and intensity of this medium changes as the story of her life unravels, we gain the impression of a flexible but pure faith in a way which even Robert Elsmere fails to produce. There is a strong sense of tension between Esther's religion and the much more numerous secularly orientated characters in the book, but it is an undeniable truth that, on the whole, those characters who profess a belief in Christianity are portrayed as generally more content.
There are weaknesses in the novel (for instance the character of Fred Parson might be better developed and, as with many Victorian novels, the central third lacks the pace of the first and final sections) but on the whole I believe this story successfully highlights the sheer day-to-day heroism of a poverty stricken servant girl in what would today be considered a unendingly harsh world.
In summary I'd say that if you are prepared to approach this book with an open mind, and think about it as you read it, I guarantee you'll find it well worth the read.

Esther Waters is a masterpiece.
In this novel, written in 1894 and set in those same, Victorian times, we share about twenty years in the life of Esther Waters. For most of the time she works as a servant in various situations. The story is told in a powerfully plain, compelling, and unsentimental way. The details of work, of poverty, of childrearing, and of gambling are both fascinating and heartbreaking. I found myself gripped; eager and fearful to read on to see whether Esther would be able to make ends meet, how she would decide about a proposal of marriage, and how she would deal with the other problems that living posed for her and those like her. She is an ordinary and determined woman, enduring her hardships for the sake of her son, bowing to the inevitable when she has to, making the best of things when she can. This is a sad, moving, touching, and tremendously real story. I highly recommend it, it is a masterpiece.

If you like this then you may well also enjoy the novels of one of Moore's contemporaries: George Gissing who is a remarkable writer.

The reality of a servant's life
George Moore upset the great circulating libraries of the day, Mudie's and Smith's, by depicting the sexual experiences of a young woman without morally judging her. It was the beginning of the end of the repressive power of the libraries to dictate the themes and moral content of modern fiction. Esther Waters is an illiterate girl, working as a kitchen maid, who is seduced and abandoned with a child to support. Her struggles to bring up her son, Jacky, are told with realism but no judgement. Esther isn't always likeable, she is short tempered and hasty, but her journey from servant to the workhouse and back up again to a measure of serenity at the end of the book is moving. Several scenes are striking in the light they shine on the impossible position women like Esther could find themselves in. Her experiences in the lying-in hospital where she goes for her confinement are chilling in the lack of compassion she is shown. She then goes as a wetnurse to a middle class woman who won't feed her own child. Two earlier nurses have left because their own babies (who they are not allowed to visit in case they bring back infection) have died while in care. Esther's principled stand when she hears that Jacky is ill shows that his welfare is the most important thing in her life. She would rather they were in the workhouse than that he should die through the neglect of the woman he boards with. Moore also uses Esther's limited understanding of her world very effectively. Her every decision is based on what is right for Jacky.