Esther Waters

About this book

Esther Waters, a plain, honest girl from a strict religious family, goes into service at Woodview, a country house whose owners live for horse-racing. Seduced by William, a footman, and abandoned when she becomes pregnant, she is dismissed and goes to London, where she fights through workhouses, hard jobs as a wet nurse and servant, and the scorn of employers to raise her son. When William returns, now a publican and bookmaker, she must choose her life again.

Context and significance

George Moore (1852–1933), an Irish novelist influenced by Zola, published the novel in 1894, and its sympathetic, realistic portrait of a servant and unmarried mother was banned by some libraries but praised by Gladstone. Compare Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

About the author