Esther: A Book for Girls

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

When her family experiences serious financial hardship, Esther is more than willing to do her share, taking a job as a governess to help out...

Genres: Classics

210 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1887

About the author

Rosa Nouchette Carey wrote about forty novels, many of which achieved great popularity. Her fiction focused on domestic and family themes, and her plots and characters generally reflected a conservative outlook. In her youth, Carey tried to quench her longing to write, believing that it was impossible to combine literary achievement with a useful domestic life. But her writing won out, and she never married. Although her literary reputation was not high, her works sold well, remaining in print from 1868 until 1924.

Reviews

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esther and her family are fairly well to do. She is at school at the age of 17 when her uncle comes to fetch her with news of her family's financial reversal and her father's serious illness. Her father dies shortly, leaving her mother and six children mostly dependent on their uncle's generosity. He provides them with a home, but the older children will have to work. Esther is ready to do her bit, as is her brother, a soon-to-be doctor. But her sister Carrie feels like she is above all these practical considerations and wants to spend all her time do-gooding for the poor and at the beck and call of the minister's demanding wife. She overextends herself and later on, in true Victorian fashion, pays the consequences with her ruined health. Meanwhile Esther has picked up a governess job that she is really falling in love with. It's great, there's an adorable little girl, a sympathetic aunt who becomes her best friend, and did we forget to mention the widowed father? (Wait, could it be that she's not just in love with the job?)

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comfortable before-bed read. Quite entertaining with a sweet family history and rooted in Christian Faith, it doesn’t really have any climax to it, just a steady flow throughout. I enjoyed the story as something interesting to read but a simple leisurely-read companion. I would recommend it to anyone who wants an easy story to just curl up with.

[Little Red Readinghood · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best thing about this book is the saint is not saintly and the worker bee wins all. For fans of these old fashioned books.

[miffyness · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're a fan of Alcott and Yonge this should suit, though it is singularly lacking in rebarbative clever girls and Jack, the token tomboy, is kept firmly on the sidelines. There is nothing revolutionary here, but there are saintly invalids a-go-go, mild peril, plain girl winning out over pretty sister, and all that other good stuff.

[Lynne - The Book Squirrel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quaint and old fashioned but loved this book.

[Andrea Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It kept me enraptured. Very sweet, very goody. so old-fashioned.