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Hester Annotated
Hester tells the story of the aging but powerful Catherine Vernon, and her conflict with the young and determined Hester, whose growing attachment to Edward, Catherine's favorite, spells disaster for all concerned.
Catherine Vernon, jilted in her youth, has risen to power in a man's world as head of the family bank. She thinks she sees through everyone and rules over a family of dependents with knowing cynicism. But there are two people in Redborough who resist her. One is Hester, a young relation with a personality as strong as Catherine's, and as determined to find a role for herself. The other is Edward, who Catherine treats like a son. Conflict between the young and the old is inevitable, and in its depiction of the complex relationships that develop between the three principal characters, Hester is a masterpiece of psychological realism. In exploring the difficulty of understanding human nature, it is also a compulsive story of financial and sexual risk-taking that inevitably results in a searing climax.
Margaret Oliphant is one of the great Victorian novelists, and this edition re-establishes her importance.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Catherine Vernon, jilted in her youth, has risen to power in a man's world as head of the family bank. She thinks she sees through everyone and rules over a family of dependents with knowing cynicism. But there are two people in Redborough who resist her. One is Hester, a young relation with a personality as strong as Catherine's, and as determined to find a role for herself. The other is Edward, who Catherine treats like a son. Conflict between the young and the old is inevitable, and in its depiction of the complex relationships that develop between the three principal characters, Hester is a masterpiece of psychological realism. In exploring the difficulty of understanding human nature, it is also a compulsive story of financial and sexual risk-taking that inevitably results in a searing climax.
Margaret Oliphant is one of the great Victorian novelists, and this edition re-establishes her importance.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1883
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About the author
Mrs. Oliphant
1,059 books171 followersMargaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant (née Margaret Oliphant Wilson) was a Scottish novelist and historical writer, who usually wrote as Mrs. Oliphant. Her fictional works encompass "domestic realism, the historical novel and tales of the supernatural".
Margaret Oliphant was born at Wallyford, near Musselburgh, East Lothian, and spent her childhood at Lasswade (near Dalkeith), Glasgow and Liverpool. As a girl, she constantly experimented with writing. In 1849 she had her first novel published: Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland which dealt with the Scottish Free Church movement. It was followed by Caleb Field in 1851, the year in which she met the publisher William Blackwood in Edinburgh and was invited to contribute to the famous Blackwood's Magazine. The connection was to last for her whole lifetime, during which she contributed well over 100 articles, including, a critique of the character of Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
Margaret Oliphant was born at Wallyford, near Musselburgh, East Lothian, and spent her childhood at Lasswade (near Dalkeith), Glasgow and Liverpool. As a girl, she constantly experimented with writing. In 1849 she had her first novel published: Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland which dealt with the Scottish Free Church movement. It was followed by Caleb Field in 1851, the year in which she met the publisher William Blackwood in Edinburgh and was invited to contribute to the famous Blackwood's Magazine. The connection was to last for her whole lifetime, during which she contributed well over 100 articles, including, a critique of the character of Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews
October 26, 2025
I absolutely loved this. One of the best Victorian novels I've read for a while - insightful, dramatic, full of fantastically drawn characters, beautifully written, and really smartly exploring the role of women in Victorian society and in the Victorian world of work. I adored it.
June 20, 2025
4
This is made up of mundane life moments written in a Victorian saga era ✨ Loved x Very interesting!
This is made up of mundane life moments written in a Victorian saga era ✨ Loved x Very interesting!
May 11, 2018
I was keen to read a ‘serious’ work by Margaret Oliphant, having enjoyed her witty, ironic Miss Marjoribanks. Hester lived up to my expectations in full. It’s a fine, rich, absorbing late-Victorian novel—I would say on a par with the works of Elizabeth Gaskell (high praise in my book). In some ways, it’s more interesting than anything I have read of Gaskell’s, in that it’s a little weirder and more original and less resolved.
The fulcrum of the book is supplied by the tension between the paired, antagonistic characters of Catherine and Hester Vernon: the first, in her sixties, a powerful philanthropist, with semi-regal status within her provincial setting; the second, a young, restless, unwillingly dependent relative, passionately resentful of her subordinate status. Although the centrality of this relationship is hinted at from the outset, it is held in abeyance for much of the novel. You know from the start that a standoff will ensue between Catherine and Hester; but, for much of the novel, your attention is distracted by mediating figures muddling around in the middle ground between the two.
A novel that rests ultimately on the relationship of an older woman and a younger is hardly common in the Western literary tradition. This is the Bechdel test written very large indeed. Oliphant’s characterization of the indomitable, flawed Catherine Vernon is quite wonderful, and I suspect a lot of her life experience flowed into it. Certainly, Oliphant knew what it was suddenly to be holding up a family financially, as she did after the death of her husband, and again after the bankruptcy and death of her brother, when she took on his family as well.
Oliphant assembles an entertaining crew of characters around the standout figures of Catherine and Hester. Catherine’s troubled quasi-son Edward didn’t quite work for me—perhaps a problem, given his pivotal plot role—but the rest all had their moments: Hester’s stolid suitor Harry; her placid mother, a foil to her turbulent passions; and the absurd husband-hunting missile Emma Ashton, always on the lookout for her ‘chance’. I was particularly taken with the amiable, philosophizing older couple, Captain and Mrs Morgan: a revisitation of Austen’s Captain and Mrs Harville in Persuasion, yet given an odder twist through the Captain’s unexpectedly dark views regarding family ties.
In addition to the personal drama of this novel, I liked its weirdly topical financial themes. Oliphant contrasts a stolid, provincial culture of long-term savings and investments with the flashy, louche seductions of the burgeoning stock market, fueled by the communications revolution that allowed rapid transit between the country and London, in person (by train) or by telegraph or post. The excellent World’s Classics edition I used was published before the crash of 2008, but, for anyone reading it afterwards, Oliphant’s comments on the seductions and dangers of the quick buck, and their corrosive effect within a banking sector built on trust, will have a dispiritingly familiar ring.
The introduction of the World’s Classics edition is one of the best I have read in this series. I liked especially its quotations from Margaret Oliphant’s autobiography, and its extrapolated philosophical quotes from her novels. One of the latter, from Hester itself, struck me as particularly astute, especially coming from someone like Oliphant, with a quick, satirical eye. 'Human nature may be easy to see through, but it is very hard to understand.'
The fulcrum of the book is supplied by the tension between the paired, antagonistic characters of Catherine and Hester Vernon: the first, in her sixties, a powerful philanthropist, with semi-regal status within her provincial setting; the second, a young, restless, unwillingly dependent relative, passionately resentful of her subordinate status. Although the centrality of this relationship is hinted at from the outset, it is held in abeyance for much of the novel. You know from the start that a standoff will ensue between Catherine and Hester; but, for much of the novel, your attention is distracted by mediating figures muddling around in the middle ground between the two.
A novel that rests ultimately on the relationship of an older woman and a younger is hardly common in the Western literary tradition. This is the Bechdel test written very large indeed. Oliphant’s characterization of the indomitable, flawed Catherine Vernon is quite wonderful, and I suspect a lot of her life experience flowed into it. Certainly, Oliphant knew what it was suddenly to be holding up a family financially, as she did after the death of her husband, and again after the bankruptcy and death of her brother, when she took on his family as well.
Oliphant assembles an entertaining crew of characters around the standout figures of Catherine and Hester. Catherine’s troubled quasi-son Edward didn’t quite work for me—perhaps a problem, given his pivotal plot role—but the rest all had their moments: Hester’s stolid suitor Harry; her placid mother, a foil to her turbulent passions; and the absurd husband-hunting missile Emma Ashton, always on the lookout for her ‘chance’. I was particularly taken with the amiable, philosophizing older couple, Captain and Mrs Morgan: a revisitation of Austen’s Captain and Mrs Harville in Persuasion, yet given an odder twist through the Captain’s unexpectedly dark views regarding family ties.
In addition to the personal drama of this novel, I liked its weirdly topical financial themes. Oliphant contrasts a stolid, provincial culture of long-term savings and investments with the flashy, louche seductions of the burgeoning stock market, fueled by the communications revolution that allowed rapid transit between the country and London, in person (by train) or by telegraph or post. The excellent World’s Classics edition I used was published before the crash of 2008, but, for anyone reading it afterwards, Oliphant’s comments on the seductions and dangers of the quick buck, and their corrosive effect within a banking sector built on trust, will have a dispiritingly familiar ring.
The introduction of the World’s Classics edition is one of the best I have read in this series. I liked especially its quotations from Margaret Oliphant’s autobiography, and its extrapolated philosophical quotes from her novels. One of the latter, from Hester itself, struck me as particularly astute, especially coming from someone like Oliphant, with a quick, satirical eye. 'Human nature may be easy to see through, but it is very hard to understand.'
February 4, 2024
Without a shadow of a doubt one of the great Victorian novels. Absolutely should be widely read. Adored it, and can’t believe she actually stuck the landing (I was on tenterhooks throughout that she would not)
Was it natural, then, a thing she could accept as just, that it was enough for her to sympathise, to share the consequences, to stand by the chief actor whatever happened, but never to share in the initiative or have any moral concern in the motive or the means of what was done? A sense of helplessness began to take the place of indignation in her mind. Was that what they called the natural lot of women? to suffer perhaps, to share the blame, but have no share in the plan, to sympathise, but not to know; to move on blindly according to some rule of loyalty and obedience, which to any other creature in the world would be folly and guilt? But her mother knew nothing of such hard words. To her this was not only the right state of affairs, but to suggest any better rule was to fail in respect to the lady whose right it was to be left ignorant. Hester tried to smile when she recalled this, but could not, her heart being too sore, her whole being shaken. He thought so too perhaps, everybody thought so, and she alone, an involuntary rebel, would be compelled to accept the yoke which, to other women, was a simple matter, and their natural law. Why, then, was she made unlike others, or why was it so?
Was it natural, then, a thing she could accept as just, that it was enough for her to sympathise, to share the consequences, to stand by the chief actor whatever happened, but never to share in the initiative or have any moral concern in the motive or the means of what was done? A sense of helplessness began to take the place of indignation in her mind. Was that what they called the natural lot of women? to suffer perhaps, to share the blame, but have no share in the plan, to sympathise, but not to know; to move on blindly according to some rule of loyalty and obedience, which to any other creature in the world would be folly and guilt? But her mother knew nothing of such hard words. To her this was not only the right state of affairs, but to suggest any better rule was to fail in respect to the lady whose right it was to be left ignorant. Hester tried to smile when she recalled this, but could not, her heart being too sore, her whole being shaken. He thought so too perhaps, everybody thought so, and she alone, an involuntary rebel, would be compelled to accept the yoke which, to other women, was a simple matter, and their natural law. Why, then, was she made unlike others, or why was it so?
August 20, 2008
This is the story of Catherine and Hester Vernon, and the relationship between the two women and the one man whom both of them loved; Catherine as a son and Hester as a woman. Catherine once saved the family bank from ruin at the hands of Hester's reckless father when he fled the country in disgrace, and Hester and her mother return years later as paupers living at the charity of cousin Catherine, as do several other assorted Vernon relatives. Hester makes a poor impression on Catherine on her first day there and for years the two women barely tolerate each other. Catherine rules the "Vernonry" as it's called where those relatives live in relative comfort and she amuses herself watching their minor quirks and foibles as they gossip and interact with each other. As Hester matures, she catches the eye of two of her cousins, Harry and Edward Vernon, Edward being the apple of Catherine's eye and loved as she would her own son. Edward chafes under Catherine's thumb and plots to free himself forever, but he must find a way to obtain funds to do so, which could lead to the downfall of all the Vernons and the bank.
Sound boring? Actually it's not; it's a fascinating tale of two women and their intertwining relationships between themselves and others. I loved the secondary characters, especially the two Misses Vernons, such delightfully catty old maids! Oliphant does a fine job of setting her scenes and giving you a wonderful in depth look at a slice of Victorian England.
Just be warned, this is not an action packed, sit on the edge of your seat, can't put it down until its finished type of novel. This is a story to savor and enjoy the multi-faceted characters like a fine red wine or a box of chocolates (or both!!). If you are looking for high action and adventure, this is not the book for you. Oliphant is superb and although she doesn't quite come up the ten star standards of George Eliot, this is one author well worth taking the time to check out. If you are a first time reader to this author your best bet is to try her delightful Miss Marjoribanks (Penguin Classics) first, a very funny and lighthearted romp and a refreshing change from the strum and drang of most 19C British literature. Five stars.
Sound boring? Actually it's not; it's a fascinating tale of two women and their intertwining relationships between themselves and others. I loved the secondary characters, especially the two Misses Vernons, such delightfully catty old maids! Oliphant does a fine job of setting her scenes and giving you a wonderful in depth look at a slice of Victorian England.
Just be warned, this is not an action packed, sit on the edge of your seat, can't put it down until its finished type of novel. This is a story to savor and enjoy the multi-faceted characters like a fine red wine or a box of chocolates (or both!!). If you are looking for high action and adventure, this is not the book for you. Oliphant is superb and although she doesn't quite come up the ten star standards of George Eliot, this is one author well worth taking the time to check out. If you are a first time reader to this author your best bet is to try her delightful Miss Marjoribanks (Penguin Classics) first, a very funny and lighthearted romp and a refreshing change from the strum and drang of most 19C British literature. Five stars.
July 22, 2020
3,5 stars
A very interesting read even though far from as captivating and definitely more serious than Miss Marjoribanks.
Need to think about it some more before attempting a review.
A very interesting read even though far from as captivating and definitely more serious than Miss Marjoribanks.
Need to think about it some more before attempting a review.
October 21, 2025
Mararet Oliphant (1828-1897) was one of Queen Victoria’s favorite authors. She wrote more than 120 works, including novels, short stories, travel writing, histories, literary criticism, and two autobiographical works, one of which was published after her death. ‘Hester’ was published in 1883.
The characters in ‘Hester’ are psychologically complex, which makes them fascinating. I like the way Oliphant treats her older characters. They are vital and part of everything that’s going on in the story. Catherine Vernon is one of the primary protagonists. She’s in her sixties, never married, and is looked up to in the community as the savior of the Vernon bank. When her cousin, John Vernon, head of the Vernon bank, abandons the bank amidst rumors of a bank run, it is up to a younger Catherine to step in and save the day. John Vernon was supposed to marry Catherine, but he chose another woman instead.
The woman John Vernon ended up marrying is Hester’s mother. At the beginning of the novel, Hester is fourteen. She and her mother are moving into an apartment at the Vernonry, under the auspices of Catherine Vernon. John Vernon has died abroad after running through his wife’s marriage settlement and racking up debts, leaving his wife and daughter in dire financial straits. It is here that Hester will grow up. Catherine takes an instant dislike to the young girl. At their first meeting, Hester refuses to wake up her tired mother to greet Catherine. This gets them off on the wrong foot.
When Hester grows into a young woman, three men, two of them Vernon cousins, will be her love interests. One of them, Edward, lives with Catherine Vernon and is like a son to her. The years seem to strengthen Catherine and Hester’s dislike of one another. The interplay of their relationship and its tensions is at the core of the novel.
The plot is a strong one. Hester would love to be able to teach, but this is forbidden. Only men may work. Edward kowtows to Catherine and resents being tied to her. The residents of the Vernonry resent Catherine even though it is her benevolence that provides them with a home. Hester’s mother, Mrs. John, is a pure and innocent woman who is incapable of making business decisions, but loves her daughter dearly and would do anything to keep her safe and sound. Mrs. John is grateful for the home that Catherine provides for her and Hester. Hester, however, sees Catherine as critical and full of judgment, too involved with the business of others, and lording it over those less fortunate.
Some think that Oliphant’s depiction of Catherine is a reflection of Oliphant’s own life. When Oliphant was reduced in circumstances after the death of her husband, her prolific writing became a mainstay of how she provided for her children and her brother, who came to financial ruin. Her brother and his children came to live with her. Like Catherine, Oliphant had many coattails for which she bore responsibility. Wealth and the lack of it, never knowing exactly what’s in the heart of another, status, credibility, loyalty, and family domesticity are themes that run throughout the novel.
The pacing was sometimes slow for me, but this author’s work is intriguing enough to make up for that. Oliphant’s ‘Hester’ is a great place to jump in if you’re interested in Victorian literature.
The characters in ‘Hester’ are psychologically complex, which makes them fascinating. I like the way Oliphant treats her older characters. They are vital and part of everything that’s going on in the story. Catherine Vernon is one of the primary protagonists. She’s in her sixties, never married, and is looked up to in the community as the savior of the Vernon bank. When her cousin, John Vernon, head of the Vernon bank, abandons the bank amidst rumors of a bank run, it is up to a younger Catherine to step in and save the day. John Vernon was supposed to marry Catherine, but he chose another woman instead.
The woman John Vernon ended up marrying is Hester’s mother. At the beginning of the novel, Hester is fourteen. She and her mother are moving into an apartment at the Vernonry, under the auspices of Catherine Vernon. John Vernon has died abroad after running through his wife’s marriage settlement and racking up debts, leaving his wife and daughter in dire financial straits. It is here that Hester will grow up. Catherine takes an instant dislike to the young girl. At their first meeting, Hester refuses to wake up her tired mother to greet Catherine. This gets them off on the wrong foot.
When Hester grows into a young woman, three men, two of them Vernon cousins, will be her love interests. One of them, Edward, lives with Catherine Vernon and is like a son to her. The years seem to strengthen Catherine and Hester’s dislike of one another. The interplay of their relationship and its tensions is at the core of the novel.
The plot is a strong one. Hester would love to be able to teach, but this is forbidden. Only men may work. Edward kowtows to Catherine and resents being tied to her. The residents of the Vernonry resent Catherine even though it is her benevolence that provides them with a home. Hester’s mother, Mrs. John, is a pure and innocent woman who is incapable of making business decisions, but loves her daughter dearly and would do anything to keep her safe and sound. Mrs. John is grateful for the home that Catherine provides for her and Hester. Hester, however, sees Catherine as critical and full of judgment, too involved with the business of others, and lording it over those less fortunate.
Some think that Oliphant’s depiction of Catherine is a reflection of Oliphant’s own life. When Oliphant was reduced in circumstances after the death of her husband, her prolific writing became a mainstay of how she provided for her children and her brother, who came to financial ruin. Her brother and his children came to live with her. Like Catherine, Oliphant had many coattails for which she bore responsibility. Wealth and the lack of it, never knowing exactly what’s in the heart of another, status, credibility, loyalty, and family domesticity are themes that run throughout the novel.
The pacing was sometimes slow for me, but this author’s work is intriguing enough to make up for that. Oliphant’s ‘Hester’ is a great place to jump in if you’re interested in Victorian literature.
November 3, 2025
Wow! It’s easy to see why this is one of Oliphant’s best known works! The writing, the character development and the plot were just so well done in this! The beginning was a bit on the slower side, but really if you just keep going you’ll get invested in the characters and how everything turns out!
April 17, 2009
I do love Mrs. Oliphant. She should be more well known. I have a lot of her books in the much lamented green covered Virago Classic series. Saving them up like treasure for rereading in old age.
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October 23, 2025Hmm… must ponder.
October 16, 2025
To say I loved this novel would be an understatement. Thrilled to have found a new Victorian writer with a large oeuvre. Can't wait to dip into more of her works.
September 4, 2019
This was my first novel by Margaret Oliphant and while I did like it, it just lacked something, both in the story and the characters. For the story, I can't really say there was something missing or wrong, but it's a typical Victorian novel and while I do love those, there are unfortunately for Mrs. Oliphant many authors I read before and found better. I love classics, especially the 19th century. I always have, so I read many novels from many different authors for years and with Hester, I just didn't find the same enjoyement and captivation I have with so many Victorian novels. Maybe if I had read this novel more than a decade ago, I'd have find something new and interesting, but that wasn't the case here and I couldn't help but compare this work with those I fell in love with and that are so much better in my opinion.
That's not to say Hester is a bad, boring novel and Mrs. Oliphant is a bad writer: I often remind in my reviews that 3 stars is a good rating and I did like the author's writing. I liked this novel, I'm glad I read it, but it won't leave a big impression on me. As for the characters, I found that besides one (Catherine Vernon), they weren't very well developed or interesting and that's the biggest flaw in the story, in fact. Many great classics sound similar at first, but their authors did an amazing job with their characters. In conclusion, I think Mrs. Oliphant is a good author that deserves to be known and maybe I'll look for other books by this author to read that I could hopefully love.
That's not to say Hester is a bad, boring novel and Mrs. Oliphant is a bad writer: I often remind in my reviews that 3 stars is a good rating and I did like the author's writing. I liked this novel, I'm glad I read it, but it won't leave a big impression on me. As for the characters, I found that besides one (Catherine Vernon), they weren't very well developed or interesting and that's the biggest flaw in the story, in fact. Many great classics sound similar at first, but their authors did an amazing job with their characters. In conclusion, I think Mrs. Oliphant is a good author that deserves to be known and maybe I'll look for other books by this author to read that I could hopefully love.
October 21, 2025
3.5 rounded to 4
I wish I could give this an indepth review but it would take too many spoilers. I will start with the good news first though. This will definitely be a different reading experience for me on re-read. I think it could be a solid 4 stars or may be a bit more on re-read. But this first experience started off with a bang and I was hooked to see what would happen, but then we settled into a very quiet story with a grumpy teenage girl and a grumpy old woman and it lost steam for me. I had to turn to the audiobook (great version with Georgina Sutton with Naxos) to pull me through.
Hester's father used to run the bank for the Vernon family but he led the bank to almost collapse and ran away to hide in another country, leaving Mrs. John Vernon alone. One of the bank employees who worked closely with Mr. Vernon came to Catherine to help save the bank because the debts were too high (this is in the first few chapters). At this point, Hester and Mrs. John have come back to live with the other Vernons after Mr. Vernon's death. I did have a few wonderful characters to hold onto while I kept wondering why an old woman disliked a grumpy teen so much and why was the teen so grumpy. I loved the Ms. Vernon-Ridgeways who were a couple of nosey old women, and the Morgans, husband and wife, who spend a lot of time with Hester. The last 1/3 of the book takes on a different feel and we start to see on page more character motivations and growth. I will like going back and seeing if there was more that I missed under the surface related to the ending and how the family and current banking issues turn out now that it is run by Catherine's other family members.
I wish I could give this an indepth review but it would take too many spoilers. I will start with the good news first though. This will definitely be a different reading experience for me on re-read. I think it could be a solid 4 stars or may be a bit more on re-read. But this first experience started off with a bang and I was hooked to see what would happen, but then we settled into a very quiet story with a grumpy teenage girl and a grumpy old woman and it lost steam for me. I had to turn to the audiobook (great version with Georgina Sutton with Naxos) to pull me through.
Hester's father used to run the bank for the Vernon family but he led the bank to almost collapse and ran away to hide in another country, leaving Mrs. John Vernon alone. One of the bank employees who worked closely with Mr. Vernon came to Catherine to help save the bank because the debts were too high (this is in the first few chapters). At this point, Hester and Mrs. John have come back to live with the other Vernons after Mr. Vernon's death. I did have a few wonderful characters to hold onto while I kept wondering why an old woman disliked a grumpy teen so much and why was the teen so grumpy. I loved the Ms. Vernon-Ridgeways who were a couple of nosey old women, and the Morgans, husband and wife, who spend a lot of time with Hester. The last 1/3 of the book takes on a different feel and we start to see on page more character motivations and growth. I will like going back and seeing if there was more that I missed under the surface related to the ending and how the family and current banking issues turn out now that it is run by Catherine's other family members.
November 18, 2025
The slight atagonism between the young, free-spirited Hester and the older busineswoman Catherine is the backbone of this book but it's not really, as I ecpected, the plot. The themes revolve around a women's place in society and complicated wider family dynamics, the story itself is a series of quite simple events and scenes centering on marriage and societal expectations with the complexities added by the character relationships. So far, so good. While I wasn't what I had ecpected (more content between Catherine and Hester and more depth for each of the two) and I never truely fell in love with reading this book, I still quite enjoyed it and thought what it actually is about interesting as well, but once Edward took center stage, it kind of lost me. I didn't like the conflict of the last 1/4th to 1/5th of the book and think it leads to a quite unsatisfactory ending.
November 2, 2025
This was so much more enjoyable than I was expecting going into it! It's a slow burn, character driven read about a woman, Catherine Vernon, that once saved her family's bank and the people orbiting her world. While most of the characters, Hester included, are not exactly likable, they are complex and always interesting to me anyway.
Throughout, I was eager to know what would happen and ended up ditching the reading schedule because I didn't want to stop ..😆 The ending seemed a little abrupt but appropriate.
I saved some nice quotes that summed up the book for me that I'll add later when those following the reading schedule finish.
I highly recommend it for a Victorian read with strong, complex females and dealing with finance.👍
This quote summed up the book nicely for me:
"I think you and I have hated each other because we were meant to love each other, child."
"I think I have always done both," said Hester.
Hester, by Margaret Oliphant
Throughout, I was eager to know what would happen and ended up ditching the reading schedule because I didn't want to stop ..😆 The ending seemed a little abrupt but appropriate.
I saved some nice quotes that summed up the book for me that I'll add later when those following the reading schedule finish.
I highly recommend it for a Victorian read with strong, complex females and dealing with finance.👍
This quote summed up the book nicely for me:
"I think you and I have hated each other because we were meant to love each other, child."
"I think I have always done both," said Hester.
Hester, by Margaret Oliphant
September 21, 2018
I loved it!
April 11, 2025
This is Mrs. Oliphant’s 1883, later in her career, stand-alone novel about the life of a young girl, Hester Vernon, living with her widowed mother in the small town her mother was raised in, Redborough, England. Hester has spent the first 14 years of her life with her mother in Europe and she must get used to the world and that the basics of her living is due to the generosity of her older cousin, Catherine Vernon, the matriarch of the Vernon family. Catherine lives in a mansion and also owns a large house called the Vernon that she uses to house for free several sets of relatives including Hester and her mother.
The lifeblood of the family is the family business, the Vernon Banking House, with Catherine as the most important owner. Catherine employs several younger cousins in the business with two, Harry Vernon and Edward Vernon, running the day-to-day operations. Harry’s sister is a force in the social scene and the balls she throws provide an interesting setting for the characters to mingle. There is also a young financial speculator named Roland who is a relative on Catherine’s mother’s side who gets involved in the story.
Early in the story, Hester grows into an intelligent, attractive, confident and haughty young girl, one that attracts three suitors, the afore-mentioned Harry, Edward and Roland. Besides the romantic plot, is the core dynamic of Hester’s relations with the family matriarch, Catherine. They do not get along, looking askance at the other’s traits and tendencies that they actually share. A major tension in the story is if and when Hester will learn why she and her mother are dependent on Catherine for their living. The affairs of the Vernon banking House take a prominent role from the beginning through the end of the book.
I really enjoyed this book. Outside of Hardy and Trollope, it is one of the best Victorian novels I’ve read. I have read 5 of Mrs. Oliphant’s famous Carlingford series and I think I liked this better than any of them. These are several things about it I liked.
- It’s setting and themes seemed more universal than many Victorian novels. The town hierarchy and the Vernon family’s role in it was wonderfully set up and was reminiscent of later period American novels where a powerful family tends to dominate the town’s operations.
- The strong characterization portrayed fairly dynamic and complex characters. The characterization had my sympathies varying between favoring Catherine and Hester in their dynamic and between Harry, Edward and Roland as to which suitor I preferred for Hester. While Oliphant was a bit overly-manipulative with her characters’ traits in order to achieve these changing allegiances in the reader, I can forgive her due to the excitement it added to the proceedings. Additionally, even the minor characters, such as the 6 other adult Vernonry residents were well-crafted and identifiable.
- The plot was a good one, fairly inventive and exciting even reminiscent of a Trollope novel. And like Trollope, Oliphant looks on her characters and society with insight and wit. While she’s not as skilled as Trollope in these areas, she is closer than other Victorian authors I have sampled.
A well-constructed setting, strong characterization and a good dramatic plot make for a very good novel. I rate it as 4+ stars.
The lifeblood of the family is the family business, the Vernon Banking House, with Catherine as the most important owner. Catherine employs several younger cousins in the business with two, Harry Vernon and Edward Vernon, running the day-to-day operations. Harry’s sister is a force in the social scene and the balls she throws provide an interesting setting for the characters to mingle. There is also a young financial speculator named Roland who is a relative on Catherine’s mother’s side who gets involved in the story.
Early in the story, Hester grows into an intelligent, attractive, confident and haughty young girl, one that attracts three suitors, the afore-mentioned Harry, Edward and Roland. Besides the romantic plot, is the core dynamic of Hester’s relations with the family matriarch, Catherine. They do not get along, looking askance at the other’s traits and tendencies that they actually share. A major tension in the story is if and when Hester will learn why she and her mother are dependent on Catherine for their living. The affairs of the Vernon banking House take a prominent role from the beginning through the end of the book.
I really enjoyed this book. Outside of Hardy and Trollope, it is one of the best Victorian novels I’ve read. I have read 5 of Mrs. Oliphant’s famous Carlingford series and I think I liked this better than any of them. These are several things about it I liked.
- It’s setting and themes seemed more universal than many Victorian novels. The town hierarchy and the Vernon family’s role in it was wonderfully set up and was reminiscent of later period American novels where a powerful family tends to dominate the town’s operations.
- The strong characterization portrayed fairly dynamic and complex characters. The characterization had my sympathies varying between favoring Catherine and Hester in their dynamic and between Harry, Edward and Roland as to which suitor I preferred for Hester. While Oliphant was a bit overly-manipulative with her characters’ traits in order to achieve these changing allegiances in the reader, I can forgive her due to the excitement it added to the proceedings. Additionally, even the minor characters, such as the 6 other adult Vernonry residents were well-crafted and identifiable.
- The plot was a good one, fairly inventive and exciting even reminiscent of a Trollope novel. And like Trollope, Oliphant looks on her characters and society with insight and wit. While she’s not as skilled as Trollope in these areas, she is closer than other Victorian authors I have sampled.
A well-constructed setting, strong characterization and a good dramatic plot make for a very good novel. I rate it as 4+ stars.
April 11, 2009
You have to love Victorian feminist lit which involves banking and "masculine" females so simultaneously heavily. Extremely worth reading. Why does no one know Mrs. Oliphant? Excellent question.
June 6, 2024
After reading about Jonathan’s continuing enthusiasm for Margaret Oliphant’s novels I convince my Victorian book group to try one. Specifically ‘Hester,’ since we are all women of a certain age and I was intrigued by the idea of reading the tale of a accidental woman banking executive, aged 65 in the 1860s of the novel’s setting, written by a self-directed author in her later years, who accidentally ended up supporting a vast array of relatives in a time when most middle class women did neither of these things.
Margaret Oliphant is hard to pin down. Her earlier pieces criticizing feminism must be weighed against her evolving views of women’s rights of various kinds. Since she wrote over 90 novels and hundreds of articles on any topic she was asked to cover, one can’t summarize her views under a few labels. Her characters in Hester seem to mirror some of her own life, and her autobiography takes some responsibility for both her sons’ and her character’s failings, but apparently she couldn’t step back to ask herself whether she too smothered them as Hester did her charges.
I would call her, on the basis of this work, a perceptive psychological novelist and a caustic humorist. While the extensive portrayals of the meanderings of her characters’ minds while they obsessed over a relationship or an action were sometimes a chore to read, I concluded that they realistically show how we do this in our own minds. We don’t think a thought once and move on to the logical next step, we rework it and reconsider it and turn it inside out.
At the same time, she illustrated for me how thinking in Victorian times could be very different. In two cases she examines whether or not a woman could literally decide she loved a man before he had declared himself. Of course many women in Victorian novels do decide this precipitously, but the concept that it was not necessarily possible was new to me.
Altogether, the women come out in Oliphant by far the stronger sex. From the critical work I read, this is generally the case in her novels.
There was a good deal of irony in here to relieve the looming disaster, but it was generally waspish. I plan to read ‘Miss Marjoribanks,’ another of her more famous works, and reputedly lighter, to see what her range of humorous writing was.
Recommended. I thought the development of the themes of pride, independence, risk and chance, rural solidity, and responsibility were extremely well done.
Margaret Oliphant is hard to pin down. Her earlier pieces criticizing feminism must be weighed against her evolving views of women’s rights of various kinds. Since she wrote over 90 novels and hundreds of articles on any topic she was asked to cover, one can’t summarize her views under a few labels. Her characters in Hester seem to mirror some of her own life, and her autobiography takes some responsibility for both her sons’ and her character’s failings, but apparently she couldn’t step back to ask herself whether she too smothered them as Hester did her charges.
I would call her, on the basis of this work, a perceptive psychological novelist and a caustic humorist. While the extensive portrayals of the meanderings of her characters’ minds while they obsessed over a relationship or an action were sometimes a chore to read, I concluded that they realistically show how we do this in our own minds. We don’t think a thought once and move on to the logical next step, we rework it and reconsider it and turn it inside out.
At the same time, she illustrated for me how thinking in Victorian times could be very different. In two cases she examines whether or not a woman could literally decide she loved a man before he had declared himself. Of course many women in Victorian novels do decide this precipitously, but the concept that it was not necessarily possible was new to me.
Altogether, the women come out in Oliphant by far the stronger sex. From the critical work I read, this is generally the case in her novels.
There was a good deal of irony in here to relieve the looming disaster, but it was generally waspish. I plan to read ‘Miss Marjoribanks,’ another of her more famous works, and reputedly lighter, to see what her range of humorous writing was.
Recommended. I thought the development of the themes of pride, independence, risk and chance, rural solidity, and responsibility were extremely well done.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 30, 2024
I have mixed feelings toward this book.
I can't deny that it is well written, and in certain moments it was a pleasure to read it, and was also full of interesting issues about the role of the woman in 19th century's society in a very feminist point of view.
But it was also a novel without great happenings in it, very, very psychological, almost entirely focused on the characters' thoughts and feelings. It reminded me a bit of Henry James, that was a great writer, but too slow for my tastes.
The two great characters of the novel are Hester and Catherine Vernon, and the story is based on the feud between the two.
Catherine was supposed to marry Hester's father John, her cousin, who was the head of the family bank. But he prefered Hester's mother, who was handsomer but more simple-minded. And he not only jilted Catherine, but almost put the bank on the edge of ruin, and only she could save it, becoming a business woman.
At the beginning of the story Catherine is sixty and she retired from business, leaving the bank to her nephews Harry and Edward.
She lives in an estate called "The Vernonry", surrounded by her poor relatives, giving them shelter, but treated them also with superiority and mocking.
Hester's father being dead, Hester and her mother are both summoned by Catherine to live there too, under her charity.
But Hester is very strong-minded and proud, and can't stand Catherine's bossy ways.
Catherine, on her side, takes a strong dislike towars her. When Edward, Catherine's favourite, falls for Hester, he has to keep his feelings secret, not to displease the old woman, but hating her in his bosom.
Hester's feelings towards her enemy are of both admiration and hatred. Admiration because she would like to be indipendent like her and do something with her life different from marrying.
Hester can't suffer the customs of her time and would like to work instead of living under other people's charity.
I don't regret I read it, in spite of some almost boring chapters.
I can't deny that it is well written, and in certain moments it was a pleasure to read it, and was also full of interesting issues about the role of the woman in 19th century's society in a very feminist point of view.
But it was also a novel without great happenings in it, very, very psychological, almost entirely focused on the characters' thoughts and feelings. It reminded me a bit of Henry James, that was a great writer, but too slow for my tastes.
The two great characters of the novel are Hester and Catherine Vernon, and the story is based on the feud between the two.
Catherine was supposed to marry Hester's father John, her cousin, who was the head of the family bank. But he prefered Hester's mother, who was handsomer but more simple-minded. And he not only jilted Catherine, but almost put the bank on the edge of ruin, and only she could save it, becoming a business woman.
At the beginning of the story Catherine is sixty and she retired from business, leaving the bank to her nephews Harry and Edward.
She lives in an estate called "The Vernonry", surrounded by her poor relatives, giving them shelter, but treated them also with superiority and mocking.
Hester's father being dead, Hester and her mother are both summoned by Catherine to live there too, under her charity.
But Hester is very strong-minded and proud, and can't stand Catherine's bossy ways.
Catherine, on her side, takes a strong dislike towars her. When Edward, Catherine's favourite, falls for Hester, he has to keep his feelings secret, not to displease the old woman, but hating her in his bosom.
Hester's feelings towards her enemy are of both admiration and hatred. Admiration because she would like to be indipendent like her and do something with her life different from marrying.
Hester can't suffer the customs of her time and would like to work instead of living under other people's charity.
I don't regret I read it, in spite of some almost boring chapters.
April 19, 2010
Somewhat leisurely in its pace, and internal in its actions, Oliphant's Hester is marvellous in its depiction of two strong, independent women, who cope with the situations presented to them in the best way they can. Catherine Vernon, who many years before stepped in to save the family bank when her feckless cousin, John Vernon, ran it in to the ground fled oversees, is both maiden lady and yet also matriarch. Benevolent and yet cynical, her only blind spot is her nephew Edward, one of her two chosen successors. Her niece Hester, daughter of the fallen John and the impractical, primarily decorative woman he chose to marry instead of his cousin Catherine, comes into Catherine's life when she makes a home available for the now-widowed "Mrs. John" and her daughter. Hester and Catherine are so much alike that they dislike each other instantly, but a respect grows between them when a new feckless male and a new banking crisis occur.
Although Margaret Oliphant has established a reputation as an antifeminist Victorian writer, based on some of her essays, this book questions the limits put on women and the privileges given to men; Catherine and Hester are clearly more intelligent and capable than the man who surround them, and the limitations placed on them as well as the preference society has for the more decorative women is keenly satirized. Simply excellent.
Although Margaret Oliphant has established a reputation as an antifeminist Victorian writer, based on some of her essays, this book questions the limits put on women and the privileges given to men; Catherine and Hester are clearly more intelligent and capable than the man who surround them, and the limitations placed on them as well as the preference society has for the more decorative women is keenly satirized. Simply excellent.
May 16, 2019
To put it simply: I think Margaret Oliphant is a very good writer and I will continue exploring her writing in her other novels. However, the problem for me are the characters. They annoyed the hell out of me. Hester as a main heroine stays shallow through the entirety of the novel and I disliked her from the beginning. The only well developed character is the "villain" of the novel, Catherine Vernon. All the relationships feel very superficial and I only felt annoyed by the big love story. The story didn't keep me in toes the way good classics do. And the ending feels rushed, almost like Oliphant didn't have patience to finish the novel properly. I appreciate the tone of Oliphant's writing, though. She is a perfect combination of snark of Dickens and wit of Austen but there isn't enough character development to compare these to either of the authors' works. I really hope I will pick up a better book by Oliphant in the future because I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.
March 21, 2022
I liked listening to an audiobook (during house duties, cleaning, cooking, etc.). But, I think, I would have been bored if I had read it by myself.
The plot, the story were interesting, even fascinating. But there was something that didn't allow me to enjoy it more. Perhaps there was something in the style of writing. I don't know. Nonetheless, as I have written I really liked it.
The plot, the story were interesting, even fascinating. But there was something that didn't allow me to enjoy it more. Perhaps there was something in the style of writing. I don't know. Nonetheless, as I have written I really liked it.
March 6, 2013
Margaret Oliphant is a newly discovered joy for me. She deserves to be up there in the literary canon with Trollope, Jane Austen, and Thackery, but some reason she is mostly unknown. "Hester" is a leisurely, slow-moving book but a wonderful deep exploration of character.
October 17, 2024
#NeverTooLateToReadClassic
by
Mrs. Oliphant
Finished: 17.10.2024
Genre: Victorian bildungsroman
Rating: B
Good news: There were just enough characters to make the book readable. 4 famlies: Vernon, Morgan, Ashton and Merridew 10 major characrers to keep track of and 7 minor that faded away.
Main character: Hester is fiesty, rebellious, ambitious...not your every day Victorian heroine!
Love triangle: Roland - Hester - Edward (obvious)
Love triangle Catherine Vernon, Edward, Hester (surprise)
Good news: If you are looking for conflict, this book has plenty:
Conflict: youth/happiness vs old/poor/ envious (family relations)
Conflict: simple-hearted mother (Mrs John) vs modern daughter Hester
Conflict: personal desires vs expectations of society
MAJOR Conflict: Hester (19 yr) vs Catherine Vernon (65 yr matriarch)
Bad news: In volumne 2-3 the major characters begin to clash. There are pages and pages of internal dialogue (Hester, Catherine Vernon) that could have used and editor's red pen.
by
Mrs. OliphantFinished: 17.10.2024
Genre: Victorian bildungsroman
Rating: B
Good news: There were just enough characters to make the book readable. 4 famlies: Vernon, Morgan, Ashton and Merridew 10 major characrers to keep track of and 7 minor that faded away.
Main character: Hester is fiesty, rebellious, ambitious...not your every day Victorian heroine!
Love triangle: Roland - Hester - Edward (obvious)
Love triangle Catherine Vernon, Edward, Hester (surprise)
Good news: If you are looking for conflict, this book has plenty:
Conflict: youth/happiness vs old/poor/ envious (family relations)
Conflict: simple-hearted mother (Mrs John) vs modern daughter Hester
Conflict: personal desires vs expectations of society
MAJOR Conflict: Hester (19 yr) vs Catherine Vernon (65 yr matriarch)
Bad news: In volumne 2-3 the major characters begin to clash. There are pages and pages of internal dialogue (Hester, Catherine Vernon) that could have used and editor's red pen.
September 18, 2024
Speculations in money and love…
When John Vernon brings the family-run Vernon’s Bank to the verge of ruin and then runs off to the Continent, his cousin Catherine Vernon steps up, ploughing all her money into the business and saving it from collapse by sheer force of personality. Even the exclusively male business world of the mid-19th century can’t help but be impressed. Over the following couple of decades, Catherine consolidates her position as a canny businesswoman and makes herself beloved in the community of Redborough by endowing almshouses and generally helping those in need. She also sets up the “Vernonry”, a big house that she has adapted into small apartments, where she houses the poorer members of the Vernon family. Now Catherine has retired and handed over the running of the bank to two young members of the Vernon family, Harry and Edward. And, on the Continent, disgraced John Vernon has died, leaving his wife and daughter in genteel poverty. Catherine offers them a place in the Vernonry, even though long ago John had been expected to marry Catherine, and then dumped her in favour of the kind but rather empty-headed woman who is now known only as Mrs John. Hester is John’s daughter, fourteen when we first meet her, born abroad and unaware of her father’s disgrace. The story is about these two women, Catherine and Hester, one old, one young, and each resentful of the other.
Very well written, this is a ‘realist’ novel where there are no flights of fancy or unlikely events, and where the characters are real too, neither Prince Charmings nor moustache-twirling villains, just ordinary, mostly decent but imperfect human beings. Although Hester gets top billing, I found her an annoying heroine. She lives in a state of perpetual indignation, constantly taking offence where none is intended. She’d have had a lot of fun being outraged on Twitter and no doubt would be a member of all the annoying holier-than-thou protest groups, if she were around today. Back then, her opportunities are restricted to being generally grumpy and low-level rude to all and sundry, and she uses those opportunities to the full. I felt her mother should have made her spend the first five or ten years of her life on the naughty step, for the benefit of humanity.
Catherine is a much more interesting character, and for my money the real heroine of the book. She’s a wonderful example of the type of philanthropist who is charitable as a form of social duty rather than because of any warmth of heart. She is generous with money but cold to most of her pensioners, cutting even, and she gets a lot of amusement out of seeing them grovel to her face while grousing about her behind her back. She is well aware of their ingratitude towards her and doesn’t resent it – it is clear that she too would hate to be dependant on someone else’s goodwill, so she understands their sense of grievance. But Catherine has one weak spot – her love for young Edward, a sort of cousin or nephew whom she has taken under her wing, put in charge of her beloved bank, and has come to love almost like the son she never had. And without meaning to, she is smothering him, so that his initial gratitude to her is turning to bitter resentment…
The real strength of the book is in the characterisation. Both Catherine and Hester are excellently drawn, but so are the whole host of people who surround them. Oliphant is clear-eyed and honest about their failings but she isn’t cruel – she takes the time to show why they are as they are, what triumphs and disappointments have formed their characters. She also shows the restrictions placed on women, and also to a degree on young men without independent means, and how those restrictions can chafe and distort. First published in 1883, her women are not quite as restricted as Austen’s or Dickens’, but marriage is still really the only form of advancement for most, and Oliphant makes the transactional nature of such matches quite clear. Hester is, of course, desired by many, and the question of who she will end up choosing is one of the central planks of the rather low-key plot.
(The rest of this review is mildly spoilery, so you may want to skip it if you intend to read the book at some point.)
When John Vernon brings the family-run Vernon’s Bank to the verge of ruin and then runs off to the Continent, his cousin Catherine Vernon steps up, ploughing all her money into the business and saving it from collapse by sheer force of personality. Even the exclusively male business world of the mid-19th century can’t help but be impressed. Over the following couple of decades, Catherine consolidates her position as a canny businesswoman and makes herself beloved in the community of Redborough by endowing almshouses and generally helping those in need. She also sets up the “Vernonry”, a big house that she has adapted into small apartments, where she houses the poorer members of the Vernon family. Now Catherine has retired and handed over the running of the bank to two young members of the Vernon family, Harry and Edward. And, on the Continent, disgraced John Vernon has died, leaving his wife and daughter in genteel poverty. Catherine offers them a place in the Vernonry, even though long ago John had been expected to marry Catherine, and then dumped her in favour of the kind but rather empty-headed woman who is now known only as Mrs John. Hester is John’s daughter, fourteen when we first meet her, born abroad and unaware of her father’s disgrace. The story is about these two women, Catherine and Hester, one old, one young, and each resentful of the other.
Very well written, this is a ‘realist’ novel where there are no flights of fancy or unlikely events, and where the characters are real too, neither Prince Charmings nor moustache-twirling villains, just ordinary, mostly decent but imperfect human beings. Although Hester gets top billing, I found her an annoying heroine. She lives in a state of perpetual indignation, constantly taking offence where none is intended. She’d have had a lot of fun being outraged on Twitter and no doubt would be a member of all the annoying holier-than-thou protest groups, if she were around today. Back then, her opportunities are restricted to being generally grumpy and low-level rude to all and sundry, and she uses those opportunities to the full. I felt her mother should have made her spend the first five or ten years of her life on the naughty step, for the benefit of humanity.
Catherine is a much more interesting character, and for my money the real heroine of the book. She’s a wonderful example of the type of philanthropist who is charitable as a form of social duty rather than because of any warmth of heart. She is generous with money but cold to most of her pensioners, cutting even, and she gets a lot of amusement out of seeing them grovel to her face while grousing about her behind her back. She is well aware of their ingratitude towards her and doesn’t resent it – it is clear that she too would hate to be dependant on someone else’s goodwill, so she understands their sense of grievance. But Catherine has one weak spot – her love for young Edward, a sort of cousin or nephew whom she has taken under her wing, put in charge of her beloved bank, and has come to love almost like the son she never had. And without meaning to, she is smothering him, so that his initial gratitude to her is turning to bitter resentment…
The real strength of the book is in the characterisation. Both Catherine and Hester are excellently drawn, but so are the whole host of people who surround them. Oliphant is clear-eyed and honest about their failings but she isn’t cruel – she takes the time to show why they are as they are, what triumphs and disappointments have formed their characters. She also shows the restrictions placed on women, and also to a degree on young men without independent means, and how those restrictions can chafe and distort. First published in 1883, her women are not quite as restricted as Austen’s or Dickens’, but marriage is still really the only form of advancement for most, and Oliphant makes the transactional nature of such matches quite clear. Hester is, of course, desired by many, and the question of who she will end up choosing is one of the central planks of the rather low-key plot.
(The rest of this review is mildly spoilery, so you may want to skip it if you intend to read the book at some point.)
October 19, 2025
Margaret Oliphant, novelista británica del siglo XIX, es una de las grandes figuras olvidadas de la época victoriana. Cuentista, novelista, historiadora y biógrafa, escribió a lo largo de su vida más de 120 obras cuya calidad es incuestionable, y de las cuales apenas han trascendido una decena de ellas.
Hester, una de sus obras más importantes, narra la historia de la familia Vernon a lo largo del tiempo. John Vernon, director del banco familiar, desaparece dejando un gran desfalco en el negocio. Ante tal debacle, toma las riendas Catherine Vernon, rescatando al banco y por ende toda la vía de sustento familiar. La leyenda en torno a la figura de Catherine se acrecienta con los años, y la novela nos sitúa en su ya madurez, viviendo rodeada de toda su familia, a la que acoge en diversos inmuebles dentro de su propiedad, ejerciendo como matriarca y benefactora. Entre tanto familiar agradecido, destaca Hester, una joven inteligente y vivaz, rebelde contra las convenciones sociales establecidas, que pondrá en jaque la tranquilidad de Catherine.
En Hester, se demuestra un exquisito manejo narrativo aunando personajes cargados de potencia y carga emocional, con una ambientación cuasi teatral de escenario único. Pero Hester es también un alegato femenino a la mujer que adopta roles masculinos tan ajenos a la época, tanto en la figura de Catherine cabeza de familia, como en Hester, decidida a romper moldes sociales.
Sin embargo, es una novela demasiado extensa, sin apenas trama, giros argumentales, ni las grandes aventuras románticas o problemáticas familiares de las grandes novelas de la época. Hester pasa con discreción, basando su argumento en la cotidianeidad del día a día, en el poso tranquilo de la vida contemplativa y en el amor familiar. Un arma de doble filo, que hace que la novela se torne por momentos lenta y aburrida, las situaciones y conversaciones se repiten, se narran los mismos hechos desde diferentes perspectivas y así entre tacitas de té y bailes familiares vemos la novela pasar. Todo hasta llegar a un tramo final frenético que parece querer condensar todo lo que la historia debió explotar desde el principio y que me ha dejado un sabor agridulce.
Hester, una de sus obras más importantes, narra la historia de la familia Vernon a lo largo del tiempo. John Vernon, director del banco familiar, desaparece dejando un gran desfalco en el negocio. Ante tal debacle, toma las riendas Catherine Vernon, rescatando al banco y por ende toda la vía de sustento familiar. La leyenda en torno a la figura de Catherine se acrecienta con los años, y la novela nos sitúa en su ya madurez, viviendo rodeada de toda su familia, a la que acoge en diversos inmuebles dentro de su propiedad, ejerciendo como matriarca y benefactora. Entre tanto familiar agradecido, destaca Hester, una joven inteligente y vivaz, rebelde contra las convenciones sociales establecidas, que pondrá en jaque la tranquilidad de Catherine.
En Hester, se demuestra un exquisito manejo narrativo aunando personajes cargados de potencia y carga emocional, con una ambientación cuasi teatral de escenario único. Pero Hester es también un alegato femenino a la mujer que adopta roles masculinos tan ajenos a la época, tanto en la figura de Catherine cabeza de familia, como en Hester, decidida a romper moldes sociales.
Sin embargo, es una novela demasiado extensa, sin apenas trama, giros argumentales, ni las grandes aventuras románticas o problemáticas familiares de las grandes novelas de la época. Hester pasa con discreción, basando su argumento en la cotidianeidad del día a día, en el poso tranquilo de la vida contemplativa y en el amor familiar. Un arma de doble filo, que hace que la novela se torne por momentos lenta y aburrida, las situaciones y conversaciones se repiten, se narran los mismos hechos desde diferentes perspectivas y así entre tacitas de té y bailes familiares vemos la novela pasar. Todo hasta llegar a un tramo final frenético que parece querer condensar todo lo que la historia debió explotar desde el principio y que me ha dejado un sabor agridulce.
January 5, 2014
From BBC Radio 4 - 15 Minute Drama:
The tale of a 19th-century woman who runs her own bank.
The tale of a 19th-century woman who runs her own bank.
January 11, 2019
The model against which all other heroines will in future be measured: Catherine Vernon.
October 20, 2022
4.5 stars
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