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Hester

Hester

by Margaret Oliphant

First published 1883 · 495 pages · about 8 hours to read

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About this book

"The aging 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 dependants 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, Catherine's favourite, whom she treats like a son. Conflict between young and 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 mounts towards a searing climax."--Back cover.

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Quotes

  • “The Banking House of the Vernons was known through all the Home Counties as only second to the Bank of England in stability and strength.”
    Chapter I. vernon's
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  • “But John Vernon was one of those men in whose hands everything turns to gold. What the special gift is which determines this it is difficult to tell, but there can be little doubt that it is a special gift, just as it is a particular genius which produces a fine picture or a fine poem.”
    Chapter I. vernon's
  • “When that was done, all was done. Everybody had been waiting for this involuntary signal; and when it came, it flew like lightning through all Redborough, and out into the roads and lanes--to distant farmhouses, into the rectories and vicarages, even to the labourer's cottage.”
    Chapter I. vernon's
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Passages chosen with AI from the book's public-domain text on Project Gutenberg.

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