Hester cover art

Hester

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Hester

By: Margaret Oliphant
Narrated by: Georgina Sutton
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £25.99

Buy Now for £25.99

About this listen

Hester (1883) is a dramatic story of female power and family tensions within Victorian society. Using her own money, Catherine Vernon manages to save the family bank from collapse after her cousin John absconds with some of its money. As the matriarch of Redborough, Catherine is used to commanding authority, but this is challenged with the arrival of John’s strong and capable teenage daughter, Hester. Ignorant of her father’s conduct, Hester takes against Catherine and a mutual antipathy soon sets in. A masterpiece of domestic realism, the novel is one of Mrs Oliphant’s most admired works.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Margaret Oliphant (P)2023 Naxos AudioBooks UK Ltd. Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Women's Fiction World Literature
All stars
Most relevant
Fantastic book! Can't give it five stars (because Middlemarch) but there's some cracking writing and the narration is top notch. If you know her readings of the Mapp & Lucia books you might be mildly perturbed to hear her Georgie and Elizabeth & Evie etc, but honestly she's such a sensitive, accurate reader that it doesn't matter. I love this book & Hester is a great character.

Fab!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This was a bit like George Eliot and Wilkie Collins had a book baby. The characterisation of the female protagonists felt a lot more modern than I had expected - proto feminist. A central theme of the book is the patriarchal society and how both the young Hester and the older Catherine attempt to carve their own path. Even the dialogue felt more modern than I was expecting. It's a world away from Dickens. Give it a try!

Surprisingly modern Victorian melodrama

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Really good insights into 19th century middle class small town life and relationships. Recommended if quite long.

Engrossing story beautifully told

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Beautifully read, historically enlightening and totally immersing story highlighting contrasts of women a man’s world

Vivid & Immersive

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
There are several audible narrators whose readings I find impossible to listen to – usually because they pause mid sentence. This woman is terrific: I am awed at the number of different voices she has at her command. I shall be looking up her other readings.

Margaret Oliphant is a strangely neglected 19th century writer; I think Hester is her best book. It has four outstandingly interesting female characters and builds, as the best Victorian novels do, to an incredibly tense climax. (Why has television not discovered her?)

Outstandingly good narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews