Esther Waters

• One of the most controversial and influential novels of the 1890s, Esther Waters scandalized Victorian opinion in its depiction of a single mother and her struggle to survive prejudice and injustice.
• The only available edition of this powerful novel.
• The Introduction examines the vivid depiction of Victorian sub-culture, horse-racing and gambling, the London tavern and the life of working-class women in the novel, as well as the stylistic influences of French naturalism and Impressionist painting.
• Explanatory Notes provide helpful glosses on unfamiliar expressions and a range of horse racing and betting terms.

New to this edition

• Introduction by Stephen Regan.
• New, up-to-date bibliography.
• Improved chronology.
• New and considerably expanded notes.
• New and reset text of the novel, using the revised 1899 text rather than the later 1920 edition, re-establishing the novel as a classic of the 1890s.

Readership: Readers of Victorian fiction and modern literature, including Irish literature, those interested in the representation of women and of London life and labour in the nineteenth century, and in the history of horse racing and gambling; students of Victorian literature, fin-de-siècle literature, Irish studies, women's studies, cultural studies.

George Moore

Stephen Regan is the editor of Irish Writing: An Anthology of Irish Literature in English 1789-1939 in OWC. He is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of English at Harvard University (2011-12).

"'a really wonderful book...exciting, interesting, engrossing'" - Colm Toibin, Radio 4 'Open Book'