Margaret Oliphant is one of the great Victorian novelists, and this edition re-establishes her importance. 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. 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. The other is Edward, who Catherine treats like a son. One is Hester, a young relation with a personality as strong as Catherine's, and as determined to find a role for herself. But there are two people in Redborough who resist her. She thinks she sees through everyone and rules over a family of dependents with knowing cynicism. Catherine Vernon, jilted in her youth, has risen to power in a man's world as head of the family bank. 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.
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