Lady Hester
Or, Ursula's Narrative
by Charlotte M. Yonge 1823–1901
The book, and the century it came out of.
A hard old woman rules a family from a wheelchair by the simple method of never dying — and her niece narrates. Yonge lived her whole life in one Hampshire village and taught Sunday school there for seventy-one years; she wrote domestic tyranny better than anyone of her generation because she watched it at close range for eighty years. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Whitehouse, Baker and Jones among them.
I write this by desire of my brothers and sisters, that if any reports of our strange family history should come down to after generations the thing may be properly understood.
Lady Hester, by Charlotte M. Yonge, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Love & Society
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 96 pages
- Reading time
- about 2 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785501865167
60 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
Lady Hester, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Love & Society shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501865167, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of Lady Hester?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Charlotte M. Yonge's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 96 pages, which is roughly about 2 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
