George Moore was a prominent Irish writer and art critic during the Victorian era. Moore is considered to be one of the first English authors to adopt the ideas of the French realists as Emile Zola was a major influence on his work. Moore himself, with books such as Esther Waters, was an influence on the great James Joyce.

Esther Waters, published in 1894, is a classic novel set in England that centers around a young woman from a poor-working class family who is abandoned by her lover after becoming pregnant. Esther decides to raise the child as a single mother. This book is one of the best Victorian novels on the life of a "fallen woman".