Sunday, June 17, 2012

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

When beautiful young Lucy Graham accepts the hand of Sir Michael Audley, the future of the former governess seems secure. But Lady Audley's past is shrouded in mystery, and to Sir Michael's nephew, Robert, she is not all that she seems.
When his good friend George Talboys disappears, Robert is determined to find him, and to unearth the truth. His quest reveals a tangled story of lies and deception, crime and intrigue, whose sensational twists turn the conventional picture of Victorian womanhood on its head.


After the The Mill on the Floss I wanted something less intense to read and Lady Audley's Secret proved to be an excellent choice and a wonderfully entertaining mystery. I was surprised at the simplicity of the prose, as compared to other Victorian authors, the story had me hooked from the beginning and it became a real page-turner.
Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915)

Mary Elizabeth Braddon was a prolific writer who, despite lamenting in a letter in 1862 that the tastes of her mainly working-class readers tended to " crime, treachery, murder,slow poisoning and general infamy", was realistic enough to give those readers exactly what they wanted and become one of the most popular authors of the 'sensation novels' of the Victorian era.

In Lady Audley's Secret you will find melodramas involving bigamy and blackmail, missing persons and murderous intentions but what outraged Victorian society the most was the author taking her crime into the heart of the home. The angelically beautiful,gentle and loving Lady Audley appears to be the perfect picture of Victorian womanhood but.....
" No one but a pre-Raphaelite would have painted, hair by hair, those feathery masses of ringlets, with every glimmer of gold, and every shadow of brown. No one but a pre-Raphaelite would have so exaggerated every attribute of that delicate face as to give a lurid brightness to the blonde complexion, and a strange sinister light to the deep blue eyes. No one but a pre-Raphaelite could have given to that pretty pouting mouth the hard and almost wicked look it had in the portrait...............for my lady, in his portrait of her, had something as the aspect of a beautiful fiend."
There is nothing particularly mysterious about the plot but it's fun to read and there are a few surprises. What I enjoyed most was the detailed, often gothic type, descriptions of people and places which brought both the characters and their environment vividly to life.

Vintage Mystery Challenge

The Classics Club




13 comments:

  1. I just got a copy of this one in the mail the other day (and an extra to give away. :)). It sounds like something I want to get to sooner rather than later....Thanks for the great review!

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    1. It's a quick and entertaining read perfect for fitting in between longer books. Hope you'll enjoy it!

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  2. I really enjoyed this book as well, and I was also surprised at the easy flow of the language, which carried me right into the story.

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    1. Sometimes the style felt like modern historical fiction - very easy to read.

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  3. I read this a few years ago for a Victorian literature class. I had one week to read it. Turned out to be the fastest I'd ever read a Victorian novel. What a "sensational novel" it was.

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  4. I think it will the fastest I'll ever read a Victorian too. Lots of fun!

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  5. I read this last year and I loved it! It was such fun, I couldn't stop reading it either. Nice to hear that it's being assigned as part of Victorian lit.

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    1. Great fun! It is nice that Vic Lit includes studying the sensation novels.

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  6. I have this downloaded on my nook - can't wait to read it!

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    1. It's a quick read, JoAnn and lots of fun!

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  7. I have heard about Lady Audley's many times, and finally today I added it to my wishlist. I'm a mystery lover, but I wonder why it took me so long to read any Victorian mystery other than Sherlock Holmes...

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    1. Hope you'll read and enjoy. I haven't read much of Sherlock Holmes, my favourite is Wilkie Collins.

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  8. This sounds entertaining enough. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

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