Lady Audley's Secret Pb (Broadview Editions) - Softcover

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1551113570 ISBN 13: 9781551113579

Publisher: Broadview Press, 2003

Synopsis

“This intelligent edition offers a wonderful introduction not just to Lady Audley’s Secret, but to the whole publishing phenomenon of sensation fiction.” — Kate Flint, Rutgers University|Lady Audley’s Secret (1862) was one of the most widely read novels in the Victorian period. The novel exemplifies “sensation fiction” in featuring a beautiful criminal heroine, an amateur detective, blackmail, arson, violence, and plenty of suspenseful action. To its contemporary readers, it also offered the thrill of uncovering blackmail and criminal violence within the homes of the upper class. The novel makes trenchant critiques of Victorian gender roles and social stereotypes, and it creates significant sympathy for the heroine, despite her criminal acts, as she suffers from the injustices of the “marriage market” and rebels against them. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and a broad selection of primary source material, including reproductions of the twenty-two woodcut illustrations from the London Journal serialization of the novel, extracts from two Victorian dramatizations of the work, satirical commentaries, and contemporary reviews.

About this title

About the Author

Natalie M. Houston is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Houston.

From the Back Cover

Lady Audley's Secret (1862) was one of the most widely read novels in the Victorian period. The novel exemplifies "sensation fiction" in featuring a beautiful criminal heroine, an amateur detective, blackmail, arson, violence, and plenty of suspenseful action. To its contemporary readers, it also offered the thrill of uncovering blackmail and criminal violence within the homes of the upper class. The novel makes trenchant critiques of Victorian gender roles and social stereotypes, and it creates significant sympathy for the heroine, despite her criminal acts, as she suffers from the injustices of the "marriage market" and rebels against them.

This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and a broad selection of primary source material, including reproductions of the twenty-two woodcut illustrations from the London Journal serialization of the novel, extracts from two Victorian dramatizations of the work, satirical commentaries, and contemporary reviews.

Edition details

• Publisher: Broadview Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1551113570
• ISBN 13: 9781551113579
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 510