#Mary Elizabeth Braddon

[petaltexturedskies]

She was dreadfully romantic. She read too many novels and carried her ideal world wherever she went.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon, The Doctor's Wife

[fictionadventurer]

In Which I Write a Sensible Victorian Novel

Once upon a time, a woman made some mistakes in a regrettable romantic entanglement. She married a rich, respectable man and didn't want her past shame to destroy the love they shared. She immediately told her husband about her past, and her husband, being a reasonable man, understood and forgave her. No one blackmailed her, she never needed to construct an elaborate web of deception and intrigue, and she never had to worry about her husband finding out her secret from other sources. And they all lived happily ever after.

[aliteraryprincess]

August 2024 Wrap Up

And just like that summer is over. It went by in the blink of an eye. It was a good, if uneventful, month. I had my birthday, which always means new books! And that's enough to make me happy haha.

(Also please click the photo for better quality. Why must tumblr make them look bad?)

Books Read: 9

And it was a pretty great reading month! My favorite was Red Comet, which is current my top read of the year. And I don't think anything better is going to come along, but you never know. My least favorite was A Lesson in Vengeance, which I found disappointing. I was interested in what was happening, but there were a lot of small details that just ruined any believability for me. I also read my first book in French! I'm really proud of myself.

The Dry by Jane Harper - 3.5 stars

The Moors and the Fens by Charlotte Riddell - 3 stars

A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee - 2.5 stars

Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes - 4 stars

The Doctor's Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon - 4.5 stars

Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim - 4 stars

The Harpy by Megan Hunter - 4 stars

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark - 5 stars

Histoires ou contes du temps passé: contes de ma mère l'oie by Charles Perrault - 5 stars

On Tumblr:

Well at least there's a few things here.

July 2024 Wrap Up

Book Quotes: The Dry by Jane Harper

Book Quotes: The Doctor's Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Tagged: Top 5 Book Poll

On YouTube:

And as always, there's plenty here.

July Wrap Up | 8 books for #janeaustenjuly

What I Read for My PhD in English Literature | Feminist Theory

What Books Have I Reread the Most?

Currently Reading 8/12/24

Birthday Book Haul! (plus some extras)

September TBR | Shaketember, Shorty September, & more!

[litandlifequotes]

My intellect is a little way upon the wrong side of that narrow boundary-line between sanity and insanity.

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Leo Tolstoy. Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Marcel Proust. Walt Whitman. Alan Wilson Watts. Czeslaw Milosz. Nadine Gordimer. Elias Canetti. Banana Yoshimoto. Kenzaburō Ōe. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Alexandre Dumas.

[majestativa]

He forgot that love, which is a madness, and a scourge, and a fever, and a delusion, and a snare, is also a mystery, and very imperfectly understood by every one except the individual sufferer who writhes under its tortures.

— Mary Elizabeth Braddon, My Gothic Heart, (2023)

[leer-reading-lire]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge || January || 14 || So Many Books

The books currently on my nightstand.

[lizziestudieshistory]

I don't know whether to read Lady Audley's Secret or The Custom of the Country... Someone tell me what to do!

[20genderchild]

about 20% into Lady Audley’s Secret and I need someone to get George Talboys some antidepressants

[mxcottonsocks]

I've seen a few reviews of Lady Audley's Secret which say they either didn't enjoy the book because they were able to guess the secret early on, or who say they enjoyed the book despite guessing the secret early (I've been in this latter camp myself in the past).

But lately I've been thinking... I think the reader is supposed to know what "the secret" is.

[SPOILERS for Lady Audley's Secret below the cut.]

I think there's two things to bear in mind about Lady Audley's Secret:

It is a sensation novel, not a mystery novel. It certainly has a lot of elements of the modern mystery and detective genres, and (along with other sensation literature) did influence the development of those genres, but it predates them (in their modern forms at least). Therefore, while I understand why modern readers tend to approach the book with the expectation that it will conform to the standards of the mystery genre, I think we do the book and author a disservice when we do so.

Lady Audley has more than one "secret" throughout the book. I think there are at least three secrets, which I will refer to as: 1. The Initial Secret (bigamy; that Lucy Audley and Helen Talboys are the same person); 2. The Secret of the Cover Up (the conspiracy at Ventnor; pushing George down the well so her secret isn't revealed to Sir Michael); and 3. The Underlying Secret, the one which is referred to as "the secret of my life" and "the secret which is the key to my life" (that she's mad). Depending on your interpretation, there's also potentially another secret still (that she's not mad at all).

The Initial Secret, the bigamy, is the one I think most people are talking about when they say they guessed the secret. And yes, it is obvious. All the clues are fed to the reader within the first three chapters. Robert Audley doesn't enter the book until Chapter 4 and then spends a good chunk of the book investigating this secret (he also guesses the secret relatively early on, I think, and then sets about checking his suspicions).

The Secret of the Cover Up is also fairly obvious (the general gist of it, anyway, if not the details) relatively early. George's disappearance is what sparks Robert's investigation.

The Underlying Secret is perhaps less easy to guess, but not impossible. Robert doesn't guess this one ahead of its revelation, but the reader might.

So, yes, if a reader approaches the book with the expectation that there's one big secret and that it's going to take a lot of mental effort for the characters and reader to figure out, and that their suspicions will be confirmed or denied at the end of the book, they're likely going to be disappointed.

But I don't think that's what Braddon was trying to do.

Most of the dramatic tension of the novel does not come from the reader wondering "what is the secret". That's just one factor. Other factors include:

How information is revealed and concealed, both by characters and by the book itself

The escalation of events, secrets and stakes

The external conflict between the characters, especially the 'battle' between the protagonist and the antagonist (whichever way round you think they are - readers differ)

The internal conflict in the characters, especially Robert (e.g. duty to society vs duty to his family name; duty to his friend vs duty to his uncle)

Big Emotions

Questions of morality (e.g. where do different characters believe that a moral line is crossed, if at all? what do they think is forgivable behaviour? what do they think is justified-in-the-circumstances? what do they think is unforgivable? what do you, the reader, think?)

Lady Audley's Secret (and Sensation novels in general, from my experience so far) seems to be less about the 'destination' (i.e. what the secret is) and more about the journey, the drama and emotions along the way.

So yeah, this is all a very long-winded way of saying: yes, it's easy to figure out what's happened fairly early on in the book, but I think that's intentional on the author's part, and 'having it all figured out' needn't negatively affect our experience of the story if we don't let it.

[howifeltabouthim]

And I think I might have been a good woman for the rest of my life, if fate would have allowed me to be so.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon, from Lady Audley’s Secret

[petaltexturedskies]

Mary Elizabeth Braddon, The Doctor's Wife (1864)

[fictionadventurer]

Author: This character was beautiful according to every beauty standard of her time, and also quiet and kind and good and feminine, but she was insipid and boring and stupid compared to the extroverted, wild bad girl with unconventional looks.

Me: Actually she's my favorite, I've adopted her, and I'm taking her away so you can't hurt her anymore.

[nymph-of-water]

They [women] are Semiramides, and Cleopatras, and Joan of Arcs, Queen Elizabeths, and Catherine the Seconds, and they riot in battle, and murder, and clamour, and desperation.

- Lady Audley's secret, Mary Elizabeth Braddon

[runningfromadream]

She was dreadfully romantic. She read too many novels and carried her ideal world wherever she went.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

[literaryvein-reblogs]

André Malraux. Alex Michaelides. Jane Smiley. Horace Mann. Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Joseph Brodsky. James Baldwin. Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Alphonse de Lamartine. Alfred De Musset. Isaac Asimov. Gustave Flaubert.