Description
Book SynopsisMary Elizabeth Braddon, one of the most prolific authors of the Victorian period, remains best known for her sensation fiction, but over the course of a long career contributed to a multitude of literary genres, working as a journalist, short story writer and editor, as well as authoring more than eighty novels. This exciting new collection of essays reappraises Braddon’s work and offers a series of new perspectives on her literary productions. The volume is divided into two parts: the first considers Braddon’s seminal sensation novel, Lady Audley’s Secret; the second examines some of her lesser known fiction, including her first published novel, The Trail of the Serpent, as well as some of her twentieth-century fiction. The first collection of essays on Braddon to appear since 1999, this volume sheds new light on the ‘Queen of the circulating libraries’.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Jessica Cox: Introduction: Blurring Boundaries: The Fiction of M.E. Braddon New Perspectives on Lady Audley’s Secret Tabitha Sparks: To the Mad-House Born: The Ethics of Exteriority in Lady Audley’s Secret Nancy Knowles and Katherine Hall: Imperial Attitudes in Lady Audley’s Secret Michelle Lin: “To Go Boldly Where No Woman Has Gone Before”: Alicia Audley and the New Woman Grace Wetzel: Homelessness in the Home: Invention, Instability and Insanity in the Domestic Spaces of M.E. Braddon and L.M. Alcott Beyond Lady Audley’s Secret Andrew Mangham: “Drink It Up Dear; It Will Do You Good”: Crime, Toxicology, and The Trail of the Serpent Anne-Marie Beller : Sensational Bildung? Infantilization and Female Maturation in Braddon’s 1860s Novels Juliette Atkinson: To “Serve God and Mammon”: Braddon and Literary Transgression Joanne Knowles: The French Connection: Gender, Morals and National Culture in Braddon's Novels Tamara S. Wagner: Re-Plotting Inheritance: The Triangulation of Legacies and Affinities in The Fatal Three Laurence Talairach-Vielmas: “If I Read Her Right”: Textual Secrets in Thou Art the Man (1894) Kate Mattacks: Sensationalism on Trial: Courtroom Drama and the Image of Respectability in His Darling Sin Carla E. Coleman: “The Stage! Oh, Flora, the Very Idea Frightens Me!”: Representations of Professional Theatre in Rupert Godwin and A Lost Eden Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index
