Madness is central to the plot of Lady Audley’s Secret. It remains in the forefront of both Lucy and Robert’s minds as the plot progresses, with Lucy believing she is mad and Robert fearing that he may become so. But Lucy Audley’s madness, the “...

Mary Elizabeth Braddon's sensation novel Lady Audley's Secret presents the astonishing and cynical notion that the "sort of surprise at the fictional company one is keeping, or at the view of the world... is central to a whole genre of fiction"...

Romance and sexuality are not unfamiliar concepts to the typical Victorian sensational novel. Reversing and deconstructing these themes, however, marks a more sophisticated sensation novel and makes for a more enduring literary work. This...

In Lady Audley’s Secret, Braddon portrays the character of Lady Audley as a truly complex one. She is shown to be intelligent and manipulative when she supposedly kills her husband George while also manipulating her new one, Michael, for his...