Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
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Standard Name: Braddon, Mary Elizabeth
Birth Name: Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Pseudonym: Mary Seyton
Pseudonym: Babington White
Pseudonym: Lady Caroline Lascelles
Pseudonym: Aunt Belinda
Pseudonym: The author of Lady Audley's Secret
Self-constructed Name: M. E. Braddon
Married Name: Mary Elizabeth Maxwell
Used Form: Miss M. E. Braddon
MEB
made her name, scandalously, in the early 1860s as a founder of the intricately plotted sensation novel, and was particularly known for her transgressive heroines. Although still most strongly associated with this and the related genres of gothic, mystery and detective stories, she also contributed significantly during her 56-year career to the psychological and realist novels, in addition to writing several dramas (some of them produced) and publishing in her youth one long poem in a collection with shorter ones. Dedicated to writing for the new and expanding mass reading public (including fiction for the penny press), and associated from the outset with novel advertising and publishing practices, she issued her work serially, edited Belgravia magazine from 1866 to 1876 (as well as a Christmas annual), and survived the demise of the triple-decker novel.
Not all of QV
's subjects were pleased with the idea of the Jubilee, however. Some were sceptical of the uncritical commercialization which played such a large role in the festivities. In Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Since the Langham Place Group
had provided a social space for women in 1860, several organizations had already challenged the flourishing institution of men's clubs. The Lyceum Club
came on the scene at a time...
Occupation
Gustave Flaubert
One of the great practioners of literary realism, he shifted the European novel significantly towards naturalism. His influence ranged far, from literary friends such as Émile Zola
to writers in English, including Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Literary responses
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton
Bulwer's Newgate novels were insistently skewered by William Maginn
, and after 1836 by Thackeray
, in Fraser's Magazine.
Sutherland, John. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press.
Paul Clifford and Bulwer's later Lucretia (1846, based on an actual poisoning case) were singled...
Literary responses
Ouida
In a Book Buyer article of January 1897, American novelist and short story writer Stephen Crane
called this novel Ouida's Masterpiece and a song of the brave. He particularly liked the character Cigarette, a figure...
Literary responses
Rosa Nouchette Carey
The Athenæum was lavish with faint praise. It likened Only the Governess to a tranquil backwater out of the main current of the turbid stream of modern fiction.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
3151 (1888): 337
Praising Carey for not...
Literary responses
Mrs Alexander
Early critic Helen Black
found Her Dearest Foe to be quite absorbing.
Black, Helen C. Notable Women Authors of the Day. D. Bryce.
64
Later critic Muriel Smith
argues that its claims rest on its significant contribution to the development of detective fiction, rather than...
Literary responses
Jean Ingelow
The Athenæum remarked that in spite of many faults in construction, we had seldom read a more charming novel of the domestic kind.
Henry Fothergill Chorley
in the Athenæum wrote that this work had come from the pen of an amiable and accomplished lady and that it could only be described as an amazing production.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1879 (1863): 566
Literary responses
Ellen Wood
Early discussions of EW
as a sensation writer often linked her writing to that of Mary Elizabeth Braddon
, despite the two authors' vastly different styles and perspectives. In 1863 a review of Our Female...
Literary responses
Henrietta Camilla Jenkin
The Saturday Review called Once and Again a great advance upon any previous effort of the writer's.
Kirk, John Foster, and S. Austin Allibone, editors. A Supplement to Allibone’s Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors. J. B. Lippincott.
The young Vernon Lee
praised this novel enthusiastically in an Italian article published in La Rivista in October...
Literary responses
Adelaide Kemble
The novel was extremely well received. The Athenæum reviewer had never encountered so racy and original a move sideways into writing, and sought to establish AK
's worth by contrasting her with a woman writer...
Literary responses
Ellen Wood
Discussing the presentation of madness in The Woman in White, Lady Audley's Secret and this novel, Rebecca Stern
suggests that St. Martin's Eve, unlike the earlier works, leaves no space for a subversive...
Literary responses
Ethel M. Dell
In response to a compliment on her writing EMD
replied, they are not well written and will never be called classics.
Dell, Penelope. Nettie and Sissie. Hamish Hamilton.
129
Highbrow journals at her death were careful not to praise. The Times Literary...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Lady’s Mile. Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 1866.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Octoroon. Editor Carnell, Jennifer, Sensation Press, 1999.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Rose of Life. Brentano’s, 1905.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Rose of Life. Hutchinson, 1905.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth, and Sarah Waters. The Trail of the Serpent. Editor Willis, Chris, Modern Library, 2003.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Thou Art the Man. Simpkin, Marshall, 1894.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Three Times Dead. W. M. Clark, 1860.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Vixen. J. and R. Maxwell, 1879.
