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.
The stage versions of East Lynne have been analysed critically in recent works such as E. Ann Kaplan
's Motherhood and Representation. Like many of the popular novelists of the period, including Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Reception
Wilkie Collins
The Woman in White, along with Ellen Wood
's East Lynne,1861, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon
's Lady Audley's Secret, 1862, established the massive popularity of the sensation novel, a genre marked by...
Textual Features
Elizabeth Gaskell
Some of the lesser characters are interesting. Sally, the crusty but faithful servant, presses her savings on her employers when they fall on hard times; she was satirised by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
in Rupert Godwin...
Textual Features
Sophie Veitch
The interdependence of her passionate feelings, athleticism, and goodness is made evident in her foil, Edith Cranley (later Edith Mason). Edith is a perfect little lady,
Veitch, Sophie. The Dean’s Daughter. National Publishing Company.
8
but she is also weak and selfish, while...
Textual Features
Margaret Oliphant
Oliphant develops an extended critique of her chief bugbears, Mary Elizabeth Braddon
(the leader of her school
), Rhoda Broughton
(not by name, but as author of Cometh Up As a Flower),...
Textual Features
Charlotte Chanter
Critic John Sutherland discerns the influence of Wilkie Collins
on the novel's plot. Certainly the figure of the mysterious woman in black who aims to avenge herself on her husband's destroyers recalls the description of...
Textual Features
James Malcolm Rymer
The penny dreadful genre borrowed much from the chapbook tradition both in textual production and readership, as well as from the gothic, depicting scenes of violent crime, horror, and the supernatural. E. F. Bleiler
...
Textual Features
Dorothy L. Sayers
Here she mounts a powerful appreciation of the novel, both for its importance in the development of the detective story (all the clues, she says, are clearly conveyed to the reader, something which seldom happened...
Textual Features
Ellen Wood
The plot and pacing of the novel differ markedly from East Lynne, and are more in the style of Charlotte Yonge
than EW
's sensational contemporary Mary Elizabeth Braddon
. While the theft of...
Textual Features
Ella D'Arcy
Perhaps aimed at a Temple Bar formula, it has thriller-style action and stilted dialogue which suggests a sensation novel by Wilkie Collins
or Mary Elizabeth Braddon
, but which proved not to be D'Arcy territory...
Textual Production
Bryony Lavery
BL
's numerous plays for radio include some original and some adapted from other works: Laying Ghosts, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Velma and Therese (a parallel version of the film Thelma and...
Textual Production
Katharine S. Macquoid
KSM
first reached print with a short story in a recently-launched periodical, The Welcome Guest, A Magazine for All.
Her publications here and later in Temple Bar and Belgravia magazines suggest a sustained connection...
Textual Production
Mary Fortune
If MF
is indeed the author of either The Stolen Specimens or Traces of Crime, then she is, Lucy Sussex
argues, the earliest known female writer of detective fiction. Both stories pre-date the serialization...
Textual Production
Helen Mathers
The story, a sketch of her brother-in-law Mr Hamborough
and his wife (the author's sister), was inspired by a visit with them to Jersey in the Channel Islands.
Black, Helen C. Notable Women Authors of the Day. D. Bryce.
75
It was composed, rapidly put...
Textual Production
Anna Maria Hall
In her capacity as editor of this journal she mentored and supervised Mary Elizabeth Braddon
, who was also working for it. The St. James's Magazine continued to publish (ending on the original title after...
