Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
-
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.
"Mary Elizabeth Braddon" Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Mary_Elizabeth_Maxwell_%28n%C3%A9e_Braddon%29_by_William_Powell_Frith..This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. This work is in the public domain.
her reading was censored: her mother forbade her to read Mary Elizabeth Braddon
's Aurora Floyd (1863). She thought...
Education
Stella Gibbons
SG
learned to read fairly late, but then read voraciously. The glowing Eastern landscapes and brilliant figures
Oliver, Reggie. Out of the Woodshed: A Portrait of Stella Gibbons. Bloomsbury, 1998.
20
of Disraeli
's Alroy and Thomas Moore
's Lalla Rookh made a particular impression. She also developed...
Education
Henry Handel Richardson
The child Ethel Richardson was a great reader. She identified with male fictional characters, and cherished three books which her father gave her almost on his death-bed: The Pilgrim's Progress by Bunyan
, Robinson Crusoe...
Friends, Associates
Rhoda Broughton
The sisters were in general popular in Oxford society, but Rhoda, although at first she dined regularly at the table of scholar Benjamin Jowett
,
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(29 November 1940): 5
, was then ostracized in some...
Friends, Associates
Rhoda Broughton
RB
's vitality, sincerity, and pungent wit gained her the friendship of some of the most notable people of her day.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908.
Her wide circle of friends and acquaintances included Henry James
(the two became extremely...
Friends, Associates
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton
Probably as early as 1862, the publisher Richard Bentley
asked EW
for her critical opinion of the work of Mary Elizabeth Braddon
. She replied with a balanced, judicious, and respectful assessment.
Sussex, Lucy. “Mrs Henry Wood and her Memorials”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
15
, No. 2, pp. 157-68.
159
Intertextuality and Influence
Anna Atkins
Though AA
's preface concedes the the talent, the ingenuity, the very clever writing of sensation-authors,
Atkins, Anna. A Page from the Peerage. T. Cautley Newby, 1863.
i
it also hints that they are in it for the money, and expresses outrage at what it sees...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Anne Barker
MAB
's discussion of schools leads her into an account of a visit made by the Norwegian missionary, Bishop Schreuder
, to a later Zulu chief, Cetshwayo
, taken from a blue-book or government report...
Intertextuality and Influence
Charlotte Mary Brame
Published with an epigraph from Anne Hunter
about the emotional cost of keeping a painful secret, Lady Damer's Secret presumably drew inspiration for its title from Mary Elizabeth Braddon
's Lady Audley's Secret, although...
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Taylor
Several shorter stories are gems. Two of them explore respectively the experiences of birth and of death, from the viewpoint of those on the fringes of the central event. Many stories are hard on women...
Intertextuality and Influence
Flora Thompson
From her account it is clear how she respects, even loves, the people she describes, but also how she is not one of them, but is marked off by tiny gradations of knowledge and privilege...
Intertextuality and Influence
Rhoda Broughton
Esther Craven, this novel's unworldly heroine, lives in an isolated farmhouse in the Welsh countryside and dreams of a romantic hero in a fashion reminiscent of Isobel Gilbert in Mary Elizabeth Braddon
's The Doctor's Wife.
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Gaskell
The book was well received. The situation and character of its father and daughter probably informed Mary Elizabeth Braddon
's Joshua Haggard's Daughter (1877).
Timeline
1532-early 1552
These years saw the gradual appearance of the work of scurrilous, obscene, and philosophicalsatire generally known in English as Gargantua and Pantagruel, by François Rabelais
(1483?-?9 April 1553).
Henry Mansel
in the Quarterly Review attacked sensation novels as preaching to the nerves and as indications of a wide-spread corruption, of which they are in part both the effect and the cause; called into...
Later 1866
Robert Williams Buchanan
published an essay on Immorality in Authorship in the Fortnightly Review, and, under the pseudonym of Caliban in the Spectator, attacked Swinburne
in a poem called The Session of the Poets.
American National Biography. http://www.anb.org/articles/home.html, http://www.anb.org/articles/home.html.
under Orville James Victor
Nickerson, Catherine Ross, and Metta Victoria Fuller Victor. “Introduction”. The Dead Letter; and, The Figure Eight, Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 1-10.
1-2
1868
Tractarian F. E. Paget
published his satiricsensation novelLucretia; or, the Heroine of the Nineteenth Century.
1875
Charles Reade
dedicated his novelThe Wandering Heir to Mary Elizabeth Braddonas a slight mark of respect for her private virtues and public talents.
Wolff, Robert Lee. Sensational Victorian. Garland, 1979.
Publisher Henry Vizetelly
produced the first English translations of Émile Zola
: the novels Nana and L'Assommoir.
27 June 1894
Mudie's Circulating Library
and bookseller W. H. Smith
together announced they would not pay more than four shillings a volume for novels; this forced publishers to abandon triple-decker format, and quickly led to its replacement...
Texts
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. A Strange World. Donohue, Henneberry.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. A Strange World. J. Maxwell, 1875.
Willis, Chris, Sarah Waters, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and Sarah Waters. “Afterword”. The Trail of the Serpent, edited by Chris Willis and Chris Willis, Modern Library, 2003, pp. 408-14.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Aurora Floyd. Tinsley Brothers, 1863.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Aurora Floyd. Editors Nemesvari, Richard and Lisa Surridge, Broadview, 1998.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Beyond These Voices. Hutchinson, 1910.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Birds of Prey. Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 1867.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Charlotte’s Inheritance. Ward, Lock, and Tyler , 1868.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Circe. Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 1867.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Dead Love has Chains. Hurst and Blackett, 1907.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Dead Love Has Chains. Sensation Press, 2001.
Wolff, Robert Lee, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton. “Devoted Disciple: The Letters of Mary Elizabeth Braddon to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, 1862-1873”. Harvard Library Bulletin, Vol.
22
, pp. 1 - 35, 129.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Eleanor’s Victory. B. Tauchnitz, 1863.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Eleanor’s Victory. Tinsley Brothers, 1863.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. “Flower and Weed”. The Mistletoe Bough, J. and R. Maxwell, 1882.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Garibaldi and Other Poems. Bosworth and Harrison, 1861.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Henry Dunbar. J. Maxwell, 1864.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Hostages to Fortune. J. Maxwell, 1875.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Hostages to Fortune. J. and R. Maxwell, 1876.
O’Toole, Fionn, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. “Introduction”. Vixen, Alan Sutton, 1993, p. vii - xi.
Sasaki, Toru, Norman Page, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. “Introduction”. John Marchmont’s Legacy, edited by Toru Sasaki, Norman Page, Toru Sasaki, and Norman Page, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. vii - xxiv.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. “Introduction”. The Octoroon; or, The Lily of Louisiana, edited by Jennifer Carnell, Sensation Press, 1999, p. vii - xvii.
Waters, Sarah, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. “Introduction”. The Trail of the Serpent, edited by Chris Willis and Chris Willis, Modern Library, 2003, p. xv - xxiv.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Ishmael. J. and R. Maxwell.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Ishmael. J. and R. Maxwell, 1884.