Lady Audley's Secret
Lady Audley's Secret

Author: Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Publisher: Broadview Press

Published: 2003-08-19

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 9781551113579

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Lady Audley’s Secret (1862) was one of the most widely read novels in the Victorian period. The novel exemplifies “sensation fiction” in featuring a beautiful criminal heroine, an amateur detective, blackmail, arson, violence, and plenty of suspenseful action. To its contemporary readers, it also offered the thrill of uncovering blackmail and criminal violence within the homes of the upper class. The novel makes trenchant critiques of Victorian gender roles and social stereotypes, and it creates significant sympathy for the heroine, despite her criminal acts, as she suffers from the injustices of the “marriage market” and rebels against them. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and a broad selection of primary source material, including reproductions of the twenty-two woodcut illustrations from the London Journal serialization of the novel, extracts from two Victorian dramatizations of the work, satirical commentaries, and contemporary reviews.

The Black Band; Or, the Mysteries of Midnight
The Black Band; Or, the Mysteries of Midnight

Author: Black Band

Publisher: Legare Street Press

Published: 2023-07-18

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781019973707

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This gripping novel follows a group of men who band together to right wrongs and solve crimes in 19th century London. Led by the mysterious figure known only as the Black Band, this group of vigilantes takes on corrupt officials, murderous criminals, and other evildoers. Filled with action, suspense, and colorful characters, this book is a must-read for fans of Victorian-era novels and mysteries. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Back Door of Midnight
The Back Door of Midnight

Author: Elizabeth Chandler

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-11-16

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 1442406283

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Psychic...or psychotic? Anna knows her family is crazy. But when she goes to visit her aunt and uncle for the summer and learns that her uncle’s charred body has been found, her life reaches a new level of insanity. Her erratic aunt’s “psychic” abilities are exaggerated by her grief, and have become borderline violent. Alone in an unfamiliar town, Anna struggles to pick up the pieces and establish any sense of normalcy. She desperately wants to trust Zack, the cute boy next door, but even he might know more about the incident than he is letting on. But when Anna starts feeling an inexplicable pull to the site of her uncle’s murder, she begins to believe that her family’s supernatural gifts are real after all. Torn between loyalty and suspicion, Anna is certain of only one thing: she must discover who killed her uncle or she could be next….

Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Author: Anne-Marie Beller

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2012-11-01

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 0786436670

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An important figure in the development of crime fiction, Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915) wrote more than 80 novels, numerous plays, poems, essays and short stories, and edited two magazines during her 55-year literary career. Her bestselling Lady Audley's Secret secured her reputation as a leading "sensation novelist." Though critics called her work immoral, Braddon's novels influenced the detective fiction of the late Victorian period. With entries on all her published writing, characters, relationships and influences, and themes and contexts, as well as numerous illustrations, a career chronology, and a chronological and alphabetical listing of all of her works, this companion to Braddon's mystery fiction is the definitive reference on this provocative but overlooked writer.

Wilkie Collins and Other Sensation Novelists
Wilkie Collins and Other Sensation Novelists

Author: Nicholas Rance

Publisher: Springer

Published: 1991-06-18

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1349119644

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Sensation fiction dominated the literary market in the 1860s. This book focuses on the roots of its emergence and demise, relating its rise to the crisis of faith in the ideology of self-help. Rance has also written "The Historical Novel and Popular Politics in 19th century England".

The Boy Detective in Early British Children’s Literature
The Boy Detective in Early British Children’s Literature

Author: Lucy Andrew

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-10-19

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 3319620908

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This book maps the development of the boy detective in British children’s literature from the mid-nineteenth to the early-twentieth century. It explores how this liminal figure – a boy operating within a man’s world – addresses adult anxieties about boyhood and the boy’s transition to manhood. It investigates the literary, social and ideological significance of a vast array of popular detective narratives appearing in ‘penny dreadfuls’ and story papers which were aimed primarily at working-class boys. This study charts the relationship between developments in the representation of the fictional boy detective and changing expectations of and attitudes towards real-life British boys during a period where the boy’s role in the future of the Empire was a key concern. It emphasises the value of the early fictional boy detective as an ideological tool to condition boy readers to fulfil adult desires and expectations of what boyhood and, in the future, proper manhood should entail. It will be of particular importance to scholars working in the fields of children’s literature, crime fiction and popular culture.