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A young girl whose love for her fiance continues even after her
death; a sinister old lady with claw-like hands who cares little
for the qualities of her companions provided they are young and
full of life; and a haunted mirror that foretells of approaching
death for those who gaze into its depths. These are just some of
the haunting tales gathered together in this macabre collection of
short stories. Reissued in the Tales of the Weird series and
introduced by British Library curator Greg Buzwell, The Face in the
Glass is the first selection of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's
supernatural short stories to be widely available in more than 100
years. By turns curious, sinister, haunting and terrifying, each
tale explores the dark shadows beyond the rational world.
'it only rests with yourself to become Lady Audley, and the
mistress of Audley Court' When beautiful young Lucy Graham accepts
the hand of Sir Michael Audley, her fortune and her future look
secure. But Lady Audley's past is shrouded in mystery, and to Sir
Michael's nephew Robert, she is not all that she seems. When his
good friend George Talboys suddenly disappears, Robert is
determined to find him, and to unearth the truth. His quest reveals
a tangled story of lies and deception, crime and intrigue, whose
sensational twists turn the conventional picture of Victorian
womanhood on its head. Can Robert's darkest suspicions really be
true? Lady Audley's Secret was an immediate bestseller, and readers
have enjoyed its thrilling plot ever since its first publication in
1862. This new edition explores Braddon's portrait of her scheming
heroine in the context of the nineteenth-century sensation novel
and the lively, often hostile debates it provoked. ABOUT THE
SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made
available the widest range of literature from around the globe.
Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship,
providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable
features, including expert introductions by leading authorities,
helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for
further study, and much more.
With an Introduction and Notes by Esther Saxey The flaxen-haired
beauty of the childlike Lady Audley would suggest that she has no
secrets. But M.E. Braddon's classic novel of sensation uncovers the
truth about its heroine in a plot involving bigamy, arson and
murder. It challenges assumptions about the nature of femininity
and investigates the narrow divide between sanity and insanity,
using as its focus one of the most fascinating of all Victorian
heroines. Combining elements of the detective novel, the
psychological thriller and the romance of upper class life, Lady
Audley's Secret was one of the most popular and successful novels
of the nineteenth century and still exerts a powerful hold on
readers.
Aurora Floyd is one of the leading novels in the genre known as
'sensation fiction'-a tradition in which the key texts include
Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, Ellen Wood's East Lynne, and
Dickens's Great Expectations. When Aurora Floyd was first published
in serial form in 1862-63, Fraser's magazine asserted that "a book
without a murder, a divorce, a seduction, or a bigamy, is not
apparently considered either worth writing or reading; and a
mystery and a secret are the chief qualifications of the modern
novel." The novel depicts a heroine trapped in an abusive and
adulterous marriage, and effectively dramatizes the extra-legal
pressures which kept many such unhappy marriages out of the courts:
fear of personal scandal, and of betraying one's family through the
publicity and expense of the process. Aurora's bigamous marriage
dramatizes the need for expeditious divorce without the enormous
social cost, but the overt sexuality of the heroine shocked
contemporary critics. "What is held up to us as the story of the
feminine soul as it really exists underneath its conventional
coverings, is a very fleshy and unlovely record," wrote Margaret
Oliphant. Braddon's text is studded with references to contemporary
events (the Crimean War, the Divorce Act of 1857) and the text has
been carefully annotated for modern readers in this edition, which
also includes a range of documents designed to help set the text in
context.
The Penguin English Library Edition of Lady Audley's Secret by Mary
Elizabeth Braddon 'Lady Audley uttered a long, low, wailing cry,
and threw up her arms above her head with a wild gesture of
despair' In this outlandish, outrageous triumph of scandal fiction,
a new Lady Audley arrives at the manor: young, beautiful - and very
mysterious. Why does she behave so strangely? What, exactly, is the
dark secret this seductive outsider carries with her? A huge
success in the nineteenth century, the book's anti-heroine - with
her good looks and hidden past - embodied perfectly the concerns of
the Victorian age with morality and madness. The Penguin English
Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the
eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of
the First World War.
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Run to Earth
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
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R1,194
Discovery Miles 11 940
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