Beyond Sensation : Mary Elizabeth Braddon in Context

by Tromp, Marlene; Gilbert, Pamela K.; Haynie, Aeron

• ISBN13: 9780791444191
• ISBN10: 0791444198
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-01-01
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

This volume brings together essays from a variety of literary perspectives which examine the works of Mary Elizabeth Braddon, a journal editor, author of over 80 novels during the Victorian period, and best known for her novels, Lady Audley's Secret and Aurora Floyd. The authors, representing a diverse range of academic and cultural perspectives, explore Braddon's work and discuss issues of gender, imperialism, colonialism, literay genres, and commodity culture.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	ix
Foreword	xi
James R. Kincaid
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	xv
Marlene Tromp
Pamela K. Gilbert
Aeron Haynie
I. Lady Audley's Secret
Enclosure Acts: Framing Women's Bodies in Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret	3	(14)
Elizabeth Langland
Braddon's Commentaries on the Trials and Legal Secrets of Audley Court	17	(14)
Gail Turley Houston
Rebellious Sepoys and Bigamous Wives: The Indian Mutiny and Marriage Law Reform in Lady Audley's Secret	31	(12)
Lillian Nayder
Marketing Sensation: Lady Audley's Secret and Consumer Culture	43	(20)
Katherine Montwieler
``An idle handle that was never turned, and a lazy rope so rotten'': The Decay of the Country Estate in Lady Audley's Secret	63	(14)
Aeron Haynie
II. Aurora Floyd
The Espaliered Girl: Pruning the Docile Body in Aurora Floyd	77	(16)
Jeni Curtis
The Dangerous Woman: M. E. Braddon's Sensational (En) gendering of Domestic Law	93	(18)
Marlene Tromp
III. Braddon in the Literary Marketplace
Mary Elizabeth Braddon in Australia: Queen of the Colonies	111	(16)
Toni Johnson-Woods
``Our Author'': Braddon in the Provincial Weeklies	127	(38)
Jennifer Carnell
Graham Law
Misalliance: M. E. Braddon's Writing for the Stage	165	(18)
Heidi J. Holder
IV. Genre and Culture
Braddon and Victorian Realism: Joshua Haggard's Daughter	183	(4)
Pamela K. Gilbert
Fiction Becomes Her: Representations of Female Character in Mary Braddon's The Doctor's Wife	187	(24)
Tabitha Sparks
``Go and Marry Your Doctor'': Fetishism and ``Redundance'' at the Fin de Siecle and the Vampires of ``Good Lady Ducayne''	211	(24)
Lauren M. E. Goodlad
Spectral Politics: M. E. Braddon and the Spirits of Social Reform	235	(20)
Eve M. Lynch
Electra-fying the Female Sleuth: Detecting the Father in Eleanor's Victory and Thou Art the Man	255	(22)
Heidi H. Johnson
Afterword	277	(4)
Lyn Pykett
Select Bibliography	281	(6)
Contributors	287	(4)
Index	291