A huge commercial success when it was published in 1862, Lady Audley's Secret epitomized the scandalous and irresistible "sensation" fiction of the period and established Braddon as the doyenne of the genre. Lady Audley, a beautiful woman with a mysterious past, rises from governess to become the selfish and shamelessly acquisitive wife of an aristocrat. Her ruthless ambition and her vulgar tastes serve as commentary on the rise of the middle class and the consumer culture; her ultimate fate reflects the public's fascination with psychological theories about the nature of identity and the definition of madness.

A huge commercial success when it was published in 1862, Lady Audley''s Secret epitomized the scandalous and irresistible "sensation" fiction of the period and established Braddon as the doyenne of the genre. Lady Audley, a beautiful woman with a mysterious past, rises from governess to become the selfish and shamelessly acquisitive wife of an aristocrat. Her ruthless ambition and her vulgar tastes serve as commentary on the rise of the middle class and the consumer culture; her ultimate fate reflects the public''s fascination with psychological theories about the nature of identity and the definition of madness.

Weathering critical scorn, Lady Audley''s Secret (1862) quickly established Mary Elizabeth Braddon as the leading light of Victorian ''sensation'' fiction, sharing the honour only with Wilkie Collins. Addictive, cunningly plotted and certainly sensational, Lady Audley''s Secret draws on contemporary theories of insanity to probe mid-Victorian anxiety and the doubts that accompanied the rapid rise of consumer culture. What is the mystery surrounding Mary Elizabeth Braddon''s artful and charming heroine? Lady Audley''s secret is investigated by Robert Audley, aristocrat turned detective, in a novel that has lost none of its power to disturb and entertain.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon, the daughter of a solicitor, was educated privately. As a young woman, she acted under an assumed name for three years in order to support herself and her mother. In 1860 she met John Maxwell, a publisher of periodicals, whose wife was in an asylum for the insane. Braddon acted as stepmother to Maxwell's five children and bore him five illegitimate children before the couple married, in 1874, when Maxwell's wife died. Braddon's most famous novel, Lady Audley's Secret (1862), was first published serially in Robin Goodfellow and The Sixpenny Magazine. One of the earliest sensationalist novels, it sold nearly one million copies during Braddon's lifetime. Its plot involves bigamy, the protagonist's desertion of her child, her murder of her first husband, and her thoughts of poisoning her second husband. The novel shocked and outraged her contemporary, Margaret Oliphant, who said Braddon had invented "the fair-haired demon of modern fiction." Throughout her long literary career, during which she wrote more than 80 novels and edited several magazines, Braddon was often excoriated for her penchant for sensationalizing violence, crime, and sexual indiscretion. Nevertheless, Braddon had many well-known devotees, among them William Makepeace Thackeray, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Braddon died in 1915.