Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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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.
Painting of Mary Elizabeth Braddon by William Powell Frith, exhibited 1865. She stands beside a desk with writing materials and stacks of books, looking at the viewer, in a long dark dress. The wall behind her and the desk chair are red. Her red-brown hair is coiled over her ears, and her clasped hands hold a handkerchief. National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
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 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).
Leisure and Society Queen Victoria
Among her favourite writers were Alfred Tennyson , Sir Walter Scott , George Eliot (whose The Mill on the Floss made a deep impression
Victoria, Queen. Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals. Editor Hibbert, Christopher, Penguin, 1985.
116
on her), and Charles Kingsley , whose Two Years Ago...
Leisure and Society Emmuska Baroness Orczy
Music was very important to EBO (though she says she had inexplicably little talent), and she gives one of the five books of her memoirs to her musical life. She heard Edvard Grieg conducting his...
Literary responses Adelaide Kemble
The novel was extremely well received. The Athenæum reviewer had never encountered so racy and original a move sideways into writing, and sought to establish AK 's worth by contrasting her with a woman writer...
Literary responses Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton first Baron Lytton
Bulwer's Newgate novels were insistently skewered by William Maginn , and after 1836 by Thackeray , in Fraser's Magazine.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press, 1989.
Paul Clifford and Bulwer's later Lucretia (1846, based on an actual poisoning case) were singled...
Literary responses Ellen Wood
Early discussions of EW as a sensation writer often linked her writing to that of Mary Elizabeth Braddon , despite the two authors' vastly different styles and perspectives. In 1863 a review of Our Female...
Literary responses Rosa Nouchette Carey
The Athenæum was lavish with faint praise. It likened Only the Governess to a tranquil backwater out of the main current of the turbid stream of modern fiction.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
3151 (1888): 337
Praising Carey for not...
Literary responses Rosamond Lehmann
Reviewers were pleased to see more fiction from Lehmann after nine years, and the book was popular, although not hugely applauded. Those praising it included Edwin Muir . There was much debate over the real-life...
Literary responses Ellen Wood
Discussing the presentation of madness in The Woman in White, Lady Audley's Secret and this novel, Rebecca Stern suggests that St. Martin's Eve, unlike the earlier works, leaves no space for a subversive...
Literary responses Mrs Alexander
Early critic Helen Black found Her Dearest Foe to be quite absorbing.
Black, Helen C. Notable Women Authors of the Day. D. Bryce, 1893.
64
Later critic Muriel Smith argues that its claims rest on its significant contribution to the development of detective fiction, rather than...
Literary responses Georgiana Chatterton
Henry Fothergill Chorley in the Athenæum wrote that this work had come from the pen of an amiable and accomplished lady and that it could only be described as an amazing production.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1879 (1863): 566
Literary responses Ouida
In a Book Buyer article of January 1897, American novelist and short story writer Stephen Crane called this novel Ouida's Masterpiece and a song of the brave. He particularly liked the character Cigarette, a figure...
Literary responses Ethel M. Dell
In response to a compliment on her writing EMD replied, they are not well written and will never be called classics.
qtd. in
Dell, Penelope. Nettie and Sissie. Hamish Hamilton, 1977.
129
Highbrow journals at her death were careful not to praise. The Times Literary...

Timeline

June 1899: Belgravia: A London Magazine (formerly edited...

Writing climate item

June 1899

Belgravia: A London Magazine (formerly edited by Mary Elizabeth Braddon ) ceased publication.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press, 1989.
55
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

Texts

Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. John Marchmont’s Legacy. Tinsley Brothers, 1863, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. John Marchmont’s Legacy. Editors Sasaki, Toru and Norman Page, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Joshua Haggard’s Daughter. J. Maxwell, 1876, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Joshua Haggard’s Daughter. Harper and Brothers, 1877.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Lady Audley’s Secret. Tinsley Brothers, 1862, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Like and Unlike. Spencer Blackett, 1887, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Mary. Hutchinson, 1916.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. “Mary Elizabeth Braddon: A Brief Chronology”. Aurora Floyd, edited by Richard Nemesvari and Lisa Surridge, Broadview, 1998.
Hatton, Joseph, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. “Miss Braddon at Home: A Sketch and an Interview”. The Fatal Marriage and Other Stories, edited by Chris Willis and Chris Willis, Sensation Press, 2000, pp. 239-47.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Mohawks. J. and R. Maxwell, 1886, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth et al. “My First Novel”. The Trail of the Serpent, edited by Chris Willis and Chris Willis, Modern Library, 2003, pp. 415-27.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. One Thing Needful. J. and R. Maxwell, 1886, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Robert Ainsleigh. J. Maxwell, 1872, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Rough Justice. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1898.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Rupert Godwin. Ward, Lock, and Tyler, 1867, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Sir Jasper’s Tenant. J. Maxwell, 1865, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Sons of Fire. Simpkin, Marshall, 1895, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Christmas Hirelings. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1894.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Doctor’s Wife. J. Maxwell, 1864, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Doctor’s Wife. Editor Pykett, Lyn, Oxford University Press, 1998.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Fatal Marriage and Other Stories. Editor Willis, Chris, Sensation Press, 2000.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Fatal Three. Simpkin, Marshall, 1888, 3 vols.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Fatal Three. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1891.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Lady Lisle. Ward and Lock, 1862.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. The Lady’s Mile. Stereotyped Edition, J. and R. Maxwell.