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Lady Audley's Secret

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Start date: July 1, 2020

Finish date: August 31, 2020

Discussion: Lesser Know/Wilderness Classics

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What Members Thought

Oct 15, 2013 Diane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: virago-modern-classics

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Compared to Dickens, Collins and Trollope, "Lady Audley's
Secret" is a very ordinary written book (I thought if I
read one more description of Lady Audley's blonde curls
and fairy bower I would scream) but the sensational story
involving murder, missing people and madness keeps the
reader on a roller coaster ride until the end.
Braddon wrote "Lady Audley's Secret" when she was 27 and
it created a stir the whole world over. Distinguished
writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Dickens and Henry
James al ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 21, 2020 Elizabeth rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-century, european, ntltrc-shelf

I really enjoyed the first half of the book here Robert Audley seeks to find out Lady Audley’s secret, however once he’d put all the pieces together the story bordered on anti-climactic and tedious. Lady Audley is described as being an anti-heroine but I find that she was a much maligned character who deserved better. Whilst she made some very questionable choices in order to keep her secret no one seems to care about all the ways in which she had been badly treated or make any allowances for he ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Dec 31, 2022 Cynthia Feenstra rated it really liked it

I now know that several times, this book has been made
Into a movie. I’m glad I never saw it!
It’s genre is considered to be a “sensation novel,” but I can’t say it has the over the top flowery prose that I expected from that genre. The middle got a little wordy, but the last quarter was really wonderful.
I can see how this wouldn’t be for everyone, but I really enjoyed it.

1 like · Like · see review

May 16, 2012 Natasha marked it as to-read