Wyllard's Weird - Background information

[Gem , Moderator]

Availability: Project Gutenberg various formats

General Overview

A novel written in three volumes. In the golden age of steam, the London train wends its way across the Tamar into the strange and mystic land that is Cornwall, having left most of its length at Plymouth. A weary doctor gazes at the countryside when the train grinds to a halt and his professional attention is demanded. A young woman. An apparent suicide. Who was she? What brought her to Cornwall? What drove her to kill herself? Or did she?

A village in Cornwall is thrown into turmoil after a young girl falls from a train to her death. Was this an accident? Or murder? The mystery deepens when clues link the girl to a double homicide committed ten years earlier. Braddon's sensational novel takes us to the estates of aristocrats, the haunts of tabloid writers, the homes of Bohemian artists, and the dark alleyways of Paris. Braddon, one of Victorian England's best-selling novelists, is at the height of her powers in Wyllard's Weird. The novel shakes the foundations of 19th-century social order as it questions the sanctity of marriage and exposes the vices hidden beneath masks of gentility. First published in 1885, Wyllard's Weird has been for too long either out of print or available only in expensive facsimile editions. The novel holds an important place in literary history as it forecasts the appearance of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1886 and Sherlock Holmes in 1887

A note on the title - in this instance weird is a noun and comes from the word wyrd which is mostly found in the Scottish tongue and is of German origin. Not surprising considering the Anglos, the Saxons, and the Jutes. Anyway, as a noun, it means a person’s destiny. So in a way, it’s kind of a spoiler, but there’s a lot that’s known to the reader in books like this, so it doesn’t make it less fun. Weird as a noun predates it as an adjective and the suggestion of the odd or unearthly.

Author Biography

Mary Elizabeth Braddon was born in London on October 4th, 1835.

Braddon suffered early family trauma at age five, when her mother, Fanny, separated from her father, Henry, in 1840. When she was aged ten her brother Edward left England for India and later Australia.

However, after being befriended by Clara and Adelaide Biddle she was much taken by acting. For three years she took minor acting roles, which supported both her and her mother, However, her interest in acting began to wane as she began to write. It was to be her true vocation.

In 1860, Mary met John Maxwell, a publisher of periodicals. By the next year, they were living together. The situation and the view from polite society was complicated by the fact that Maxwell was already married with five children, and his wife was under care in an Irish asylum. Until 1874 Mary was to act as stepmother to his children as well as to the six offspring their own relationship produced.

Braddon, with a large and growing family, still found time to produce a long and prolific writing career. Her most famous book was a sensational novel published in 1862, Lady Audley's Secret. It won her both recognition and best-seller status.

Her works in the supernatural genre were equally prolific and brought new menace to the form. Her pact with the devil story Gerard or the World, the Flesh, and the Devil (1891), and the ghost stories The Cold Embrace, The Face in the Glass, and At Chrighton Abbey are regarded as classics.

In 1866 she founded the Belgravia magazine. This presented readers with serialized sensation novels, poems, travel narratives, and biographies, as well as essays on fashion, history, and science. The magazine was accompanied by lavish illustrations and offered readers an excellent source of literature at an affordable cost. She was also the editor of The Temple Bar magazine.

Maxwell’s wife died in 1874 and the couple who had been together for so long were at last able to wed.

Mary Elizabeth Brandon died on February 4th, 1915 in Richmond and is buried in Richmond Cemetery.

After her death, her short story masterpieces would be regularly anthologized. But for the rest of her canon, her reputation then went into decline. In the past decade, her reputation and talent is once more being given the attention it so rightly deserves.

Sources

thebookmarque.blogspot.comt (contains spoilers)

amazon.com

[Lori, Moderator]

Thanks for this. I was wondering what "Weird" meant in that context (I was guessing something related to a piece of land, so I was way off).

I'm only in the first chapter (or maybe the second), and enjoying it so far.

[Abigail]

Looking forward to this! The word wyrd is in Beowulf and other Old English poetry so I was wondering if the title was referring to Fate. Thanks for the info!

[Linda]

Thank you for the background info!

I will be late in starting as the book I ordered will not likely be here before I go on vacation, so it will be something to look forward to upon my return.