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Tag: Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  • Henry Dunbar by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

    I have read a number of books by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and this one I enjoyed more than some of the others.  For a writer of sensation novels who produced more than eighty books, only one of her works seems to get most of the attention, and that is Lady Audley’s Secret.  It is indeed a fine text, and a prime example of everything which made the sensation novel such a success in the mid-Victorian period, but it is a pity most of her other works tend to be overlooked.

    Like many of her works, Henry Dunbar first appeared in serialized form under the title The Outcasts.  Installments in the London Journal began in September 1863 and concluded in March 1864. Braddon’s ‘husband’ and agent John Maxwell was unhappy with the sum offered by Tinsleys, publishers of her previous novels and as they refused to increase their fee, this became the first of Braddon’s novels to be published by Maxwell.  If you are wondering why the marital status is in inverted commas, this is because they were not actually married.  They were living together as husband and wife, but Maxwell’s actual wife was still alive and living in Ireland.  I have written about this in my previous blog post on ‘Eveline’s Visitant’

    The tale begins with the young Henry Dunbar and Joseph Wilmot employed in a London Banking House.  Dunbar manages to run up large gambling debts and convinces his friend Wilmot, who happens to have a talent for ‘copying’ handwriting, to create some forged bonds in order to pay off his debtors, claiming Wilmot will be rewarded.  However, the crime is discovered and Dunbar lays the blame squarely on the gullible Wilmot.  The owner of the bank, Dunbar’s uncle, banishes him to their Indian office and fires Wilmot.  Poor Joseph Wilmot is unable to find respectable work due to the scandal and falls into a life of crime, which ultimately results in him being transported to Tasmania.  He blames Dunbar for his misfortunes, as does his daughter Margaret.  Years pass and following his release, Wilmot and his daughter live under the assumed name of Wentworth.  Henry Dunbar returns from exile to inherit the family business and become a very wealthy man.  In true Braddon style, there is high drama and many twists and turns follow.

    However, there is more to this text than just the usual melodrama, evidence by some of the criticism it received on publication.  Jennifer Carnell, in her excellent work The Literary Lives of M.E. Braddon writes of how contemporary critics gave negative reviews and accused Braddon of glorifying criminals through her depictions of villains.  I agree with Carnell who disputes this, suggesting Braddon does not sympathise with crime, but instead seeks to explain it.  It is hopefully not too much of a spoiler, as this happens early in the novel, but Wilmot confronts Dunbar on his return to England, following which, Wilmot disappears.  This makes way for a move into the realms of detective fiction as Margaret strives to ascertain what has happened to her father.

    There are many qualities in Braddon’s writing, one of which is her ability to evoke a sense of place.  After the initial dramatic reunion between the two men, they appear to reconcile, although it is apparent to the reader that the reconciliation is false on both sides.  They dine at The Dolphin Hotel in Southampton, a place which still exists and has a long history as a famous coaching Inn.  They travel to Winchester where Wilmot is to be the guest of Dunbar at The George, another famous coaching Inn which has since been demolished.  Braddon writes of their sojourn:

    They walked under the shadow of a low stone colonnade, and then turned aside by the market-place, and made their way into the precincts of the cathedral.  There are quaint old courtyards, and shadowy quadrangles hereabouts; there are pleasant gardens, where the flowers seem to grow brighter in the sanctified shade than other flowers that flaunt in the unhallowed sunshine.  (Chapter 8)

    Not only does Braddon create a remarkable sense of place here, but I also cannot help but think she is making a symbolic point through her description of the flowers.

    Real places continue to be evoked as the narrator refers to the two men strolling from the cathedral towards St Cross and the Water Meadows.  They are due to dine together later, but Joseph Wilmot has disappeared, and his body is later discovered.

    There are several detectives seeking the truth in this novel, both official and unofficial, and the dialogue Braddon creates during the Inquest reads like an early precursor to the genre of the courtroom drama.  Scotland Yard become involved through the character of detective Mr Carter.  Arthur Lovell, a young lawyer also joins the investigation and his pursuits are described in detail, but it is Margaret who is relentless in her search for the truth.  Wilkie Collins, a contemporary of Braddon is much more well known and is often referred to as the father of the British detective novel through his work The Moonstone (1868).  With Henry Dunbar appearing four years earlier, maybe Braddon could be thought of as the mother of the detective novel.

  • Mary Elizabeth Braddon, ‘Eveline’s Visitant’

    Here is another of my earlier blog posts for Wordsworth Editions. You can expect to see more on Mary Elizabeth Braddon as she is one of my research interests.

    Mary Elizabeth Braddon was a contemporary of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, and yet is nowhere nearly as well known. If her name does spark any recognition, it is usually in connection with her novel Lady Audley’s Secret, published by Wordsworth Classics with an Introduction by Esther Saxey. Yet Braddon’s output during her life was prolific, often producing two novels a year, most of which were serialized in the popular magazines of the time. She also wrote plays, poetry and short stories. Curiously though, it is Lady Audley’s Secret and Aurora Floyd, both published in 1862, which have received most of the academic attention over the years, despite the fact that her publishing career began in 1860 with Three Times Dead and ended with Mary, published posthumously in 1916.

    Her biography reads a little like a plot from one of her own sensational novels and Stephen Carver’s article on Lady Audley’s Secret provides comprehensive details.  However, to summarise, her parents’ marriage was not a happy one and eventually they became estranged. In 1852, at the age of seventeen, Mary became an actress in order to support herself and her mother, using the stage name Mary Seyton. This was not a respectable way for women to earn money and thus began her rather dubious reputation. She gave up acting to pursue her writing career fulltime after meeting publisher John Maxwell in 1859. Their relationship soon combined the professional with the personal and she moved into his home as his wife. The only problem was, Maxwell was still married to Mary Anne, who was either living with her family or was constrained within an asylum in Ireland, depending on which version of the story you believe. Nevertheless, Braddon and Maxwell pretended to be married and had children together. Eventually the truth behind their façade came out which caused a fair amount of scandal, although they were eventually legally married following the death of Maxwell’s wife in 1874.

    In addition to Braddon’s novels, she wrote a number of short stories, many with a supernatural feel. These were published in the popular journals of the time, although were not anthologized during her lifetime. One of these stories, ‘Eveline’s Visitant’ can be found in Classic Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories edited by Rex Collins, in Wordsworth’s Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural. 

    ‘Eveline’s Visitant’ was originally published in Belgravia magazine in 1867, some six years after Lady Audley’s Secret. Belgravia was Braddon’s own magazine, which she started in 1866 and edited for ten years. This story differs in some ways from the sensation novel genre which made Braddon famous.  These frequently take typical upper class or middle class settings such as the country house as their premise. Instead, Braddon creates a sense of distance as the opening line tells the reader ‘It was at the masked ball at the Palais Royal that my fatal quarrel with my first cousin André de Brissac began.’

    The first-person male narration immediately draws the reader in as we realise he is about to tell us an important story:

    ‘I can feel the chill breath of that August morning blowing in my face, as I sit in my dismal chamber at my chateau of Puy Verdun tonight, alone in the stillness, writing the strange story of my life. I can see the white mist rising from the river, the grim outline of the Chatelet, and the square towers of Notre Dame black against the pale-grey sky.’

    Braddon successfully creates a strong sense of place, alerting the reader to the narrator’s location in Paris through mention of his view of ‘Notre Dame’ with such specific details creating a feeling of authenticity about the tale.  That his view may be partially obscured by ‘the white mist rising from the river’ as he sits in his ‘dismal chamber’ suggests this will not be a happy tale. The ominous feeling is strengthened through further evocation of the senses as he feels a ‘chill breath’ of an ‘August morning’, all of which compounds the increasingly gothic tone.  Braddon achieves all of this by the third paragraph of the story. 

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