Lady Audley's Secret

Lady Audley's Secret is a sensation novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon published in 1862. The plot centres on "accidental bigamy" which was in literary fashion in the early 1860s. Lady Audley's Secret plays on Victorian anxieties about the domestic sphere. The plot was summarised by literary critic: "Braddon's bigamous heroine deserts her child, pushes husband number one down a well, thinks about poisoning husband number two and sets fire to a hotel in which her other male acquaintances are residing". It was Braddon's most successful and well-known novel.