Acknowledgements
Introduction
A Note on the Text
Mary Elizabeth Braddon: A Brief Chronology

Aurora Floyd

Appendix A: Victorian Femininity: The Stable, the Home, and the Fast Young Lady

“Fast Young Ladies” (Punch)

“Six Reasons Why Ladies Should Not Hunt” (The Field)

“Muscular Education” (Temple Bar)

John Ruskin, “Of Queens’ Gardens” (Sesame and Lilies) (1865)

Appendix B: Reviews and Responses

H.L. Mansel, “Sensation Novels” (Quarterly Review)

“The Archbishop of York on Works of Fiction” (The Times)

W. Fraser Rae, “Sensation Novelists: Miss Braddon” (North British Review)

Henry James, “Miss Braddon” (The Nation)

Margaret Oliphant, “Novels” (Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine)

George Augustus Sala, “The Cant of Modern Criticism” (Belgravia)

George Augustus Sala, “On the ‘Sensational’ in Literature and Art” (Belgravia)

“Sensation Novels” (Punch)

Select Bibliography

About the Author

Richard Nemesvari, of the Department of English at St. Francis Xavier University, and Lisa Surridge of the Department of English at University of Victoria, have both written widely on 19th-century British fiction. Professor Nemesvari has also edited Jane Eyre for the Broadview Literary Text Series.

Reviews

“This is the only modern edition to be based on the first three-volume version of Braddon’s much revised novel, and the editors make an excellent case for their choice. A substantial and lucidly written critical introduction situates the novel in its contemporary cultural contexts; in debates about realism and sensationalism, and anxieties about class, femininity, domesticity and marriage. The appendices, containing a selection of contemporary views of femininity and domesticity, and responses to Braddon and her novel, are an added bonus to this excellent volume.” — Lyn Pykett, University of Wales-Aberystwyth“Invaluable … provides copious explanatory notes, appendices containing contemporary reviews and writings on femininity, and a thorough, well-organized introduction.” — Times Literary Supplement

Table of Contents

About the Author

Reviews