Braddon, MARY ELIZABETH

Braddon, MARY ELIZABETH (Mrs John Maxwell), novelist, was born in Soho Square, London, in 1837, the daughter of a solicitor. She very early showed a turn for literature, which she indulged in the usual manner, by sending verses and other trifles to the magazines and newspapers. Neither a comedietta brought out at the Strand in 1860, a volume of verse, nor one or two novels, had had much success, when, in 1862, Lady Audley's Secret, the story of a golden-haired murderess, attained an enormous popularity, in three months reaching its eighth three-volume edition. Aurora Floyd (1863) was little less popular. Of all her fifty novels, perhaps the best is Ishmael (1884), a tale of the Second Empire, which depends not so much on sensation as character. Several of them appeared in Temple Bar, St James's Magazine, and Belgravia, a magazine of which she was for some years editor. Mainly her works depend for their interest on incident, and the art of their appeal to 'that low vice, curiosity,' in the conduct of a story carefully leading up to some suspended and unforeseen dénouement. In their particular way, they display undoubted talent: in style, they are fresh and vigorous, and their narrative power strongly excites the reader's interest.