(1837-)
Whatever objections may be made to the sensational character of many of
Miss Braddon's earlier novels, her place is certainly in the ranks of
the "born" story-tellers. Although still in the prime of life, she has
been before the public for thirty-seven years. Her books have been
produced in amazingly rapid and continuous succession. She was born in
London in 1837, wrote little stories in her early teens, and was fond of
entertaining her companions with startling original tales.
When a young girl she conceived a passion for the stage, and a
dramatic--or melodramatic--element is conspicuous in most of her novels.
She was barely twenty-one when she had completed a comedietta, 'The
Lover of Arcadia,' which, after many alterations and revisions, was put
on the stage of the Strand Theatre in 1860, with--naturally--but
moderate success. Her disappointment was extreme. She gave up the hope
of becoming a successful dramatist. Her next venture, like that of most
young authors, was a small volume of poems, of which Garibaldi was the
chief theme. About this time she also wrote a number of highly colored,
much strained tales in the Temple Bar and St. James' magazines. These
tales drew attention, and awoke an echo which neither the comedietta nor
the poems had done, making it clear to her that in narrative fiction lay
her strength. She was ambitious, she wanted money even more than
reputation, and she has followed narrative fiction most diligently ever
since, with widening and indisputable success.
In 1862 appeared her first full-fledged novel, 'Lady Audley's Secret.'
It achieved instantaneous distinction and an enormous sale, six editions
being disposed of in as many weeks. She had finally hit the mark, though
not by accident. She had carefully thought out a new scheme, and had
corrected literary mistakes by her late experience. She knew that the
first desire of novel readers is for novelty, a characteristic usually
preferred to originality, which is often much more slowly recognized.
Mrs. Gore's fashionable novels, correct in portraiture and upholstery,
clever but monotonous, had had their day; Mrs. Trollope's coarse and
caustic delineations; G.P.R. James's combats, adventures, skirmishes,
disguises, trials, and escapes, and Bulwer's sentimental and
grandiloquent romances, had begun to pall upon the public taste. Miss
Braddon perceived that the time had come for something new, so 'Lady
Audley's Secret' was a striking innovation.
Hitherto, wickedness had been ugly. She endued it with grace and beauty.
She invented a mystery of crime surrounded by everyday circumstances,
yet avoiding the "detective novel" mechanism. A new story, 'Aurora
Floyd,' repeated the immense success of 'Lady Audley.' Novel after novel
followed, full of momentous incidents, of surprises leading to new
surprises. All the time Miss Braddon was observing much, correcting much
in her methods and ideas. She studied manners closely; drew ingenious
inferences; suggested dramatic and startling conclusions. She has, too,
introduced into modern fiction the beguiling female fiend, who, like the
Italian duchess of the Middle Ages, betrays with a smile, and with one
arm about her lover beckons to the hired bravo to do his bloody work.
Her plots, though sometimes forced, are ingenious and exciting. The
movement of her stories is swift, and the scenes and personages
contribute to the appointed end. As the author has grown in literary
stature, a finer and often admirable effort is made to analyze or to
develop character, as an element subservient to the exigencies of the
stirring catastrophe.
Her style and treatment have matured with practice and with years, and
her later novels display artistic form and finish. Her 'Mohawks' is in
many respects a superb study of fashionable life, with several
historical portraits introduced, of London in the time of Pope, St.
John, Walpole, and Chesterfield--a tableau of great movement and
accuracy of composition. In thirty-five years she has written more than
sixty stories, the best of them being perhaps this fine semi-historical
melodrama. Several of her earlier fictions have been successfully
dramatized. An exquisite little tale for Christmas-tide, 'The Christmas
Hirelings,' is an evidence of her lightness of touch and refinement of
conception in a trifle. In 1874 Miss Braddon married John Maxwell, a
well-known London publisher.