Audiobook · read by volunteers
Lady Audley's Secret
Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835–1915)
Read by Elizabeth Klett · 40 chapters · 14 h 16
About the book
Lucy Graham is young, lovely and gentle, and she has made a splendid marriage. As Lady Audley she presides over a handsome country house, charms its household and wins the affection of everyone she meets. Yet something in her past has been carefully hidden, and her new husband’s nephew, the idle barrister Robert Audley, begins to notice details that do not quite fit. A friend disappears, a portrait seems to say too much, and a trail of small clues leads him from the quiet lanes of Essex to London lodgings and seaside churchyards. Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s first great success is a pulse-quickening mixture of detective story, domestic drama and Victorian scandal, with a heroine who is far more complicated than she first appears. Across forty chapters, Elizabeth Klett gives it the pace and relish it deserves. Settle in for a long, absorbing listen, and watch for what is hidden behind a charming smile.
Introduction
Mary Elizabeth Braddon was born in 1835 and died in 1915. She wrote with great speed and energy, producing dozens of novels over a long career, and she became one of the most widely read authors of her time. Her work belongs to the tradition known as sensation fiction, a Victorian fashion for stories in which crime, secrets and family scandal break into respectable households.
Lady Audley’s Secret appeared in 1862 and was among the most popular English novels of its day. It was published in instalments, which explains much of its momentum: chapters end on questions, and each new development raises the stakes. Its plot touches on madness, bigamy and violence, and in its time this made it exciting and, for some critics, rather shocking. Today it is often cited as one of the finest examples of the sensational novel.
What gives it lasting interest is its heroine. Braddon refuses to make Lucy a simple villain or a simple victim, and the book asks what women in a rigid society might do when security is at stake. Robert Audley, reluctant detective, is a likeable and wry guide through the mystery.
This LibriVox recording has forty chapters and runs for about fourteen hours, all read by one volunteer, Elizabeth Klett. It rewards a long commute, a week of evening walks or a snowed-in weekend. Do not be put off by the length. The chapters are short, often ending on a turn of the plot, and the story rewards patience with surprises right to the last pages. It is a tale to share with friends who love mysteries, and one that shows how the genre grew out of the domestic novel.
Public domain
Mary Elizabeth Braddon died in 1915: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text