Dangerous Women: Vera Caspary's Rewriting of <i>Lady Audley's Secret</i> in <i>Bedelia</i>

Abstract

Considering Vera Caspary's Bedelia as a reimagining of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret allows for a new critical interpretation that refutes the typical view of Bedelia as reinforcing traditional gender roles. Instead, Caspary critiques World War II America by bringing Victorian concerns with female roles into the twentieth century. A scandalous success during its own time, Mary Elizabeth Braddon's 1863 novel Lady Audiey's Secret was an inspiration for many writers who borrowed both its piot and sensational elements. 1 One adaptation that has not received sustained critical attention in this regard is Vera Capsary's 1944 novel Bedelia. Considering Bedelia as a reimagining of Lady Audley's Secret allows one to read against the grain of critical interpretation of Caspary's novel, which tends to see it as reinforcing traditional gender roles. On the contrary, in rewriting Bradd on's novel , Caspary brings Victorian-era concerns with female identity and women's limited opportunities into the twentieth century, providing a social critique of World War II America. In addition, the genres in which each author was workingnineteenth-century sensation fiction and twentieth-century crime fictionwere especially suited to questioning the cultural hegemonies of their respective time periods, particularly with regard to gender. Although Lady Audley's Secret has garnered much critical attention in recent yea rs, Bedelia, recently reissued by the Feminist Press, is likely less familiar to readers. Caspary's novel focuses on the relationship of a newly married couple, Charlie and Bedelia Horst. The novel is set in a Connecticut country house over a few days in 1913, as Charlie slowly discovers that his perfect wife has not only attempted to poison him but has killed several previous husbands as well. The novel ends with Charlie pressing Bedelia to commit suicide by drinking the very poison she had given him. Although there is no direct evidence that Caspary read Lady Audley's Secret, she was Laura Vorachek is assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of Dayton in Ohio, where she specializes in Victo rian literature and culture, and gender studies. CLUES • A Journal of Detection / Volume 28 . Number 2 I Fall2010 I pp. 69-76 I !SSN 0742-4248 (paper) I lSSN 1940-3046 (online) I DO!: 10.31721CLU.28.2.69 I(!:! 2010 McFarland & Company, Inc.