INTRODUCTION. BLURRING BOUNDARIES: THE FICTION OF M.E. BRADDON

Abstract

... there are classes who love the horrible and the grotesque. We do not object particularly to their gratification - provided that those who cater to them are content with their true place in literature, which is not above the basement.1She never pandered to the lower tastes of the age, and the fresh vitality of her thoughts was matched by the purity of her pen.2Why are all the novels of Miss Braddon out of print? Why has nobody got the sense to republish in cheap editions Audley's Floyd, Vixen, Venetians, Trail of the - to mention only a few.3As the above quotations illustrate, in the space of around seventy years, Mary Elizabeth Braddon went from controversial purveyor of lowbrow sensation fiction, to respectable Victorian author, to literary obscurity. Interest in Braddon' s work has subsequently revived, and since the 1970s she has become the focus of increasing critical attention. These shifting attitudes towards her work are suggestive of the manner in which her writing blurs the boundaries between respectable and lowbrow literature, and this reflects a broader concern with the blurring of boundaries in the work of Braddon and other Victorian sensation writers. In this Introduction, I consider some of the problems of categorization that emerge from an examination of Braddon' s oeuvre and reflect on some of the various ways in which her work challenges generic and social boundaries - a recurring issue in the essays in this collection.From literary sensation to literary obscuritySince her literary career took off in the early 1860s, Braddon has been viewed primarily as an author of sensation fiction, largely due to the phenomenal success of two of her early novels, Lady Audley 's Secret (1862) and Aurora Floyd (1863). Over the course of her career, however (a period splanning more than sixty years), Braddon produced not only sensation fiction, but also worked as an actress, edited a successful magazine, and wrote poetry, plays, pennydreadfuls, ghost stories, realist novels, and historical fiction, as well as the sensation novels for which she is best remembered. This collection seeks to further explore Braddon' s contribution to the sensation genre, through a critical examination of both Lady Audley' s Secret, her most successful work, and a number of her lesser known sensation novels, and to emphasize the diversity of Braddon' s output and continue the process (begun in recent years) of acknowledging a literary contribution that extends beyond the sensation novel. In his bibliography of sensation novels published between 1855 and 1890,4 Andrew Maunder includes forty-one of Braddon' s novels, yet critical attention has focused primarily on only a few of these works (most notably, Lady Audley 's Secret and Aurora Floyd). Amongst the works discussed in this collection are the relatively unexplored sensation novels The Trail of the Serpent (1861) and Charlotte's Inheritance (1868), along with later works containing some of the typical characteristics of sensation fiction, such as His Darling Sin (1899) and A Lost Eden (1904).It is hardly surprising, given the popularity oi Lady Audley's Secret and Aurora Floyd - the works with which she initially found fame - that Braddon should be pigeonholed as a sensation writer. The novels provoked much controversy, with critics accusing Braddon of dealing with revolting topics,5 and labelling her novels one of the abominations of the age.6 Such assertions, though directed specifically at Braddon, represent a broader response to the genre of sensation fiction as a whole. The cultural anxiety invoked by the emergence of the sensation novel was largely a consequence of the threat the genre was perceived as posing to both class and gender boundaries. These concerns are reflected in a frequently quoted 1 865 article by W.F. Rae, in which Braddon is accused of making the literature of the kitchen the favourite reading of the drawing room. …