BEAUTY'S SECRET (SENSATION FICTION)

A NOVEL which reads like a beauty manual is Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1862).

Lady Audley's Secret was the top selling book in the 19th century. It is about many things, but what makes it truly memorable is the beauty and fashion sense of the secret-bearing heroine, Lucy Audley.

Lucy is fascinating and pretty; nobody can resist "the tender fascination of those soft and melting blue eyes; the graceful beauty of that slender throat and drooping head, with its wealth of showering flaxen curls; the low music of that gentle voice...".

Also, I think that nobody can resist the lavish descriptions of Lady Audley's clothes, accessories and impeccable manners. Many critics believe that Lady Audley's Secret is a fashion and etiquette manual in the form of novel, teaching young women manners, demeanor and dress sense.

Of course, Lucy is supposed to be criminal and wicked, but I rather like her!!!!!!!!!!!!

The novel belongs to the genre of sensation fiction, which caused fear by portraying beautiful yet criminal women, violence inside the home and family, bigamous men and women, hidden deadly secrets and so forth.

The endings are usually good, but the goodness is often so sugary as to seem fake. They are the endings and solutions of a society ignoring its problems and hiding its head in the sand.

If you are interested in sensation fiction, I totally recommend Lady Audley, and also Aurora Leigh and The Doctor's Wife, again by Braddon. As for the sensation novel par excellence, this is considered to be The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins!