VICTORIAN SECRETS

I was so amazed to read about the Mary Elizabeth Braddon portrait painted by W.P. Frith! There it is on the Braddon biography cover, and as a picture inside. Braddon is a prolific Victorian writer, with Lady Audley's Secret her most famous novel. Given the mysterious Lucy Audley portrait in the book, it is so exciting to see that Braddon had an intriguing portrait of her own!

Apart from writing novels, Braddon was the editor of the successful Belgravia magazine. It exists in digital form in British Periodicals online, and I'm going through it now. I am in the February 1867 issue.

Braddon was unconventional for her time and place. She worked as an actress and had five children. She cohabited with a married man, whose wife was in the mental asylum. Madness was not a ground for divorce back then (and it still isn't now). Braddon and her partner did not marry until the ill wife died. Still, the guy had six children of his own, and Braddon helped him raise them.

Victorian literature is full of portraits, from Lady Dedlock's in Bleak House, to Rosamonde Oliver's in Jane Eyre, to the most famous portrait of them all, Dorian's in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I will tell you more about Mary Elizabeth Braddon's biography when I read it! Xxx 💖💝❤️💄💋
P.S. Her diaries have been digitized & are available online by the University of Austin, Texas. There is no edited collection of the letters and diaries though.
#thelipstickpapers #beauty #Cyprus #Victorians #MaryElizabethBraddon#ThePictureofDorianGray #Texas #Victorians #Belgravia