The Trail of the Serpent - Braddon, Mary Elizabeth
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Victorian England's best-selling woman novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon still captivates readers with this chilling story of murder, betrayal, and friendship. Hailed as the first detective novel, The Trail of the Serpent is enjoying a much deserved revival. The Trail of the Serpent is both a sensation novel and a detective novel. It has all of the usual elements of a sensation novel, including family secrets, crime, and adultery (a ruse, in this case), and it depicts these as features of middle- and upper-class life. Yet The Trail's role as a detective novel is arguably more important, for…mehr

Produktbeschreibung
Victorian England's best-selling woman novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon still captivates readers with this chilling story of murder, betrayal, and friendship. Hailed as the first detective novel, The Trail of the Serpent is enjoying a much deserved revival. The Trail of the Serpent is both a sensation novel and a detective novel. It has all of the usual elements of a sensation novel, including family secrets, crime, and adultery (a ruse, in this case), and it depicts these as features of middle- and upper-class life. Yet The Trail's role as a detective novel is arguably more important, for while it is an early example of both genres, it has the distinction of being the first British detective novel. It predates, and, in many respects, influenced Wilkie Collins's Moonstone and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock series, but unlike these works, The Trail's place in the history of detective fiction has often been overlooked. "Readers will find a great deal of social criticism, some subtle and some not so subtle, in Braddon's fearless first novel. There are attacks on hypocrisy, the permanency of marriage, and other topics, but The Trail is especially progressive in its portrayal of physical difference (or "disability") and hand-based communication. In this respect, it stands out against other Victorian novels, many of which have acquired a dismal reputation for contributing to the creation of "disability" as a concept that stigmatizes and marginalizes real-life people. In The Trail, Braddon often represents her female characters in ways that defy typical Victorian gender norms. Unlike some of Dickens's novels, there are no doll-like women or perfect Angel-in-the-House heroines. Today, it continues to be as fascinating in its social commentary as it is entertaining to read." (Catherine M. Welter, Introduction to The Trail of the Serpent)
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Autorenporträt
Mary Elizabeth Braddon (4 October 1835 - 4 February 1915) was an English popular novelist of the Victorian era. She is best known for her 1862 sensation novel Lady Audley's Secret, which has also been dramatised and filmed several times. Born in London, Mary Elizabeth Braddon was privately educated. Her mother Fanny separated from her father Henry in 1840, when Mary was five. When Mary was ten years old, her brother Edward Braddon left for India and later Australia, where he became Premier of Tasmania. Mary worked as an actress for three years, when she was befriended by Clara and Adelaide Biddle. They were only playing minor roles, but Braddon was able to support herself and her mother. Adelaide noted that Braddon's interest in acting waned as she took up writing novels. In 1860, Mary met John Maxwell (1824-1895), a publisher of periodicals, and moved in with him in 1861. However, Maxwell was already married with five children, and a wife living in an mental asylum in Ireland. Mary acted as stepmother to his children until 1874, when Maxwell's wife died and they were able to get married. She had six children by him. Her eldest daughter, Fanny Margaret Maxwell (1863-1955), married the naturalist Edmund Selous on 13 January 1886. In the 1920s they lived in Wyke Castle, where Fanny founded a local branch of the Woman's Institute in 1923, of which she became the first president. The second eldest son was the novelist William Babington Maxwell (1866-1939). Mary Elizabeth Braddon died on 4 February 1915 in Richmond (then in Surrey) and is interred in Richmond Cemetery. Her home had been Lichfield House in the centre of the town, which was replaced by a block of flats in 1936, Lichfield Court, now listed. She has a plaque in Richmond parish church, which calls her simply "Miss Braddon". A number of nearby streets are named after characters in her novels - her husband was a property developer in the area.