Mary Braddon Drew Inspiration from Her Own Life?

by Jenna Walter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/aug/09/featuresreviews.guardianreview14

In the above article, fellow reader of british literature Lucasta Miller talks about Mary Braddon’s “Lady Audley’s Secret” and what she noticed as many similarities between Mary Braddon’s dramatically eventful life and the themes present in her book. I thought it was interesting to find an article on the front page of Google that was so relevant to our lectures, considering we have been discussing the backgrounds of each author we’ve read. I don’t think it’s too common for the lives of authors to be some of the most popular results on an internet search, but apparently with Braddon enough symbolism in her books was drawn from her life experiences that it warrants great discussion. I also found it intriguing that Mary Braddon was an actress for seven or eight years. This must have exercised her vivid imagination and inspired many of her stories.

However, Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s various bibliographies don’t remain entirely consistent with one another. In Miller’s article, she offers the reason for the divorce of Braddon’s parents (her father being a “crooked solicitor, who spent his time gambling, drinking and womanising”), mentions the sexual dangers that existed for a young girl in the theatre, and describes John Gilby as not just a commissioner of her poems but as a “sinister figure with withered legs, moving around on two sticks” who attempted to control her life. Furthermore, Miller describes Braddon’s relationship with her husband John Maxwell as secret and sinful because of the rumor that Mr. Maxwell was still married at the time to a woman in an insane asylum and it was only after her death in 1874 that Braddon and Maxwell could officially be wife and husband.

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/braddon/bio.html

On the other hand, in the above article by Phillip V. Allingham, he mentions the divorce of Braddon’s parents but doesn’t give any other explanation other than that Mary Braddon’s father was a Cornish solicitor who “attempted to get himself out of debt by writing for such periodicals as The Sportsman’s Magazine.” As for Braddon’s time in the theatre, Allingham doesn’t bring up anything of the dangers that would be associated with being young, female, and in a profession dominated by males. Oppositely, that is what Miller focuses on when she discusses Braddon’s theatrical career. Allingham also speaks of John Gilby as a sort of mentor to Braddon, and yet doesn’t spare more than two sentences explaining why. This is quite a different opinion of John Gilby than Miller described. Braddon and Maxwell’s relationship is not expanded on in Allingham’s article other than Maxwell’s first wife had been confined to a Dublin asylum and so Braddon took over as wife and mother to his children. There is a brief mention later of the woman’s death in 1874, but the element of secrecy involved in Braddon and Maxwell’s marriage that is present in Miller’s article is absent in Allingham’s. What Allingham continues to elaborate on about Braddon’s life that Miller doesn’t touch on is her experience with death and grief. Between 1866 and 1895, Mary Braddon loses her son Francis, her mother, her sister Maggie, and her husband John.

However Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s life actually played out, there are truths that we can take from each bibliography. It is known that her parents divorced, she spent time in the theater, she knew a man named John Gilby that helped to continue her writing career, she was in a relationship with John Maxwell for some time before they married, and she was no stranger to grief and sorrow by losing many loved ones in a relatively short span of time.

Mary Braddon was also witness to separation, secrecy and fake identities with her career in the theatre, the obvious domination that men possessed during that time in history, and potential bigamy. If one reflects on the characteristics of her most popular novel, “Lady Audley’s Secret”, and the themes present in Mary Braddon’s life, it’s no great leap to deduce that she wove much of her personal history into her sensation novels. It seems many of the authors we’ve talked about have had surprisingly hard or traumatic lives, with many issues related to their loved ones, but maybe the great sacrifice and pain that was so prevalent in Mary Braddon’s life influenced her great genius and inspiration, and consequently her main role as “Queen of Sensation”.