Books with author M E (Mary Elizabeth) 1837-19 Braddon

A hugely popular novel described as "the most sensationally successful of all the sensation novels", Braddon's complex and intriguing story revolves around the theme of accidental bigamy. The plot was recently summarized as: "Braddon's bigamous heroine deserts her child, pushes husband number one down a well, thinks about poisoning husband number two and sets fire to a hotel in which her other male acquaintances are residing." The runaway success of her best seller allowed Braddon to be financially independent for the rest of her life. Just as accessible and enjoyable for today's modern readers as it would have been when first published over 100 years ago, the novel is one of the great works of English literature and continues to be widely read throughout the world.This meticulous edition from Heritage Illustrated Publishing is a faithful reproduction of the original text.

(...)"CHAPTER I.THE NEWS COMES.THERE is an unwonted stir one morning in June in the ordinarily quiet, not to say stagnant, household of Major the Honourable John Herries. Jane, the youngest daughter of the house, opens her slumber-laden eyes and blinks them with a mixture of alarm and bewilderment at the dazzling sunbeams which are streaming in at her uncurtained window, as after a sound as of a mighty and rushing wind a young lady rushes into the room, her white cashmere tea-gown streaming several yards behind her, with the words:(...)"

... There are some who think it is a wicked thing to dance on a Sunday evening, even after one has worshipped at one's parish church faithfully and reverently on Sunday morning ; some there are who think it is wicked to dance at all ; and there are others who worship in dancing, and are moved to wild leanings and whirlings by the spirit of piety ; others, again, who are devil-dancers, and worship the principle of evil in their demoniac gyrations. But, assuredly, of all who ever danced upon this earth, none ever danced on the edge'' of a more terrible volcano than that which trembled and throbbed under the feet of those light hearted revellers tonight — happy, unforeseeing, rejoicing in the balmy breath of summer, the starlit sky, the warmth and the flowers, with no thought that this fair Paris, whitely beautiful in the sheen of starlight and moonlight, was like a phantasmal or fairy city— a city of palaces which were soon to sink in dust and ashes, beauty that was to be changed for burning, while joy and love fled shrieking from a carnival of blood and fire. Even tonight there were bystanders in the lami>lit garden who shooK their heads solemnly as they talked of the probability of war with Prussia. The battle of Sadowa had been the beginning of evil. France had played into the hands of her most dangerous rival, and had been swindled out of the price of her neutrality. To have allowed Austria to be crushed by Bismarck was worse than a crime, it was a blunder. And now all the signs and tokens of the time pointed to the likelihood of war. The day had come when the overweening ambition of the house of Brandenburg inust be checked, and in the opinion of the Bonapartists tlie onus to fight was upon ...

This early work by Mary Elizabeth Braddon was originally published in 1898 and we are now republishing it with a brand new biography of the author. 'Rough Justice' is one of Braddon's novels in the sensation literature genre. Mary Elizabeth Braddon was born in Soho, London, England in 1835. She was educated privately in England and France, and at the age of just nineteen was offered a commission by a local printer to produce a serial novel "combining the humour of Dickens with the plot and construction of G. P. R. Reynolds" What emerged was Three Times dead, or The Secret of the Heath, which was published five years later under the title The Trail of the Serpent (1861). For the rest of her life, Braddon was an extremely prolific writer, producing more than eighty novels, while also finding time to write and act in a number of stage plays.

It lay down in a hollow, rich with fine old timber and luxuriant pastures; and you came upon it through an avenue of limes, bordered on either side by meadows, over the high hedges of which the cattle looked inquisitively at you as you passed, wondering, perhaps, what you wanted; for there was no thorough-fare, and unless you were going to the Court you had no business there at all. At the end of this avenue there was an old arch and a clock tower, with a stupid, bewildering clock, which had only one hand—and which jumped straight from one hour to the next—and was therefore always in extremes. Through this arch you walked straight into the gardens of Audley Court. A smooth lawn lay before you, dotted with groups of rhododendrons, which grew in more perfection here than anywhere else in the county. To the right there were the kitchen gardens, the fish-pond, and an orchard bordered by a dry moat, and a broken ruin of a wall, in some places thicker than it was high, and everywhere overgrown with trailing ivy, yellow stonecrop, and dark moss. To the left there was a broad graveled walk, down which, years ago, when the place had been a convent, the quiet nuns had walked hand in hand; a wall bordered with espaliers, and shadowed on one side by goodly oaks, which shut out the flat landscape, and circled in the house and gardens with a darkening shelter. The house faced the arch, and occupied three sides of a quadrangle. It was very old, and very irregular and rambling. The windows were uneven; some small, some large, some with heavy stone mullions and rich stained glass; others with frail lattices that rattled in every breeze; others so modern that they might have been added only yesterday. Great piles of chimneys rose up here and there behind the pointed gables, and seemed as if they were so broken down by age and long service that they must have fallen but for the straggling ivy which, crawling up the walls and trailing even over the roof, wound itself about them and supported them. The principal door was squeezed into a corner of a turret at one angle of the building, as if it were in hiding from dangerous visitors, and wished to keep itself a secret—a noble door for all that—old oak, and studded with great square-headed iron nails, and so thick that the sharp iron knocker struck upon it with a muffled sound, and the visitor rung a clanging bell that dangled in a corner among the ivy, lest the noise of the knocking should never penetrate the stronghold.