Lady Audley's Secret

The novel centers on "accidental bigamy" which was in literary fashion in the early 1860s. The plot was summarized by literary critic Elaine Showalter (1982): "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." Elements of the novel mirror themes of the real-life Constance Kent case of June 1860 which gripped the nation for years with headlines.