Lady Audley's Secret

Lucy Graham, radiantly beautiful, born to poverty, and Sir Michael Audley, aging aristocratic widower and fabulously wealthy, are married soon after first glance.  Life is peaceful at old Audley Court until the arrival of Robert Audley– Sir Michael’s nephew– and his friend George Talboys, who is home again after making his fortune in Australia.  When George mysteriously disappears, Robert takes it upon himself to find him again. Developing a detective’s eye, following disturbing clue after clue, Robert becomes convinced his alluring Aunt Lucy isn’t as innocent, or possibly as sane, as she seems. Lady Audley’s Secret first appeared in Robin Goodfellow magazine in 1861, establishing it as a “sensational” novel to rival Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White (1860). A cunningly plotted mystery novel as sensual as a Pre-Raphaelite portrait, Lady Audley’s Secret probes mid-Victorian anxieties about the rapid rise of consumerism with the invention of one of literature’s great villainesses who goes to great lengths to secure her greatest desires.