♦ Cet ebook bénéficie d’une mise en page esthétique optimisée pour la lecture numérique. ♦ VERSION INTÉGRALE : TOME I et II RÉUNIS Quel terrible secret dissimule la belle Lady Audley ? Dans ce roman trop peu connu, issu de la plus pure tradition du XIXe siècle anglais, Mary Elizabeth Braddon nous livre une intrigue passionnante proche du "roman policier" et des oeuvres de Wilkie Collins. Sa narration au style efficace invite le lecteur à un véritable "jeu de piste" qui l’entraîne de pages en pages dans une histoire machiavélique et effrayante. Sous sa plume précise vous découvrirez tout le charme de la campagne et des manoirs anglais et la fatalité des destins de leurs habitants. Parfaitement construit, ce magnifique roman saura surprendre le lecteur qui pensera à tort détenir toutes les clés de l"énigme.

Lady Audley’s Secret has been called "the most sensationally successful of all the sensational novels". The success of the book, along with Mary Elizabeth Braddon"s other bestseller, Aurora Floyd, established the author as the main rival of the master of the sensational novel, Wilkie Collins. A protest against the passive, insipid 19th-century heroine, Lady Audley was described by one critic of the time as "high-strung, full of passion, purpose, and movement." Her crime (the secret of the title) is shown to threaten the apparently respectable middle-class world of Victorian England. The story centres on "accidental bigamy" which was in literary fashion in the early 1860s. The plot was summarised 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. The follow-up novel (Aurora Floyd) appeared in 1863. There have been three silent film adaptations, one UK television version in 2000, and three minor stage adaptations.