Yet despite her provocative characterisation, the novel concludes with Aurora in her “proper” role as a respectably married mother, “bending over the cradle of her first-born” in the south of France (459). She is frequently compared to Cleopatra, evoking the image of a sultry temptress who uses her sexual appeal to gain power over men, a frightening threat to male-dominated ideologies of marriage during the mid-nineteenth century. Throughout the novel, Braddon carefully constructs Aurora Floyd as an independent, active young woman who routinely defies the strictures of Victorian feminine propriety. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.On your first reading of Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Aurora Floyd (1863), you may come away feeling betrayed. Edward's introduction evaluates the novel's leading place among `bigamy-novels' and Braddon's treatment of the power struggle between the sexes, as well as considering the similarities between the author and her heroine.Ībout the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. She represents a challenge to the mid-Victorian sexual code, and particularly to the feminine ideal of simpering, angelic young ladyhood. Passionate, sometimes violent, Aurora does succeed in enjoying them, her desires scarcely chastened by her disastrous first marriage.
But in Aurora Floyd, and in many of the novels written in imitation of it, bigamy is little more than a euphemism, a device to enable the heroine, and vicariously the reader, to enjoy the forbidden sweets of adultery without adulterous intentions. Like Lady Audley, Aurora is a beautiful young woman bigamously married and threatened with exposure by a blackmailer. Aurora Floyd (1862-3), following hot on its heels, achieved almost equal popularity and notoriety. With Lady Audley's Secret, Mary Elizabeth Braddon had established herself, alongside Wilkie Collins and Mrs Henry Wood, as one of the ruling triumvirate of `sensation novelists'.
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