Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915) became a best-selling author in 1862 with Lady Audley’s Secret. The twenty-seven-year-old’s route to fame led from a broken home, through a clandestine seven years as an actress, to a bigamous relationship with the publisher who first revealed Lady Audley to the world as a serial in one of his magazines. Surviving scandal and critical scorn, Braddon became one of the most celebrated and respected authors of the nineteenth century.