Weathering critical scorn, Lady Audley`s Secret (1862) quickly established Mary Elizabeth Braddon as the leading light of Victorian `sensation` fiction, sharing the honour only with Wilkie Collins. Addictive, cunningly plotted and certainly sensational, Lady Audley`s Secret draws on contemporary theories of insanity to probe mid-Victorian anxiety and the doubts that accompanied the rapid rise of consumer culture. What is the mystery surrounding Mary Elizabeth Braddon`s artful and charming heroine? Lady Audley`s secret is investigated by Robert Audley, aristocrat turned detective, in a novel that has lost none of its power to disturb and entertain.