When the elderly Allan Armadale makes a terrible confession on his death-bed, he has little idea of the repercussions to come, for the secret he reveals involves the mysterious Lydia Gwilt: flame-haired temptress, bigamist, laudanum addict and husband-poisoner. Her malicious intrigues fuel the plot of this gripping melodrama: a tale of confused identities, inherited curses, romantic rivalries, espionage, money--and murder. The character of Lydia Gwilt horrified contemporary critics, with one reviewer describing her as -One of the most hardened female villains whose devices and desires have...

Victorian novelist Mary Ward, best known to her contemporaries as Mrs. Humphry Ward, was one of the most successful and complex women of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into the powerful but patriarchal dynasty of Thomas Arnold of Rugby, she lived at the center of an intellectual and cultural circle peopled by such eminent figures as Mark Pattison, Thomas Huxley, and Charles Darwin. Her novel Robert Elsmere (1888), the first in a series of bestsellers, earned her both unprecedented sums of money and the critical respect of such writers as Henry James. She helped found Somerville...

John Sutherland's new critical biography is an undertaking of major importance in which he penetrates into the darker areas of Scott's life in a sceptical (yet sympathetic) spirit,

An engaging guide to a rich literary heritage, The Stanford Companion presents a fascinating parade of novels, authors, publishers, editors, reviewers, illustrators, and periodicals that created the culture of Victorian fiction. Its more than 6,000 alphabetical entries provide an incomparable range of useful and little-known source material, its scholarship enlivened by the author's wit and candor.