Lady Audley’s Secret

This book has been on my TBR list for years, and it feels good to cross it off my classics book club list finally. Lady Audley’s Secret is one of those gothic “sensation” novels in the style of Wilkie Collins’ books. Indeed, it has often been compared along with The Woman in White by Collins.

Book Synopsis

A middle-aged, affluent Sir Audley marries a young and charming governess from his village. Soon it becomes evident that his new wife is hiding some secret from her past.

When his nephew Robert Audley’s friend goes suddenly missing from their house in Audley Court, his suspicions fall on Lady Audley, and soon he’s doing an in-depth investigation of her background.

My Review

I always tell people hesitant to embark on a classic to start with some of the easier ones – Pride and Prejudice, The Woman in White, and now, I will recommend Lady Audley’s Secret.

For one, it’s entirely plot-driven. If you are a suspense or thrills junkie such as I am, this is a perfect pick because of the fast-moving and exciting story.

Second, the language, characters, and plot are reasonably accessible, and you won’t find too many long-winded monologues (there are some, but not tedious). Still, for all intents and purposes, this is a tightly plotted thriller that doesn’t waste any time getting to the heart of the mystery.

The secret as such in the title is not a secret to us. The author has used that omniscient story-telling style, giving all the information to us readers, making it easy for us to guess the secret. The thrill lies in the cat and mouse game between Lady Audley and her nephew, who wants to expose her. Each time Robert comes close to revealing her secret, it seems she dances lightly away, and that game between the two is the heart and soul of the book.

So I enjoyed these sections of the book. But there are also some troubling parts.

Spoilers abound – Beware

There is a lot of hysterical criticism about Lady Audley’s actions in the book. When her husband abandons her, she takes on a new name and marries a rich man.

Ohh! The criticism that is leveled at her! Nobody remembers that it was her husband who left her, who ran away to Australia, and stayed incommunicado for almost three years, and left her and her child with only her alcoholic father for support.

What is an unskilled woman without any training but with striking good looks going to do? For some time, she worked as a governess, but when a rich man is attracted to her, of course, she will accept his proposal of marriage. Who wouldn’t? And how can the world judge her without first evaluating the actions of her husband, who left her first?

These aspects of the book annoyed me to the core. I am also not sure about the author’s tone and whether she condones that criticism leveled at Lady Audley by various characters in the book or whether she agrees.

Robert Audley’s misogyny is blatant:

But since the author deigns to comment on his mouthing off, and because he is the story’s hero, I ended up with a rather uncomfortable feeling about the book.

There’s also a section on insanity, which is written in a very tongue-in-cheek style. It served to remind me just how easy it seems to have been in Victorian times for men to declare their female relatives insane and have them clapped up in an asylum (see The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins for a similar theme).

I was a bit disappointed with the insanity plot construct, which is used to justify Lady Audley’s actions. What that means for the book is that no one needs to look deeply into the circumstances that made Lady Audley into what she is and that nobody (thinking of her first husband here) feels the need to take accountability for their actions that made her what she is.

Even the doctor who agrees to place her in an asylum says:

Despite his misgivings, the doctor allows himself to be persuaded to commit her to an asylum – probably convinced because of Lord Audley’s money and position in society and the scandal that would be caused if the whole story of Lady Audley’s background comes to light.

All these men arbitrarily deciding a woman’s fate left me with a bad taste in the mouth.

All said and done, though, this was the Victorian times, and the book acts as a mirror to Victorian attitudes, and so, while I may not like some aspects of this book, it is good to read and to serve as a reminder of how far we have come since then.

Overall Thoughts

I thought this book made a fantastic thriller. It kept me on my toes, and even the ambiguity surrounding women and their roles in society did not reduce my pleasure in reading this book.

I read this book as part of my Classics club initiative to read 50 classics within five years.