Rains on Lady Audley's Secret Crimes @DickinsonLaw

Robert E. Rains, Pennsylvania State University, Dickinson Law School, has published Lady Audley's Secret Crimes. Here is the abstract.

The great Victorian “sensation novel,” M. E. Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret (1862) is a complex tale of deception and worse by a seemingly innocent lady of society. The story raises many questions of class, loyalty, subterfuge, sexuality, etc. These questions have been deeply explored in literary criticism, but, until now, it appears that no one has directly addressed the numerous legal issues created by Lady Audley’s one-woman crime spree. This essay seeks to fill that void in a somewhat light-hearted manner.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Katz on The Fatal Flaw in The Fatal Three: Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Treatment of the Law Relating to Marriage Between a Widower and His Deceased Wife's Sister

Leslie Katz has published The Fatal Flaw in The Fatal Three: Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Treatment of the Law Relating to Marriage between a Widower and His Deceased Wife’s Sister. Here is the abstract.

After setting out the general legal background and summarising the story so far as it's relevant, the paper explains how an error on Mary Elizabeth Braddon's part relating to the legal effect of illegitimacy sent her novel The Fatal Three off the rails.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.