Lady Audleys Secret Easyread Edition

It tells the story of Lady Audley who is young, beautiful, wicked, and manipulative. In spite of her revengeful schemes and criminal acts, the author creates sympathy for the heroine as she is a victim of social injustice. Set in the Victorian period, it keeps the reader guessing till the end with its surprising twits. It is one of the most widely read novels even today.

As Sir Michael Audley celebrates his marriage to Lucy Graham, his nephew, the barrister Robert Audley, welcomes his old friend George Talboys back to England, after three years of gold prospecting in Australia. George finds out that his wife Helen has died and that his son is under the care of his father in law. After settling the matter of the boy's guardianship, the Robert and Geroge set off to visit Sir Michael. While at the country manor Audley Court, Lady Audley avoids meeting George, and when the two seek an audience with the new Lady Audley, she makes many excuses to avoid their visit. Shortly thereafter, George disappears during a visit to Audley Court, much to Robert's consternation. Unwilling to believe that George has simply left suddenly and without notice, Robert begins to look into the circumstances around George's strange disappearance. His notes indicate the involvement of Lady Audley, much to his chagrin, and he slowly begins to collect evidence against her.

Bigamy, arson, and murder are among the secrets a seemingly perfect lady is concealing in this 1862 "sensation novel," a source of intriguing insights into Victorian anxieties about social rank and identity.

Lady Audley's Secret is a sensation novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon published in 1862. It was Braddon's most successful and well-known novel. Critic John Sutherland (1989) described the work as "the most sensationally successful of all the sensation novels". The plot centres on "accidental bigamy" which was in literary fashion in the early 1860s.