The Doctor's Wife

Written by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Narrated by Kirsten Wever

When The Doctor's Wife was first published in 1864, Mary Elizabeth Braddon was well known for her scandalous bestseller, Lady Audley's Secret. Adultery, death, and the spectacle of female recrimination and suffering are the elements that combine to make The Doctor's Wife a classic women's 'sensation' novel. Yet it is also Braddon's most self-consciously literary work and her rewriting of Madame Bovary. Like Emma Bovary, Braddon's heroine, Isabel Gilbert, is trapped in a marriage to a man incapable of understanding her imaginative life. But Braddon's novel differs vastly from Flaubert's in the nature and consequences of Isabel's 'affair'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erika
• Release date: Jan 30, 2023

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835–1915) was an English novelist and actress during the Victorian era. Although raised by a single mother, Braddon was educated at private institutions where she honed her creative skills. As a young woman, she worked as a theater actress to support herself and her family. When interest faded, she shifted to writing and produced her most notable work Lady Audley's Secret. It was one of more than 80 novels Braddon wrote of the course of an expansive career.