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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not exactly my cup of tea, but..., April 5, 2006
I picked up an old copy of this Victorian novel in a used bookstore. It's not the sort of book I usually like much - the oft-told story of a woman seduced by a villain into leaving her happy home, and the shame, remorse, and misery that follow her downfall - but I found it very readable, I would even say a page-turner. Plenty of pathos and moralizing, as there generally is in these things, but much better than I expected.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A little far-fetched..., August 10, 2008
This review is from: East Lynne (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)
If Danielle Steele had lived in the 1860s, East Lynne is probably the type of novel she would have written. Murder, disguise, adultery, divorce, illegitimate children--and oh, yeah, a horde of bats--are at the center of this sensationalist novel that was in and of itself a reflection of the time period in which it was written. When William Vane, Earl of Mount Severn, dies, destroyed by debt, his daughter, the Lady Isabel, marries a country solicitor, Archibald Carlyle. Later, she abandons her husband and children in favor of a well-known rake, Francis Levison. When he abandons her and her illegitimate child, Lady Isabel becomes, in an ironic twist, governess at East Lynne. It's a pretty far-fetched book, all things considering, and the foreshadowing is laid on pretty thick. In one scene, a horde of bats appears at East Lynne one night; next thing you know, the Lady Isabel's father is dead. The novel is full of people "screaming," "crying," "sobbing," and "raving," instead of simply "saying" things. It's pretty much all the melodrama you could ask for, and more. Ellen Wood wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, a good writer--at one point, when Francis Levison sneaks around in the bushes listening in on a conversation between Barbara Hare and Mr. Carlyle, the author describes him as "strolling down like a serpent behind the hedge." Oh, if only serpents could stroll! There are also minor inconsistencies; for example, when Mr. Carlyle marries for a second time, his sister moves back to her old home; but later on, the author informs her reader than Miss Carlyle abandoned her room upstairs for one downstairs. So this is definitely a book that's passed out of the canon because it's so quaint and dated. But it seems as though Ellen Wood sure knew how to titillate her Victorian readers.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you like Wilkie Collins, grab this book., July 15, 2010
This review is from: East Lynne (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)
Potboiler, purple prose, hyperbole... perhaps. Frankly, I found this book to be addictive in its plot twists, melodrama, and suspense. Upon publication, East Lynne was indeed hugely successful, sellling over a half a million copies by the turn of the century. Twenty years after this Victorian bestseller's first appearance in 1861, its author, Mrs. Henry [Ellen] Wood, managed to garner more votes than Shakespeare and Dickens combined as polled reader's 'favorite author'(based, one supposes almost entirely on the popularity of East Lynne). Personally, I found this now-forgotten suspense classic to be highly engaging, artfully plotted ~ and certainly, one of the finest sensation novels ever penned. Highly recommended for devotees of romantic suspense ~ and a must-read for fans of Wilkie Collins, M.E. Braddon ~ or even Dickens.
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