Thou Art the Man (Valancourt Classics) [Paperback]

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (Author), Laurence Talairach-Vielmas (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1934555371 | ISBN-13: 978-1934555378 | Publication Date: February 15, 2008

Ten years ago, a shocking murder cut short a blossoming romance between beautiful young heiress Sibyl Higginson and her cousin Brandon Mountford. When Mountford, an epileptic subject to seizures and memory loss, awakened near a bloody corpse, he was forced to escape to avoid execution for the crime. The years passed, nothing was heard of Mountford, and it was supposed he had either died or fled the country.

A decade later, Sibyl, now Lady Penrith, is travelling along a desolate moor when a crazed man stops her carriage and hands her a scrawled note. Believing the note to be from Mountford, Sibyl sets out to investigate, and with the help of her niece Coralie Urquhart she will uncover the long-hidden truth behind the murder and the horrible fate of Brandon Mountford!

Thou Art the Man (1894) is a thrilling and fast-paced novel of murder and mystery. It is also, as Laurence Talairach-Vielmas discusses in her introduction to this edition, a fascinating look at the ways Braddon adapted late-Victorian theories of heredity, disease, and criminology into her fiction. This edition reprints the unabridged text of the 1895 "yellowback" edition, complete with a facsimile of its cover, and includes a new introduction and explanatory notes.

Product Details

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Valancourt Books (February 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934555371
• ISBN-13: 978-1934555378
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,319,765 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good addition to anyone's Braddon collection, December 21, 2008

By 

Robin Barrow (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thou Art the Man (Valancourt Classics) (Paperback)

Though shorter and written 33 years later, Thou Art the Man harkens back to some of the themes of Braddon's 1861 hit, Lady Audley's Secret. A written trace, a sample of handwriting, begins the mystery, and fears of hereditary madness abound. There isn't a fiendish Lady Audley figure, but there is Coralie, best described as a "Girl of the Period" (in Eliza Lynn Linton's phrase) who talks slang and likes to ride. Braddon presents Cora as a potential writer by embedding entries from her diary. Coralie's conflict between loyalty and her conscience adds depth to her character. I disliked her immensely for much of the book, but she won me at last.

The book's material features are excellent. The binding is sound, the typeface is easy to read, and the margins are suitable for a course-text. The introduction includes some useful information, but be sure not to read it until you finish the book.