11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mary Braddon's First Novel Is a Lurid Melodrama, May 16, 2003
This review is from: The Trail of the Serpent (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)
Mary Elizabeth Braddon's first novel is a lurid melodrama in which you see plenty of crimes -- murder, blackmail, revenge, etc. Every element found in melodramaric story is thrown into the book, and not surprisingly, it even has some rudimentary detective novel quality.
The story is rather simple; it is about a man called "Daredevil Dick" who is wrongly arrested for killing his rich uncle. Despite the strong belief of Mr. Peters (who is to play the detective role) that Richard is innocent, his plea is ignored.
But that is only the beginning of the gripping story, which goes between a muddy town of Slopperton and fashoionable society of Paris. The story is too improbable but thankfully always moving on, providing many dramatic and often humorous moments about the fate of Richard and those who try to rescue him, and it culminates in the their hunt for the villain who vanished his trail from the crime scene.
The book is weak as a detective novel, so do not expect something like "The Moonstone." As I said, it is more like a melodrama, and there are countless occasions of incredible coincidences. But that is one of the conventions you can find in this kind of popular novels intended for commercial purpose. It is interesting for us to see that Braddon does not still find her own voice; her style in this book is a strange concoction of Dickens and melodrama. Read the opening chapter and you instantly recognize the influence of Dickensian sentences about the rainy London in "Bleak House."
The novel itself (which was first published as "Three Times Dead" and later revised and retitled as the present one) is not as good as her works like "Lady Audley's Secret" and others, its flaws being too palpable. Still, if you like her novels or these Victorian or 19th century thriller -- like Eugene Sue's novels -- you might be interested in the book as I was.
This modern library edition has Sarah Waters' introduction (which I found not so impressive), but more remarkable thing about it is that it has also the afterword and notes by acclaimed Victorian scholar Chris Willis. The notes (32 pages) are extensive and helpful, but more helpful is her afterword, which puts Braddon in context of the history of detective fiction. Much more informative than obligatory "further reading" list.
And the book also has the reprint of Braddon's own memoir titled "My First Novel" published in 1893. This short account by her own pen does not reveal much about the book or herself, but it has several clear-cut illustrations of her house in Richmond.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
panache, dash, and brio, April 8, 2003
This review is from: The Trail of the Serpent (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)
Pure pleasure, or nearly so, from beginning to end. Written in surprisingly accessible prose (for a nineteenth-century novel, that is), Trail of the Serpent zips from reversal to counter-reversal, including one that knocked me completely for a loop, and I pride myself on figuring these sorts of things out. There are the odd longueurs, particularly in the last third, but this is a great rediscovery, and if you're at all fond of Woman in White, Moonstone, Drood, etc., you'll have a blast.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Not my favorite Bradden, March 28, 2009
This review is from: The Trail of the Serpent (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)
I love the late Victorian Sensationalist genre. The best known author from that school is Wilkie Collins but it also includes Margaret Oliphant, Ellen Woods, & Mary Bradden. I've read other of Braddon's books and enjoyed them but this former actress turned writer left me a bit lost with her first book.....and this was supposedly a re-working from her original book. She threw in every plot device she could think of which made for confusion. There were some fun parts but also dull, rambling passages that seemed to go on and on. Serpent was my least favorite books of '09 (as of March, 2009).
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