All Along the River

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

All Along the River : a novel (1893)

Genres: Classics

342 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1893

About the author

Mary Elizabeth Braddon was a British Victorian era popular novelist. She was an extremely prolific writer, producing some 75 novels with very inventive plots. The most famous one is her first novel, Lady Audley's Secret (1862), which won her recognition and fortune as well. The novel has been in print ever since, and has been dramatised and filmed several times.

Braddon also founded Belgravia Magazine (1866), which presented readers with serialized sensation novels, poems, travel narratives, and biographies, as well as essays on fashion, history, science. She also edited Temple Bar Magazine. Braddon's legacy is tied to the Sensation Fiction of the 1860s.

She is also the mother of novelist W.B. Maxwell.

Reviews

[Kate Howe · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars - I'm still not quite sure of the rating for this. There was a lot about this book I enjoyed - the Cornwall setting, the nautical elements, her lyrical writing that help you so vividly picture the setting, and the moral dilemmas characters are put in. What held me back from loving it was the stilted pacing - I kept thinking surely things would pick up and they didn't. These characters also fell flat for me. They didn't feel quite believable. I did think having a gap of six months in the plotline where the readers is left guessing what happened was pretty cool. Overall, an enjoyable Braddon.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this book as white noise to fall asleep to. But in the process, picked up the sights and sounds of life in the 1880s. It was interesting to hear what was important for women of their station to have at hand - always flowers, books, a piano and servants.

[Mbuye · Rating 1 out of 5]

Although I've tagged it as melodrama, this book is more of a sordid drama than a melodrama, as a young grass widow finds moonlight and roses in the company of a neighbouring wicked baron while her soldier husband is off fighting for country and honour in Burma – where his country has no business to be. The resident Mrs Danvers leaves in indignation and loyalty to her employer, the husband. Then the husband comes home, the wicked baron sails off in his yacht, and all might have been well had the Mrs Danvers not been replaced with a truly abominable cook - "her soup was watery, her fish was greasy, her poultry is hardly eatable," complains the husband the night he returns. And so the story drags on to the bitter and usual end to such stories.

This is not in Braddon's usual style of murder and bigamy and lost inheritance and lovers parted, but one of a bitter dawn awakening for both husband and wife. In fact, an almost Jesuitical spirit pervades the second half, and although the priest in question is Anglican, he is a dreadful fire-and-brimstone preacher. One could almost imagine Charlotte Mary Yonge is the author, with her love of mortality, martyrdom and redemption through the Church of England rather than Mary Elizabeth Braddon.

[Fizzgig · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story is not one of M.E. Braddon's best.

The pace is slow - even for a Victorian novel and Isola has very little agency even for a Victorian heroine.

The characters are rather flat and one dimensional and I positively wanted to slap the sanctimonious priest who forces the conclusion.

No - give me one of Braddon's 'imperfect' heroines - Sylvia from Taken at the flood or Sybil from Dead men's shoes.

I guess when you've written 80 or so books there always have to be a few duds

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Isola, the beautiful and loving bride of an older man, is living in the isolated village where her husband grew up, along with his faithful old nanny as a companion and servant, while he is off in India fighting for their country. The local nobleman, a scoundrel, befriends her and tries to win her heart.
I listened to this novel as a free download from LibriVox.org. First published in 1893.