Erica’s Reviews > The Maniac in the Cellar: Sensation Novels of the 1860s > Status Update

"In her novels, the worst sort of crime is passionless and calculating--is always associated with a concern for appearances and a high standing in the world's estimation" (Braddon)

Braddon explores the underside of feminine image.

Braddon's writing characterized as jaunty, cynical, tough

never written a line that was not against time (Braddon)

both Braddon and Wood write about "marriage as an unsatisfactory or illusory state instead of relegating it to a happy ending"

1863 was height of sensation vogue.

characters as "real, living, breathing" men and women with whom reader feels intimately acquainted"

common complaint = Braddon knows too much about men.

central heroine's moral ambivalence. WOMAN-fictional prominence, disturbed accepted social order

sensation fiction collided with domestic novel