Pages: 384
Original date of publication: 1863
My copy: 1984 (Virago Modern Classics)
Why I decided to read:
How I acquired my copy: bookshop in Charing Cross Road,
London, September 2011
Aurora Floyd is a member of that genre of novels called
Victorian sensationalist fiction. Published in the 1860s, sensationalist
novels, mostly written by women, addressed the fears that people of that era
had and addressed issues such as adultery, bigamy, murder, and other scandalous
social issues. Nothing is ever what it seems in a novel like this. This novel
has all the classic elements of this brand of novel: a young woman, Aurora
Floyd has a deep, dark secret, which leads her to reject marriage proposals
from two men (but then accept one). As the story plays out, her secret
threatens to come out as well and destroy the life she’s created.
Aurora isn’t your typical Victorian heroine, but given the
heroines we seem in fiction these days, she’s pretty much the same as the rest:
she’s strong-willed, unfeminine, active, and willing to defy contemporary
social issues. She’s not subversive in the way that Lady Audley is; she doesn’t
actively try to create a new persona for herself. In the end, despite her
so-called unlikeable traits, we come to like her and sympathize with her. Still,
Aurora is a fascinating character. Also fascinating are the themes; it’s
interesting that she’s the daughter of an actress, because in essence the whole
novel is kind of like a stage play, with melodrama and dramatic illusion.
Although the subject matter is tame to our modern
sensibilities, it’s important to look at the environment in which they were
written. Lady Audley’s Secret was written just before this book; and Ellen Wood’s
East Lynne was published at around the same time. The newspaper reviewers of
the time were brutal towards writers of sensationalist novels, especially
towards what they perceived as moral laxity. “Sensationalist novels as a whole
were called into existence to supply the cravings of a diseased appetite,”
wrote the Quarterly Review in 1863. Writers of sensationalist fiction poked fun
of various aspects of daily life, including conventional marriage (Aurora’s
cousin Lucy is an example of such). So its interesting to see how the exposure
of the underbelly of Victorian mores, as well as the reaction to it, both say
something about the time period in which these books were written.
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