Aurora Floyd - Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Aurora Floyd Is One Of The Leading Novels In The Genre Known As Sensation Fictiona Tradition In Which The Key Texts Include Wilkie Collinss The Woman In White, Ellen Woods East Lynne, And Dickenss Great Expectations. When Aurora Floyd Was First Published In Serial Form In 1862-63, Frasers Magazine Asserted That A Book Without A Murder, A Divorce, A Seduction, Or A Bigamy, Is Not Apparently Considered Either Worth Writing Or Reading; And A Mystery And A Secret Are The Chief Qualifications Of The Modern Novel.the Novel Depicts A Heroine Trapped In An Abusive And Adulterous Marriage, And Effectively Dramatizes The Extra-legal Pressures Which Kept Many Such Unhappy Marriages Out Of The Courts: Fear Of Personal Scandal, And Of Betraying Ones Family Through The Publicity And Expense Of The Process. Auroras Bigamous Marriage Dramatizes The Need For Expeditious Divorce Without The Enormous Social Cost, But The Overt Sexuality Of The Heroine Shocked Contemporary Critics.