BleakChesneyWold

                               A  Classic Sensation Novel                                                      ' Lady Audley's Secret'  (first installments in 1861- completed in 1862) is both a Victorian 'bigamy' and 'sensation' novel. Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre'  ( 1847) is the prime example of the former, with poor Jane in church all set to become Mrs Rochester, only to discover that husband to be already has an insane wife shut up in the attic.  In 'Lady Audley's Secret'  and the next Braddon novel 'Aurora Floyd' (1864), it is in fact the leading female characters that have committed bigamy, both deceiving second husbands. Braddon accepted that these two books were ' bigamy novels' . EDWARDS As for a definition of 'sensation' novels, there seem to be several key themes. Firstly melodrama such as murder, attempted murder, arson, has to occur. There has to be a villain. There is a lingering over human despa

                                    A Press Release from The Byron Society  Something a little different .... Press Release submitted by the Byron Society on 26th February 2024 : National statue of the poet Lord Byron to be rescued from neglect 200 years after his death in Greece A planning application has been submitted to Westminster City Council to rescue one of London’s neglected and forgotten gems, the national Byron Memorial Statue, and relocate it from its current position on a traffic island on London's Park Lane to a publicly accessible, high profile location near Hyde Park’s Victoria Gate. The project forms part of the many activities around the world that will take place to commemorate the 200-year-anniversary of Lord Byron's death at Missonlonghi in Greece in April 2024.  The initiative is spearheaded by The Byron Society, a charitable membership organisation dedicated to the poet Lord Byron. The Grade II Listed 19th century statue was erected as a national memorial