Aurora Floyd

While I learned the hard way that you should never read the introduction to a "classic" if you want to be at all surprised by the book's contents, I've never had a book so thoroughly spoiled by the back cover blurb before! Thanks a lot, Oxford World's Classics. Though it's not like the mystery is that difficult to figure out, I would have appreciated a little more ambiguity from the publishers.

That said, I really enjoyed this book; it took me back to when I was 14 and would stay up all night because I couldn't put down The Woman in White or some other Wilkie Collins novel. I've long since worked my way through his canon (though I'm still working on his more obscure and, usually, less satisfying works), but I'm still just scratching the show more surface of Ms. Braddon's oeuvre. I found Aurora Floyd a real page-turner and highly recommend to any fan of "sensation" literature. show less

This is Mary Elizabeth Braddon's second most famous novel after Lady Audley's Secret. Like that one it also concerns a respectable woman with, at least by the standards of the mid 19th century, a disreputable secret in her past. This slightly lacked the sparkle of the other novel, but still contained moments of drama and tension and some interesting characters. There is a murder central to the mystery of Aurora's past, though the identity of the culprit is hardly a surprise and I was slightly hoping for a last minute twist. As an author of Victorian sensationalist novels, Braddon is for me almost up there with Wilkie Collins, though she is undeservedly far less well known.

“Aurora Floyd” features an engaging plot. It’s essentially a domestic drama with something of the detective story thrown in.

I liked most of the characters, particularly Aurora and her cousin Lucy, who have contrasting personalities. Aurora is passionate, Lucy is placid, but both are kind-hearted.

I liked the book a lot, but the number of times that the narrator digresses is irritating. Typical to many other nineteenth-century novels, this one will break off from the story to ramble on about things in life that compare with what the characters are going through, which is needless and annoying. I don't want to read about how people in general feel/behave/react in certain situations, I want to read how the characters in this story show more feel/behave/react. Keep to the narrative.

We also get many references to other authors’ works, especially Shakespeare, which also annoyed me. The reader is expected to be familiar with all these other texts in order to understand the narrator’s meaning. Sometimes I understood, but on numerous occasions I was left clueless.

Apart from the above-mentioned criticisms, I rate this as a very good read. show less

One of my top two favorite books. I just love it and now I'm collecting various early editions, as well as other works by Braddon

One of my favorites. This is the yellowback edition with a great pictorial front board. Yellowbacks are great to collect because of these boards.

Love this book, one of my top two favorites. This is the paperback version and it's soooo easy to pick up and fall into.