The Trail of the Serpent

<p>Victorian England's best-selling woman novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon still captivates readers with this chilling story of murder betrayal and friendship. Hailed as the first detective novel The Trail of the Serpent is enjoying a much deserved revival. <em>The Trail of the Serpent</em> is both a sensation novel and a detective novel. It has all of the usual elements of a sensation novel including family secrets crime and adultery (a ruse in this case) and it depicts these as features of middle- and upper-class life. Yet <em>The Trail</em>’s role as a detective novel is arguably more important for while it is an early example of both genres it has the distinction of being the first British detective novel. It predates and in many respects influenced Wilkie Collins’s Moonstone and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock series but unlike these works <em>The Trail</em>’s place in the history of detective fiction has often been overlooked.<br />"Readers will find a great deal of social criticism some subtle and some not so subtle in Braddon’s fearless first novel. There are attacks on hypocrisy the permanency of marriage and other topics but <em>The Trail</em> is especially progressive in its portrayal of physical difference (or “disability”) and hand-based communication. In this respect it stands out against other Victorian novels many of which have acquired a dismal reputation for contributing to the creation of “disability” as a concept that stigmatizes and marginalizes real-life people.<br />In <em>The Trail</em> Braddon often represents her female characters in ways that defy typical Victorian gender norms. Unlike some of Dickens’s novels there are no doll-like women or perfect Angel-in-the-House heroines. Today it continues to be as fascinating in its social commentary as it is entertaining to read." (Catherine M. Welter Introduction to <em>The Trail of the Serpent</em>) <br /> </p>