In her introduction to the Broadview Press edition of Lady Audley’s Secret, Natalie Houston analyzes the influence of the domestic novel and its tropes on the development and popularity of the subsequent sensation fiction genre. According to Houston, sensation novels “combined elements from the domestic novel, which focused on courtship and social success, with stories of criminal behavior” in order to evoke anxiety, fear, and intrigue (Houston 18). As she suggests, the sensation novel reveals that respectable people “could turn out to be criminals” and domestic abodes “as quiet as Audley Court” could potentially house “terrible crime” (18). In this way, the sensation novel works to subvert and undermine assumptions made in the realm of the domestic novel; the perceived stability and order of the world presented in domestic novels were thus open to the prying eye of the detective in sensation fiction, and ultimately, Victorian notions of “identity” were challenged and destabilized (18). There remains a general notion that the “sensational” aspect of the sensation genre comprises only the scandalous elements of sensation novels: crime, murder, theft, bigamy, and manipulation, particularly when carried out by female characters. As plot devices, such crimes no doubt helped Braddon to tantalize and entice her reading audience; the serialization of Lady Audley’s Secret required that she hook her readers and generate interest in subsequent publications.

However, the broader implications of these crimes to the everyday function of society, and above all the domestic home, seem to produce more anxiety and intrigue than the crimes themselves, especially in the eyes of Victorian critics. When Lady Audley finally admits to her crimes, revealing her true identity to her unsuspecting husband, Braddon writes that “the dream was broken” (Braddon 346). This “dream” perhaps becomes a metaphor for the corruption of Victorians’ idealized perception of their own society. Just as Lady Audley’s crimes break the blissful reveries of her husband, the sensation novel pulled the rug out from under Victorians’ own notions of what the domestic and social spheres entailed. Audley Court, which was once “so pleasant a home for all who sheltered beneath its hospitable roof,” becomes the site of deceit, manipulation, and bigamy, debasing the Audley family’s domestic paradise (360). As Houston highlights in her introduction, many critics derided Lady Audley’s Secret (and the sensation genre as a whole) by arguing that the novel both revels in “too many explicit details” and paints an unrealistic and outlandish version of ordinary society, marriage, and family life (Houston 19). To critics, the novel was at once too realistic and not realistic at all, and thus, the focus on the ordinary, the “real,” and the accurate seem to spur much of the reading public’s interest and inquiry. If Victorian readers understood novels as vehicles for presenting an accurate “picture of life,” the sensation novel implies that the sensational is ordinary, which seems to be the most unsettling aspect of the genre for its contemporary audiences. How did sensation novels like Lady Audley’s Secret alter public perception of the nature of everyday society? Did ordinary things begin to look different, or did the public audience merely begin to accept the mutual existence of the ordinary and the sensational in their own backyards?

In an attempt to trace the Victorians’ conception of what I term the “ordinary” and the “sensational” between domestic and sensation novels, I will search for three “sensation” words and three “non-sensation” words on CLiC in two corpora: Pride and Prejudice (1813), a domestic novel written by Jane Austen, and Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), a sensation novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. I hope that my digital searches will elucidate unique or novel ideas about how Victorians perceived the world around them and whether this perception was modified or transformed after the emergence of the sensation genre. Did the development and popularity of changing literary genres in the Victorian era affect the Victorians’ sense of identity or reality? My “sensation” words will be those that adhere to or are reminiscent of accepted tropes and elements in the sensation genre, including “suspicion,” “letter,” and “witness.” My “non-sensation words” will be ordinary, everyday objects or places that could appear in both genres, including “furniture,” “picture,” and “country.”

My choice of “sensation” words occurring in both Pride and Prejudice and Lady Audley’s Secret was limited from the start, particularly because many words that immediately provoke intrigue and horror in Lady Audley’s Secret, like “murder,” “violence,” “lurking,” or “crime,” do not show up in the pages of Austen’s domestic novel. Words that evoke aspects of the sensation genre that do occur within Pride and Prejudice are perhaps more ambiguous and fluid, because they rely on context within the novel to establish their “sensational” aspect. “Suspicion,” “letter,” and “witness” do not necessarily suggest crime, murder, or violence, and this seems to be the case when these words appear in Austen’s novel. “Witness,” as used by Austen, often implies a character’s understanding or perception of reality; in two out of three appearances within the novel, the word “witness” is utilized in relation to Mr. Collins’s wish that Lizzie perceives the generosity of his benefactress, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. However, the third use of “witness” in Pride and Prejudice seems to precede the legal usage of “witness” often found in sensation novels, as Mr. Darcy reveals to Elizabeth that he has witnesses who can attest to the lies of the greedy Mr. Wickham. In Lady Audley’s Secret, “witness” undoubtedly takes on these legal implications connected with crime and evidence: Braddon employs “witness,” occurring ten times throughout the novel, in conjunction with the awareness of “identity” and the discovery of incriminating clues that eventually reveal Lady Audley’s deceit.

The word “suspicion,” as utilized in Lady Audley’s Secret, unambiguously points to the novel’s interminable pursuit of Lady Audley’s elusive secret (her identity fraud). Mentioned eleven separate times, “suspicion” is often directly preceded by the adjectives “dreadful,” “terrible,” “horrible,” and “dark,” upholding the genre’s reliance on mystery to tempt and fascinate readers’ imaginations. Though I never before looked for instances of “suspicion” in Austen’s novel, it is similarly utilized to reveal Elizabeth’s (and other character’s) suspicions of ulterior motives, wrongdoings, or deceits. However, any true suspicions in Pride and Prejudice are overshadowed by indications by CLiC that characters more often lack suspicion and see things with clarity. Five out of the nine uses of “suspicion” relate to a character’s “least,” “slightest,” or non-existent suspicion of others. Its existence in the domestic novel serves to point out the domestic realm’s stability and order, and thus, “suspicion” loses its usefulness as a term of sensation.

The most prominent “sensation” term to appear in both Pride and Prejudice and Lady Audley’s Secret is “letter.” To most, though, “letter” does not immediately provoke the implication of crime and murder; in fact, the term only became a sensational element when utilized in sensation novels as physical evidence that could expose identity, motive, and crime. Tracing the minute connotative differences in the utilization of “letter” by both Austen and Braddon elucidates some interesting points. First, both novels imply that letters are important vehicles for information, and both novels rely on letters to propel the novel forward. In Pride and Prejudice, letters allow for communication between sisters, friends, and potential lovers, while also providing stimulus for socializing among families and parties of people. Characters discuss the “pleasure” of reading letters, deciding whether or not one is “interesting.” With Lady Audley’s Secret, we can visualize how this social and communicative function of letters changes; Braddon applies adjectives like “cruel,” “furious,” “twisted,” and “strange” to describe letters, which immediately reveals alterations to how the letter is viewed in a sensation novel. Here, the letter provides information for legal and incriminating purposes, rather than social pleasure and communication. Letters are used as a “link” in Robert’s continually growing trail of evidence connecting Lady Audley to Helen Talboys. “Letter” transitions from an ordinary object to proof of sensational misconduct and deceit. Thus, the above “sensational” words occurring in both Pride and Prejudice and Lady Audley’s Secret imply that “sensational” elements were once just ordinary words that evoked no particular implications of crime or deceit. This is particularly notable because they demonstrate the intersection of ordinary and sensation at the minute level of a novel’s diction. The “sensational” words that help Braddon to produce the mystery and intrigue of her novel come from rather ordinary, everyday words and objects. The ordinary word is corrupted or manipulated to produce the sensational connotation.

In my own reading of domestic novels, non-sensation terms like “furniture,” “picture,” and “country” evoke elements common to the portrait of Victorian society and domestic life presented by Austen’s novels. “Furniture” relates to the material goods utilized to illustrate the appearance of homes and manors. One’s furniture usually communicates their level of wealth and comfort, and the CLiC search demonstrates that characters in Pride and Prejudice often remark upon the physical appearance of furniture to assess the status of others. The “size,” “aspect,” “arrangement,” and “elegance” of furniture all appear as important indicators of social rank. Surprisingly, this seems to be the case in Lady Audley’s Secret, too. Though Braddon remarks upon the “ghostly,” “somber,” or “dark” aspect of furniture once, the other uses of furniture once again imply material wealth and social status. The description of “handsome,” “modern,” “gorgeous,” “pretty,” and “substantial” furniture substantiates the word “furniture” as an ordinary indicator of this wealth. Though this implies that furniture in Lady Audley’s Secret functions in the same way as it does in Pride and Prejudice, perhaps the material assessment of lavish furniture in Lady Audley’s chamber serves as a stark reminder of her manipulation of social rank and social climbing. The furniture is ordinary, but the circumstances in which Lady Audley acquired this furniture is not. This speaks to the anxieties produced by sensation novels in regard to social identity and societal convention, where Lady Audley’s deceit and violence enables her to obtain ideal material wealth and status.

The word “picture” more clearly evokes questions about identity and social perception in both novels. Whereas “picture” relates to reality and truth in Pride and Prejudice, denoting both a physical and mental image of a person’s character and physical appearance, Braddon’s employment of “picture” in Lady Audley’s Secret seems to augment the novel’s corruption and distortion of the ideal picture of Victorian society. Braddon’s use of “picture” does provide information about a character’s personality, but here, the information reveals subtle, subconscious, or hidden qualities that juxtapose against preconceived notions of a character. As evidenced by CLiC, Lady Audley’s portrait is mentioned at least nine times within chapters eight and nine of Volume I, but this portrait rather undermines the idealized and innocent perception of Lady Audley held by her peers. It is called “strange” twice, and the characters comment on how different Lady Audley looks in her portrait as compared to everyday life. This picture becomes a physical clue that foreshadows the revelation of her secret later on, especially because it provides George concrete proof that Lady Audley is his wife. An ordinary portrait becomes a mysterious piece of evidence used to identify Lady Audley as Helen Talboys, and thus, the ordinary transforms to fit the needs of the sensation.

Finally, the non-sensation word “country” seems to relate to ordinary understandings of social setting in Pride and Prejudice: in its forty appearances throughout the novel, it is most commonly preceded by the word “the,” implying its unambiguous use as physical landscape and setting. It is simply the place in which normal, everyday workings of society ensue; the Bennets live in the country and the Bingleys take up residence in the country, an ordinary space for domestic life outside of the bustling city. Fascinatingly, this is true of Lady Audley’s Secret as well. More often than not, the “country” implies the setting of Audley Court and the surrounding domestic homes and conventional society that exist in relation to the novel’s plot. Adjectives which describe “country” in Braddon’s novel include “simple,” “open,” “pretty,” and “pleasant,” and if a reader were to only see the novel through CLiC, none of these adjectives would imply anything sensational about the novel. Thus, the novel’s non-sensational setting in the country seems to act as an important element which will juxtapose against the sensational crime, attempted murder, and manipulative deceit by Lady Audley that occurs in said country settings. Lady Audley interferes with the normal (or idealized) functioning of the “country” and domestic abode by subverting conventional expectations of her social status and gender role. The ordinary country becomes sensational when her crimes are revealed, and the sensational atmosphere of the novel relies on this contrast with the ordinary in order to produce its overall effect upon the reader.