โ Scribed by Wilkie Collins; John Sutherland
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
`A gloriously dark tale of mixed identities and the irresistible, wicked Lydia Gwilt. Forget Dallas and Eastenders, this has to be the greatest of all soap operas.' Steven Isserlis, The Week
When the elderly Allan Armadale makes a terrible confession on his death-bed, he has little idea of the repercussions to come, for the secret he reveals involves the mysterious Lydia Gwilt: flame-haired temptress, bigamist, laudanum addict and husband-poisoner. Her malicious intrigues fuel the plot of this gripping melodrama: a tale of confused identities, inherited curses, romantic rivalries, espionage, money - and murder. The character of Lydia Gwilt horrified contemporary critics, with one reviewer describing her as 'One of the most hardened female villains whose devices and desires have ever blackened fiction'. She remains among the most enigmatic and fascinating women in nineteenth-century literature and the dark heart of this most sensational of Victorian 'sensation novels'.
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