Recently, for the first time, I read East Lynne, the 1861 bestseller by Mrs Henry Wood, who's now widely restyled "Ellen Wood". Enjoyed it enormously - yet it has hordes of detractors.
"Stock characters!" they cry, with a depressing lack of perception. "Implausible!" Scarcely more so than life. As for the ingenious view that the earnestly Christian Ellen Wood was "subverting Christianity" merely by describing truthfully the emotions of a (tormented) adulterer - come on, get a grip!
On the web and in my own small library I can find nothing about the book with which I agree, except some of the original reviews on the Ellen Wood website.
All I can say is, it's a rattling good read if taken seriously on its own terms, i.e. on the assumption that traditional Christian morality is valid absolutely and all human beings have immortal souls, accountable to God.
The stakes are high - far higher than critics who focus on class and gender can allow - and, partly as a result, East Lynne seems to me a bigger book than its reputation suggests.
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