Braddon, Mary Elizabeth

Entirely Fresh Influences in Edwardian Wildeana: Queerness in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s The Rose of Life (1905) and Julia Frankau’s The Sphinx’s Lawyer (1906)

“…While Beller claims that in The Rose of Life "there is, of course, no implication of homosexuality," 26 I would argue that Braddon's novel openly describes its Wildean character as a queer man. The narrator states Daniel's sexual identity when we are told that: "To the average man it seemed as if the soul of a pleasure-loving woman were enclosed in that handsome frame; and to such men Daniel counted as a 'freak.'"…”

“…Daniel is Wilde-like in both his temperament and appearance. As Wilde's mother was Braddon's old friend, and Oscar and Constance were regular guests in her family home in the 1880s, 20 Braddon knew Wilde well enough to write a faithful portrait of him. Daniel is a brilliant conversationalist, a frivolous and self-centred aesthete, a spendthrift, affected and sentimental, but also generous and kind.…”

“…As Beller argues, although we do not know how Braddon felt about Wilde's sexual preferences and his downfall, "the sympathetic treatment of Daniel in her novel would suggest that she did not condemn Wilde, even if she disapproved of his conduct." 28 Moreover, she makes it very difficult not to pity her kind, generous, rather naïve criminal. Daniel's reaction to the charges is almost child-like.…”