The Cloven Foot

By 1879 Mary Elizabeth Braddon had spent nearly two decades perfecting the sensation novel, and this later entry shows her still working the vein she made famous: respectable surfaces stretched over secrets, money, and buried guilt. The title points to the old belief that the devil, however finely dressed, cannot hide his cloven hoof, and Braddon applies the idea to characters whose crimes and deceptions eventually show through. Like her best work, the book moves through drawing rooms and country houses where reputation counts for more than truth, and it keeps its grip by making the reader wait for the moment concealment finally fails. It stands as a solid example of the genre she dominated for a generation. A free PDF and EPUB edition can be downloaded here.