HOME

The Doctor's Wife

The Doctor's Wife

Author(s):

Genre(s): , ,

Narrators:

Number of Chapters: 38

Length: 17 hours and 59 minutes

Language: English

This is one of the Victorian “Sensationist” Mary Elizabeth Braddon's many novels (best known among them: “Lady Audley’s Secret”). It is extremely well written, fluid, humorous and, in places, self-mocking: one of the main characters is a Sensation Author. The motifs of the-woman-with-a-secret, adultery, and death are classic “sensationist” material. Yet this is also a self-consciously serious work of literature, taking on various social themes of the day. Specifically, Braddon presents the psychological struggle and cognitive dissonance which are the inevitable plight of the married middle-class woman with a strong sense of self, who is essentially constrained to live the life of her husband. In this, it echoes Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary.”

The heroine, Isabel Sleaford, was driven early in her childhood to bury herself in, and develop her sense of self through, romantic novels and poetry. She is thus ill-adapted to the conventional, provincial structures and strictures laid upon her when she marries the very good and adoring, but also boring and unimaginative, Dr. George Gilbert. Isabel forms friendships with men (including her husband's best friend) who are more amenable to her romantic inclinations, and inevitably encounters social condemnation as a result. The book shows how life’s tragedies and the world’s cruel judgments shape Isabel, as she grows more mature, somewhat embittered, but also – true to her nature – beautifully resilient. (Summary by Kirsten Wever)

Listening:
Continue to listen:    
Chapter 1 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 2 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 3 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 4 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 5 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 6 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter7 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 8 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 9 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 10 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 11 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 12 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 13 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 14 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 15 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 16 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 17 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 18 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 19 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 20 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 21 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 22 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 23 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 24 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 25 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 26 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 27 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 28 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 29 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 30 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 31 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 32 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 33 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 34 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 35 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 36 Part 1 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 36 Part 2 (Kirsten Wever)
Chapter 37 (Kirsten Wever)
The audiobook The Doctor's Wife falls under the genres of , , . It is written by .