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Its origins as a serialisation explain the numerous sensational climaxes throughout the novel: With the addition of an apparent ghost, a presumed murder, an exhumation, and that mainstay of Victorian literature, a tontine, there is hardly a chapter of the novel without a sensational climax of some sort.
Mrs. Henry Wood's works were incredibly popular in their time. A contemporary survey of the reading habits of the "lower and servant classes" showed that a majority of those surveyed who read any novels at all read hers exclusively; certainly, if they were looking for sensationalism, melodrama and convoluted plotting, she was the author to provide them.
A sample chapter from Bessy Rane is available on this website.
The full text can also be read online or downloaded free of charge. It is in XHTML format, like this page. Please note the file size is 935kb and it may take some time to open-up if you choose to read it online. Downloading for reading later may be the preferred option and this can be typically achieved by calling up an option box. If you have a mouse and it is configured for left click to select, right clicking the link may give you this option. Link to the full text of Bessy Rane.
By the time we read the first few lines of Chapter 3, we have met most of the cast of characters, the tangled family connections have been at least partially described, the fatal anonymous letter has been received, Edmund North is dead, and we are whirled into a typical Mrs. Henry Wood story of love (requited and unrequited), money, deceit and misunderstandings.
A modern reader might occasionally wish Mrs Wood's characters
weren't quite so quick to jump to wrong conclusions, and were
more willing to ask the simple questions that would clear up
misunderstandings, but still we read on, eager to discover what
really happened to Dr. Rane's wife, whether Arthur and Ellen will
be reconciled, the truth about Tom Bohun's death, and just what
it was that Jelly saw on the doctor's landing.
Page created 21 November 2002 and last
updated 21 November 2002
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