Circe

At the time she wrote her most famous novels, Braddon also wrote a number of pseudonymous novels. Circe was published in 1867 under the pseudonym of Babington White, and its publication caused a furore. Always interested in French literature, in 1864 Braddon had successfully adapted Flaubert's Madame Bovary with her novel The Doctor's Wife. However, with Circe, it was deemed she had gone too far, this time using Octave Feuillet's Dalila (1857) as her inspiration, to the extent of directly translating one page. Although in other ways the novel was substantially different, an old enemy, Frederick Greenwood, took the opportunity to take revenge against Braddon and her husband, the publisher John Maxwell, in the columns of his newspaper, the Pall Mall Gazette, to expose her as a literary thief. A series of heated articles resulted in forged letters, and a denial from Braddon that she was Babington White.

Circe is a lurid tale of art and obsession. A young painter, Laurence Bell, finds a patron and model in the beautiful and captivating Princess d'Aspramonte, and falls obsessively in love with his subject, abandoning his fiancee and destroying his own career. When the fickle Princess leaves him, Bell becomes consumed with a desire to destroy the sorceress who has ruined him.