Sensationalising the City in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Belgravia Magazine

This article discusses the ways in which London was represented and navigated in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Belgravia, a shilling monthly magazine, during the ten years of her editorship between 1866 and 1876. Using Braddon’s serialised novels and the diverse articles over which she had editorial control as evidence, I argue that by deploying a sensational discourse to represent London -in contradistinction to discourses of professionalism, politics and business -Braddon made potentially alienating territory accessible to her primarily female readership.