Lady Audley’s Secret

Lady Audley’s Secret

by

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Alicia Audley is the daughter of Sir Michael, the stepdaughter of Lady Audley, and the cousin and admirer of Robert Audley. She is the opposite of Lady Audley in appearance, with dark, thick curls and a tan complexion. Though willful and spoiled, Alicia is generally well-liked by her family and those who meet her. She diverges from the gender norms of Victorian society in several ways. While family harmony and social decorum were goals of Victorian women, she refuses to get along with the stepmother she loathes. She also enjoys the typically masculine pursuits of riding and hunting. She rejects the proposal of Sir Towers even though the match would be socially advantageous because she desires her disinterested cousin, Robert. By the end of the novel, however, she has consented to marry Sir Towers, suggesting the limits of a woman’s ability to assert her own agency within the gendered expectations of the Victorian era.

Alicia Audley Quotes in Lady Audley’s Secret

The Lady Audley’s Secret quotes below are all either spoken by Alicia Audley or refer to Alicia Audley. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Women and Power in Victorian England Theme Icon
).
Volume 1, Chapter 7 Quotes

Lucy was better loved and more admired than the baronet’s daughter [Alicia]. That very childness had a charm which few could resist. The innocence and candour of an infant beamed in Lady Audley’s fair face, and shone out of her large and liquid blue eyes. The rosy lips, the delicate nose, the profusion of fair ringlets, all contributed to preserve to her beauty the character of extreme youth and freshness.

Related Characters: Lady Audley / Lucy Graham / Helen Maldon Talboys , Alicia Audley
Related Symbols: Lady Audley’s Golden Curls
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 1, Chapter 15 Quotes

“How charmingly she sits her horse! What a pretty figure, too, and a fine, candid, brown, rosy face; but to fly at a fellow like that, without the least provocation! That’s the consequence of letting a girl follow the hounds…If ever I marry, and have daughters…they shall never go beyond the gates till they are marriageable, when I will take them straight across Fleet Street to St Dunstan’s Church, and deliver them into the hands of their husbands.”

Related Characters: Robert Audley (speaker), Alicia Audley
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 2, Chapter 11 Quotes

“Mr. Audley may be as you say, merely eccentric; but he has talked to me this evening in a manner that has filled me with absolute terror, and I believe that he is going mad. I shall speak very seriously to Sir Michael this very night…I shall only put him on his guard, my dear Alicia.”

“But he’ll never believe you,” said Miss Audley, “He will laugh at such an idea.”

“No, Alicia; he will believe anything that I tell him.”

Related Characters: Lady Audley / Lucy Graham / Helen Maldon Talboys (speaker), Alicia Audley (speaker), Robert Audley, Sir Michael Audley
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 3, Chapter 10 Quotes

I hope no one will take objection to my story because the end of it leaves the good people all happy and at peace. If my experience of life has not been very long, it has at least been manifold; and I can safely subscribe to that which a mighty king and a great philosopher declared, when he said that neither the experience of his youth nor of his age had ever shown him ‘righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.’

Related Characters: Robert Audley, George Talboys, Sir Michael Audley, Alicia Audley, Clara Talboys
Page Number: 380
Explanation and Analysis:
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Alicia Audley Quotes in Lady Audley’s Secret

The Lady Audley’s Secret quotes below are all either spoken by Alicia Audley or refer to Alicia Audley. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Women and Power in Victorian England Theme Icon
).
Volume 1, Chapter 7 Quotes

Lucy was better loved and more admired than the baronet’s daughter [Alicia]. That very childness had a charm which few could resist. The innocence and candour of an infant beamed in Lady Audley’s fair face, and shone out of her large and liquid blue eyes. The rosy lips, the delicate nose, the profusion of fair ringlets, all contributed to preserve to her beauty the character of extreme youth and freshness.

Related Characters: Lady Audley / Lucy Graham / Helen Maldon Talboys , Alicia Audley
Related Symbols: Lady Audley’s Golden Curls
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 1, Chapter 15 Quotes

“How charmingly she sits her horse! What a pretty figure, too, and a fine, candid, brown, rosy face; but to fly at a fellow like that, without the least provocation! That’s the consequence of letting a girl follow the hounds…If ever I marry, and have daughters…they shall never go beyond the gates till they are marriageable, when I will take them straight across Fleet Street to St Dunstan’s Church, and deliver them into the hands of their husbands.”

Related Characters: Robert Audley (speaker), Alicia Audley
Page Number: 104
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 2, Chapter 11 Quotes

“Mr. Audley may be as you say, merely eccentric; but he has talked to me this evening in a manner that has filled me with absolute terror, and I believe that he is going mad. I shall speak very seriously to Sir Michael this very night…I shall only put him on his guard, my dear Alicia.”

“But he’ll never believe you,” said Miss Audley, “He will laugh at such an idea.”

“No, Alicia; he will believe anything that I tell him.”

Related Characters: Lady Audley / Lucy Graham / Helen Maldon Talboys (speaker), Alicia Audley (speaker), Robert Audley, Sir Michael Audley
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 3, Chapter 10 Quotes

I hope no one will take objection to my story because the end of it leaves the good people all happy and at peace. If my experience of life has not been very long, it has at least been manifold; and I can safely subscribe to that which a mighty king and a great philosopher declared, when he said that neither the experience of his youth nor of his age had ever shown him ‘righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.’

Related Characters: Robert Audley, George Talboys, Sir Michael Audley, Alicia Audley, Clara Talboys
Page Number: 380
Explanation and Analysis: