Lady Audley’s Secret

Lady Audley’s Secret

by

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

George Talboys Character Analysis

George Talboys is the friend of Robert Audley, the first husband of Lady Audley, and the brother of Clara Talboys. He comes from a wealthy family and was a dragoon (a mounted infantry man) in the British army before falling in love with and marrying the beautiful yet impoverished Helen Maldon (a.k.a. Lady Audley). As a result, George’s strict father, Harcourt Talboys, disowns his son for marrying below his station. Without his father’s wealth, George, Helen, and their infant son Georgey live in poverty. George decides his family would be better off without him and abandons his wife and son to go gold prospecting in Australia. At the beginning of the novel, George is returning to England after three and a half years abroad when he finds a newspaper announcement of his wife’s recent death. George’s subsequent, mysterious disappearance after visiting Audley Court motivates Robert to seek justice for his friend. At the end of the novel, it is revealed that, fearing discovery, Lady Audley had pushed her husband down a well; unbeknownst to her, George survived the fall. George can be viewed at once as a victim of Lady Audley’s cruel manipulations and a patriarchal villain, whose abandonment of his wife and child is what forces Helen to remarry in order to escape a life of abject poverty.

George Talboys Quotes in Lady Audley’s Secret

The Lady Audley’s Secret quotes below are all either spoken by George Talboys or refer to George Talboys. 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 2, Chapter 4 Quotes

[Harcourt Talboys] was like his own square-built, northern-fronted, shelterless house. There were no shady nooks in his character into which one could creep for shelter from his hard daylight…with him right was right and wrong was wrong…He had cast off his only son because his only son had disobeyed him, and he was ready to cast off his only daughter at five minutes’ notice for the same reason.

Related Characters: George Talboys, Clara Talboys, Mr. Harcourt Talboys
Page Number: 156
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 2, Chapter 6 Quotes

“I hate women…They’re bold, brazen, abominable creatures, invented for the annoyance and destruction of their superiors. Look at this business of poor George’s! It’s all woman’s work from one end to the other. He marries a woman, and his father casts him off, penniless and professionless. He hears of the woman’s death and he breaks his heart…He goes to a woman’s house and he is never seen alive again.”

Related Characters: Robert Audley (speaker), Lady Audley / Lucy Graham / Helen Maldon Talboys , George Talboys
Related Symbols: Audley Court
Page Number: 178
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 2, Chapter 11 Quotes

“A conspiracy concocted by an artful woman, who had speculated upon the chances of her husband’s death, and had secured a splendid position at the risk of committing a crime…but a foolish woman, who looked at life as a game of chance, in which the best player was likely to hold the winning cards, forgetting that there is a Providence about the pitiful speculators, and that wicked secrets are never permitted to remain long hidden.”

Related Characters: Robert Audley (speaker), Lady Audley / Lucy Graham / Helen Maldon Talboys , George Talboys
Page Number: 228-229
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 3, Chapter 3 Quotes

“I killed him because I AM MAD! because my intellect is a little way upon the wrong side of that narrow boundary-line between sanity and insanity; because when George Talboys goaded me, as you have goaded me; and reproached me, and threatened me; my mind, never properly balanced, utterly lost its balance; and I was mad!

Related Characters: Lady Audley / Lucy Graham / Helen Maldon Talboys (speaker), Robert Audley, George Talboys
Page Number: 294
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 3, Chapter 10 Quotes

Two years have passed since the May twilight in which Robert found his old friend; and Mr Audley’s dream of a fairy cottage had been realized…Here amongst the lilies and the rushes on the sloping bank, a brave boy of eight years old plays with a toddling baby…

Mr Audley is a rising man upon the home circuit by this time, and has distinguished himself in the great breach of promise case of Hobbs v. Nobbs.

Related Characters: Robert Audley, George Talboys, Georgey
Page Number: 378
Explanation and Analysis:

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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George Talboys Quotes in Lady Audley’s Secret

The Lady Audley’s Secret quotes below are all either spoken by George Talboys or refer to George Talboys. 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 2, Chapter 4 Quotes

[Harcourt Talboys] was like his own square-built, northern-fronted, shelterless house. There were no shady nooks in his character into which one could creep for shelter from his hard daylight…with him right was right and wrong was wrong…He had cast off his only son because his only son had disobeyed him, and he was ready to cast off his only daughter at five minutes’ notice for the same reason.

Related Characters: George Talboys, Clara Talboys, Mr. Harcourt Talboys
Page Number: 156
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 2, Chapter 6 Quotes

“I hate women…They’re bold, brazen, abominable creatures, invented for the annoyance and destruction of their superiors. Look at this business of poor George’s! It’s all woman’s work from one end to the other. He marries a woman, and his father casts him off, penniless and professionless. He hears of the woman’s death and he breaks his heart…He goes to a woman’s house and he is never seen alive again.”

Related Characters: Robert Audley (speaker), Lady Audley / Lucy Graham / Helen Maldon Talboys , George Talboys
Related Symbols: Audley Court
Page Number: 178
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 2, Chapter 11 Quotes

“A conspiracy concocted by an artful woman, who had speculated upon the chances of her husband’s death, and had secured a splendid position at the risk of committing a crime…but a foolish woman, who looked at life as a game of chance, in which the best player was likely to hold the winning cards, forgetting that there is a Providence about the pitiful speculators, and that wicked secrets are never permitted to remain long hidden.”

Related Characters: Robert Audley (speaker), Lady Audley / Lucy Graham / Helen Maldon Talboys , George Talboys
Page Number: 228-229
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 3, Chapter 3 Quotes

“I killed him because I AM MAD! because my intellect is a little way upon the wrong side of that narrow boundary-line between sanity and insanity; because when George Talboys goaded me, as you have goaded me; and reproached me, and threatened me; my mind, never properly balanced, utterly lost its balance; and I was mad!

Related Characters: Lady Audley / Lucy Graham / Helen Maldon Talboys (speaker), Robert Audley, George Talboys
Page Number: 294
Explanation and Analysis:
Volume 3, Chapter 10 Quotes

Two years have passed since the May twilight in which Robert found his old friend; and Mr Audley’s dream of a fairy cottage had been realized…Here amongst the lilies and the rushes on the sloping bank, a brave boy of eight years old plays with a toddling baby…

Mr Audley is a rising man upon the home circuit by this time, and has distinguished himself in the great breach of promise case of Hobbs v. Nobbs.

Related Characters: Robert Audley, George Talboys, Georgey
Page Number: 378
Explanation and Analysis:

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: