The first scholarly edition of forgotten late Victorian classic of rural life and sensation fiction.

'The Silence of Dean Maitland, a very little known text from the mid-Victorian period, offers us a glimpse of the concerns of the period - the problem of crime and its detection and punishment; questions of conscience and behaviour in the post-Darwinian world - all set amongst panorama of characters in rural mid-century Britain. In this novel, Mrs Henry Wood meets Mrs Humphry Ward and they both nod politely towards the world of Thomas Hardy. Wolfreys' edition of this text gives us comprehensive notes to aid the reader's understanding and a brilliant selection of contemporary commentary on the issues the novel raises. It gives us the chance to broaden our canon of Victorian fiction into realms that are resolutely not part of the old 'Great Tradition'.' Ruth Robbins, Leeds Beckett University First scholarly edition of a neglected, hugely popular best-seller Maxwell Gray tells the sensational story of an ambitious clergyman, who accidentally kills the father of a woman he has made pregnant, and then allows his closest friend to be convicted of the murder. The best-seller was subsequently filmed three times (1914, 1915, 1934) and presents fascinating insights into the forgotten world of late Victorian rural life. Including a carefully contextualised introduction to the novel and its author, this edition also provides a comprehensive selection of contemporary reviews and commentaries. Julian Wolfreys is Professor of English Literature at the University of Portsmouth. Cover image: Dr Samuel Brown and the Reverend George Gilfillan, c 1840s. Photo by The Royal Photographic Society Collection/National Science and Media Museum/SSPL/Getty Images Cover design: Stuart Dalziel [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-4323-4 Barcode