With Lady Audley's Secret, Mary Elizabeth Braddon had established herself, alongside Wilkie Collins and Mrs Henry Wood, as one of the ruling triumvirate of `sensation novelists'. Aurora Floyd, following hot on its heels, achieved almost equal popularity and notoriety. P.D. Edwards's introduction evaluates the novel's leading place among `bigamy-novels' and Braddon's treatment of the power struggle between the sexes, as well as considering the similarities between the author and her heroine.