Lady Audley's Secret

Lucy, the new Lady Audley, is everything a Victorian wife should be: golden-haired, childlike, adored by her wealthy older husband. Then her nephew-in-law's friend George Talboys (freshly returned from Australia with a fortune and hopes of rejoining the wife he left behind) vanishes from Audley Court's grounds without a trace. Robert Audley, an amiable barrister who has never worked a day in his life, finds himself doing the one thing no one expects of him: methodically investigating, and following every thread to his uncle's beautiful new bride.

This was one of the great bestsellers of the 1860s, a 'sensation novel' that scandalized critics precisely because its menace lives inside a respectable English home. Braddon builds her suspense through accumulating dread rather than shocks, a portrait with something wrong in its expression, a well in a neglected garden, a lady's maid who knows too much. A perfect period thriller for listening: propulsive, atmospheric, and anchored by one of fiction's great ambiguous villainesses.

At roughly 143,000 words, Lady Audley's Secret runs about 16 hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

Lady Audley's Secret is in the public domain, so the complete text is free on Project Gutenberg and LoudReader has the entire Project Gutenberg catalog built in. To listen:

1. Download LoudReader for Mac or iPhone (free, no account).
2. Search for “Lady Audley's Secret” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

LoudReader reads with natural offline voices, so the whole book works on a plane or underground. It is fully on-device and private, your library never leaves your device. Listening is unlimited on the free tier.