"It is only colour that you want": Lady Audley's Secret and Cosmetics as Discursive Fantasy

This article analyzes the under-discussed issue of cosmetics in Lady Audley's Secret, as well as in the periodicals that serialized her work, the Sixpenny Magazine and Robin Goodfellow. These periodicals highlight the controversy surrounding cosmetics use by featuring both advertisements for cosmetics and social commentary condemning the use of artifice. While never either overtly endorsing or critiquing cosmetics, Lady Audley's Secret highlights the discursive fantasies and patriarchal fears they engendered. Braddon sensationalizes the polarized views represented in the periodical press by depicting cosmetics as a secretive Gothic device that has radical potential for female transformation.