MISS BRADDON.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XX, 16 November 1895, Page 630

MISS BRADDON.

Miss Braddon is one of the few literary women who has not allowed herself to be spoiled by success, and who has no hesitancy about admitting her age. On the contrary, she is rather proud of her fifty four years and fifty-four novels, although she is reluctant to talk about her books, dismissing inquiries with the assertion that * she can’t tell how they are written.’ Four days of the week she writes steadily, forbidding even the postman to disturb her, and the rest of the time is spent in the saddle, when her thinking is done. She studies Dickens for style, weaves her plots from suggestions of old newspaper clippings, which she has been collecting for the last thirty years, and edits her copy as she writes it. Her husband publishes her books and is pronounced her severest critic. Their acquaintance began, it is said, in a wrangle over the first manuscript she submitted, and the able defence that won his admiration afterwards captured his affection. Notwithstanding the half hundred books that have passed through bis hands, this husband publisher finds new and startling faults in each succeeding volume to criticize. Miss Braddon is fair and rosy in face, with bright auburn hair, blue eyes, angular in build, and of very nervous temperament. She is at work now compiling her reminiscences, which will complete the second shelf of books in her library.