ABSTRACT
In Lady Audley's Secret and John Marchmont's Legacy female characters rebel against the dictates of the typical female role. Both novels focus on women who Victorian psychiatry might deem morally insane, the heroine of Lady Audley's Secret claiming to have inherited insanity, the heroine of John Marchmont's Legacy becoming insane due to sexual and professional frustration. Lady Audley's Secret offers commentary on these issues while also responding to the expansion of psychiatric diagnoses with the 'moral insanity' diagnosis. Lady Audley's bigamy, vanity, lack of interest in men, class transgressions, and violence create a case for her moral insanity. While John Marchmont's Legacy ostensibly follows the fortunes of Mary Marchmont and her husband Edward Arundel, the most interesting character is Olivia Arundel, a highly intellectual woman whose abilities are stifled due to her gender and her geographical isolation. John Marchmont's Legacy suggests the exceeding dreariness of Olivia Arundel's life is what leads to her obsession with Edward and her eventual madness.
