‘A hack as harmful as he is brainless and, one, moreover, who stabs where he steals.’ Ouida, the Victorian Adaptor and Moths

Published in 1880, Moths was the 15th novel written by Ouida. Credited for being her greatest success, both artistically and financially, Moths proved so popular that even Mudie’s library could not meet the lending demand for copies.2 A novel of high society, Moths offered the Victorian reader a critical, often cutting, assessment of the upper strata of the social hierarchy. Within this micro-world, where extravagance and opulence thinly veiled a cruel and corrupt community of ‘callous men and worldly women’,3 Ouida tackled a range of topical and taboo issues including class, gender, infidelity, divorce law and domestic violence. All of this, when combined with the novel’s melodramatic incidents and foreign settings, made Moths an attractive opportunity for the Victorian dramatist.