ABSTRACT
The Lady's Mile focuses on the intellectual role of the artist. The novel's major artist character becomes temporarily blind and fears that vision loss will cause him to lose his relationship with art and beauty. Braddon's plot surrounding William Crawford and Mrs. Champernowne uses classical myth to add emotional depth. Crawford's tearful response is specifically linked to his love for art and light. Having been turned down by Mrs. Champernowne, he has felt he has nothing left but his art – now, it seems that his life in art will be lost and that there will be "no lovely images" One Thing Needful is an unusual novel, conflating concerns women's education and artistic ability with concerns about working class access to education and about the social contract between the upper class and working class. One Thing Needful is highly concerned with the tensions created in Britain by the workings of industry and by the way that industrialization changed bodies.
