ABSTRACT
1863 was a year of theatrical blockbusters. In addition to Tom Taylor's Ticket-of-Leave Man, two new sensation plays, Lady Audley's Secret and Aurora Floyd – both adaptations of Mary Elizabeth Braddon sensation novels – dominated the London stage. Described as ‘a New Sensation Drama’ in the contemporary Era advertisement placed to sell the playing rights, The Female Detective is clearly part of the trend identified by Katherine Newey for ‘woman-centred sensation dramas'. The detectives in The Mother's Dying Child and The Female Detective are women well-suited to their work. In both cases, the playwrights take pains to make clear that there is a natural sympathy between the women's investigative work and their individual dispositions. Detection, a profession pursued exclusively by men in the 1860s, becomes in the hands of Nelly Somerton, ‘women's work’.
