East Lynne was first written as a serial and appeared in the New Monthly Magazine from January 1860 through September 1861. Its combination of suspense, doomed love, scandal and tragic remorse made it immensely successful and it has remained the most famous and widely read of Mrs. Henry Wood's novels. Although no more melodramatic than others of her books, at the center of East Lynne is a development that strains credulity more severely than her other works; but the situation that transpires when Isabel Vane returns to East Lynne was one that readers found unforgettable. . . .