Mrs Henry Wood, as Ellen Wood (1814-97) was known, wrote to in order to support her family after the failure of husband's business. Her conventional married name belied the shockingly racy but enthralling contents which were typical of the "sensation novel" of the mid-Victorian era. Ellen Wood wrote more than thirty novels, sold six million books and, like  later authors such as Jilly Cooper, knew that sex and scandal were reliable money-spinners. This is the 1884 frontispiece of East Lynne (1861), one of the most successful novels of the period.