Mrs Craddock (1902), W. Somerset Maugham's second novel, portrays a doomed marriage in Victorian England. Bertha Ley, a beautiful and passionate young heiress living in Kent, defies family and convention by marrying Edward Craddock, a handsome but socially inferior farmer. What begins as intense physical attraction gradually curdles: Eddie proves stolid, conventional, and emotionally unimaginative, devoted to crops, hunting, and county politics rather than to his fiery, intelligent wife. Pregnant and disillusioned, Bertha contemplates escape. Only Eddie's horrific death from rabies liberates her, leaving a wealthy, independent woman free at last to pursue a fuller life on her own terms.
