A classic of Victorian literature, East Lynne was published in 1861. It was a sensational success, selling more than 500,000 copies and making its author as famous in her lifetime as Charles Dickens himself. Beautiful, kind and unblemished, Lady Isabel Vane is the perfect wife and mother. Until, in a fit of jealousy, she leaves her neglectful husband and infant children to elope with her aristocratic suitor. Her fall from grace is absolute. Can she be redeemed? And will she ever see her children again? Dramatic and moving, East Lynne draws aside the curtains of the respectable Victorian middle-classes to reveal their hypocrisy, cruelty and lust. And we witness the terrible punishment of those that dare to disobey a merciless moral code. East Lynne opens at the New Vic Theatre, Staffordshire, in June 2005.