Marmaduke Herbert; or, the Fatal Error : Pickering & Chatto Publishers : 9781848935884 : 01 Jun 2016 : The notorious Marguerite Power, Countess of Blessington, was a successful novelist and famous salonnière. She entertained many distinguished writers of the day, including Thomas Moore, Charles Dickens and Edward Bulwer Lytton. Originally making her name with the publication of Conversations with Lord Byron (1832/3) she lived on the edge of good society, allowing her to satirize her contemporaries in her novels. Her splendidly gothic Marmaduke Herbert (1847) lacks a madwoman in the attic, but does have a female corpse in a cave, placed there and visited by the eponymous hero. The novel includes many moments of drama set against the backdrop of Romantic Mediterranean settings as well as a sensational courtroom climax. This scholarly edition includes textual variants, contemporary reviews and a discussion of the pirated editions that came out in Germany, France and America.