<b>East Lynne by Ellen Wood</b>&nbsp;<i><b>East Lynne</b></i>&nbsp;is an English&nbsp;sensation novel&nbsp;of 1861 by&nbsp;Ellen Wood, writing as Mrs Henry Wood. A Victorian best-seller, it is remembered chiefly for its elaborate and implausible plot, centring on infidelity and double identities. There have been numerous stage and film adaptations.<br /><br />The much-quoted line &quot;Gone! And never called me mother!&quot; (variant: &quot;Dead! Dead! And never called me mother!&quot;) does not appear in the book; both variants come from later stage adaptations.<br /><br />The book was originally serialised in&nbsp;<i>The New Monthly Magazine</i>&nbsp;between January 1860 and September 1861, being issued as a&nbsp;three-volume novel&nbsp;on 19 September 1861.<br /><br />Lady Isabel Vane is distraught when her beloved father dies suddenly and the earldom and all the property goes to a distant relation, leaving her homeless and penniless. She is a beautiful and refined young woman, who (for lack of other options) marries the lawyer Archibald Carlyle who buys her former home, East Lynne.<br /><br />Unfortunately his elder sister Cornelia also comes to live in East Lynne; she hates that marriage and by taking over the household makes Isabel&#39;s new life miserable. Mr Carlyle is a very kind man, who had previously had a friendship with local lady Barbara Hare, who had hoped to marry him. Isabel leaves her hard-working lawyer-husband, and her infant children, and the miserable household, to elope with an aristocratic but poor Captain Francis Levison.<br /><br />This is because she jealously suspects her husband&#39;s friendship with Barbara Hare and Levison misleads her into a wrong interpretation of a meeting. However once abroad with Levison she realises he has no intention of marrying her, despite her having borne their illegitimate child. He deserts her.<br /><br />Her cousin Lord Mount Severn comes to visit her in Europe and offers to support her. She finds out from him that her husband was&nbsp;<i>not</i>&nbsp;unfaithful. On the way back to England, Lady Isabel is badly injured in a train accident, the baby is killed and she is wrongly reported dead.