This book brings together previously unknown and uncollected novellas and stories, written by Braddon for some of the most ephemeral magazines and newspapers of the period. The book concludes with a rare interview with Braddon, one of only a handful she ever gave, conducted by the novelist Joseph Hatton in 1888.

The book is edited by and contains an introduction by Dr. Chris Willis, who wrote her PhD on 'Transgressive Women: Gender and Crime in Popular Fiction, 1850-1914' at the University of London. She organised a highly successful conference on Mary Elizabeth Braddon (Braddon and the Culture of Sensation) at the University of London, and is the editor of the widely praised Mary Elizabeth Braddon website. She has written extensively on nineteenth and twentieth century crime fiction, and is the co-editor of Twelve Women Detectives (Oxford University Press, 1997) and The New Woman in Fiction and in Fact (Macmillan, 2000).