First published in 1864, The Doctor's Wife uses the concept of the serialized sensation novel to create stories within stories within stories. A reworking of Madame Bovary, the heroine is Isabel Sleaford who is married to an adoring, if boring, physician. He does not share Isabel's taste for literature, but she is content until she meets her intellectual equal in the author of her favorite book of verse. As Isabel's life begins to take on complications worthy of her literary heroes, she begins to find what it is like to grow into a mature woman.