Abstract: Mary Elizabeth Braddon is not often thought of as a domestic writer; indeed, her status as a sensationalist has often positioned her as oppositional to such writers as Charlotte Yonge, Margaret Oliphant or Dinah Mulock Craik. Pairing Braddon’s late fiction with her life writing reveals a different way of looking at her understanding of domesticity. This discussion analyses Braddon’s incomplete memoir “Before the Knowledge of Evil,” along with her correspondence and diaries, in the context of her last novel, Mary (1916). Exploring relationships that move from the professional to the intimate within domestic spaces challenges assumed links between the familial and the domestic. This discussion explores Braddon’s understanding of domesticity and argues that she continually sees the domestic as a space that can incorporate professional activities, particularly for female work.