Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) is best known as the innovator of the English detective novel, whose sensational novels, plays, and short stories were hugely popular in the Victorian Era. Today, readers enjoy Collins' intricate and suspenseful plots, and his penetrating social commentary on the plight of women and domestic issues of the time. Unfortunately Collins suffered from rheumatic gout, for which he took the opiate laudanum, and which eventually...

A giant diamond stolen from India; a rakish rogue; a naive teenager and a drug-fueled scandal. These are the leading parts that combine to make one of the greatest detective novels of all time. 'The Moonstone' by Wilkie Collins laid many of the foundations for the detective genre. At heart, though, it is a great story. Rachel Verinder inherits a large Indian diamond on her 18th birthday. It turns out to have been stolen from India by her corrupt uncle...

Wilkie Collins was the first great detective novelist. His dark and complex mysteries influenced the work of other writers, such as Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens, with whom he developed a close personal friendship. Swinburne found his work worthy of serious criticism, and T. S. Eliot credits him even more than Poe with the invention of the modern detective novel and the popular thriller. Before such works as The Woman in White, The Moonstone,...

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) is best known as the innovator of the English detective novel, whose sensational novels, plays, and short stories were hugely popular in the Victorian Era. Today, readers enjoy Collins' intricate and suspenseful plots, and his penetrating social commentary on the plight of women and domestic issues of the time. Unfortunately, Collins suffered from rheumatic gout, for which he took the opiate laudanum, and which eventually...

Perhaps Wilkie Collins' editor thought "John Jago's Ghost" sounded too much like an exciting tale of cursed, swashbuckling pirates for the alternate title of this novella to end up on the cover and instead settled for "The Dead Alive" – arguably the most balderdash title for a piece of fiction until the Sean Penn movie "Dead Man Walking" (1995). In the end though, the current title is somehow the more appropriate for this piece based on the infamous...

If you're born in the Western world or have played a lot of video games, chances are the title "The Legacy of Cain" will make you think of either polygon vampires or take you straight back to the lazy sunlit classrooms of primary school Bible studies. Fortunately, Wilkie Collins' 1888 novel avoids the oppressive embrace of both of these constructs yet still manages to mix in both faith and horrific murder. Against both his wife's and doctor's wishes,...

Ok, nobody wants to lose £500 – but is it big enough of a deal to deserve a short story? To put it into context: a Victorian £500 was about £60,000 in today's money. So, yeah, it's a big deal. That's why, when Lady Lydiard has the money stolen from her, the plot becomes a whodunnit. A precursor to modern-day detective novels, this novella revolves around the colourful characters (and a Scottie dog) who are all present in Lady Lydiard's household...

If you've seen "The Sixth Sense" with Bruce Willis, you'll be familiar with Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome: deliberately making a person feel unwell in order to care for them. In "Jezebel's Daughter", the poisonous Mrs Fontaine does exactly that in a plan to get her daughter, Minna, married. This is a story of romance and what happens when parents get too involved in their children's marriages. Centred around a business based in London and Frankfort...

Man and Wife Wilkie Collins - The novel has a complex plot, which is common in Collins's work.[3] In the Prologue, a selfish and ambitious man casts off his wife in order to marry a wealthier and better-connected woman by taking advantage of a loophole in the marriage laws of Ireland. The initial action takes place in the widowed Lady Lundie's house in Scotland. Geoffrey Delamayn has promised marriage to his lover Anne Silvester (governess to Lady...

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) is best known as the innovator of the English detective novel, whose sensational novels, plays, and short stories were hugely popular in the Victorian Era. Today, readers enjoy Collins' intricate and suspenseful plots, and his penetrating social commentary on the plight of women and domestic issues of the time. Unfortunately Collins suffered from rheumatic gout, for which he took the opiate laudanum, and which eventually...