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The Frozen Deep and Mr. Wray’s Cash Box
Two great ghost stories.
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Basil: A Story of Modern Life
An upstanding young man falls in love with a beautiful
daughter of a tradesman but cannot marry her, not because of their
inequality in class, but because she is sexually immoral.
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Hide and Seek
This novel tells the story of a deaf and dumb girl
and the rebellious young man she loves, gradually unraveling the
secret of her origins through the persistence and ingenuity of
a mysterious stranger.
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After Dark
Three short stories: Leaves from Leah's Diary,
The Traveler's Story of "A Terribly Strange Bed", The
Lawyer's Story of "A Stolen Letter".
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The Dead Secret
Moments from death, Mrs Treverton tells a secret,
never to be passed to her husband. Years later, when her daughter
Rosamond returns with her blind husband, she is warned not to
enter the Myrtle Room. Strong-minded and ingenious, Rosamond's
determined detective work uncovers a shocking truth.
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The Queen of Hearts
A collection of ten stories by Collins. Framing
these tales is the situation of a young lady staying with three
old brothers in Wales. The son of one of the brothers is in love
with her, but he is away. In order to entice the lady to stay
until the young man can return home, the brothers agree to tell
a story each evening. Includes the following short stories: Mad
Monkton, The Dream Woman, Anne Rodway, The
Black Cottage, The Family Secret, The Dead Hand,
A Plot in Private Life, The Biter Bit, Fauntleroy
and The Parson's Scruple. They were written between 1855 and
1858.
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The Woman in White
The narrative, related in succession by Walter
Hartright and other characters in the story, starts with his midnight
encounter on a lonely road with a mysterious and agitated woman
dressed entirely in white, whom he helps to escape from pursuers.
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No Name
This thriller is about disinheritance and the question
of women. The Vanstone daughters' illegitimacy is revealed early
on, and as Magdalen Vanstone struggles to reclaim her identity,
the plot uncovers many a moral, social and legal skeleton in the
cupboards of Victorian society.
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Armadale
Explores the divided self, and the need to acknowledge
the darker side of the personality: a modern theme grafted on
to a traditional melodrama, and worked out with all of Collins's
skill in handling a complex plot.
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The
Moonstone (Classic Mystery Fiction)
On her eighteenth birthday, her friend and suitor
Franklin Blake brings the gift to her. That very night, it is
stolen again. No one is above suspicion, as the idiosyncratic
Sergeant Cuff and Franklin piece together a puzzling series of
events as mystifying as an opium dream and as deceptive as the
nearby Shivering Sand.
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Man and Wife
Man and Wife examines the plight of a woman who,
promised marriage by one man, comes to believe that she may inadvertently
have gone through a form of marriage with his friend, as recognized
by the archaic laws of Scotland and Ireland.
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Poor Miss Finch
Wilkie Collin's intriguing story about a blind
girl, Lucilla Finch, and the identical twins who both fall in
love with her, has the exciting complications of his better known
novels, but it also overturns conventional expectations. Using
a background of myth and fairy-tale to expand the boundaries of
nineteenth century realist fiction, Collins not only takes a blind
person as his central character but also explores the idea of
blindness and its implications.
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The New Magdalen
Mercy
Merrick, fallen woman and ex-convict, tries to take on the new
role of being a nurse during a war between Britain and France.
She encounters Grace Roseberry, headed to England to see a Lady
Janet after her father's death. When Grace is hit and killed by
a loose shell, Mercy takes on Grace's identity. On the verge of
happiness she meets Julian Gray, nephew of Lady Janet, who has
an interesting companion who may know something about Mercy's
true identity.
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The Law and The Lady
Valeria Woodville investigates the murder of her
husband's first wife in the attempt to prove him guiltless. This
book exposes the rehomession of Victorian domestic life and marriage.
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Miss or Mrs, The Haunted Hotel, The Guilty
River
These three novellas all proceed through a series
of dramatic scenes to a climax that in one case at least is literally
explosive. The fast-paced Miss or Mrs? (1871) opens on
a yacht, features an unconventional heroine, and entails murder
attempts, blackmail, clandestine marriage and commercial fraud.
Dramatic and psychologically absorbing, the action of The Haunted
Hotel (1878) takes place in an ancient Venetian palazzo converted
into a modern hotel that houses a grisly secret. Lastly, set in
a beautiful water-mill, The Guilty River (1886) depicts
a group of alienated characters, whose relationships threaten
to erupt in violence and murder.
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| The
Two Destinies |
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| A
Rogue’s Life |
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| The
Fallen Leaves |
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Jezebel’s Daughter
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| The
Black Robe |
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| Heart
and Science |
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| ‘I
Say No’ |
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| The
Evil Genius |
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The Legacy of Cain
"Will you take this wretched innocent little
creature home with you?" asks a condemned woman of the Minister
of the local town. Childless himself, and touched by the curious
little girl, the Minister finds himself unable to refuse the woman's
plea to settle the future of her child. Yet the prisoner is unrepentant
of the murder of her husband, and views calmly and dispassionately
her coming death. Will her vices be passed on to this seemingly
sweet child? The Minister decides that no one shall know the true
mother of the child, and when his wife is blessed by a natural
daughter, he determines to bring the two up as equals. He moves
to a distant town, and the secret remains hidden. But when the
mysterious Philip Dunboyne turns up unexpectedly, the Minister
finds himself caught up in a dangerous game with fate."
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Blind Love
Filled with typical Collins romance and high adventure,
the tale ranges from rural Ireland through the teeming streets
of London to a sleepy village in Belgium. It is a story of a secret
society of Irish rebels, of sinister plots, of revenge and bloody
murder and loyalty unto death. Above all, it is a sometimes disturbing,
sometimes humorous, frequently moving story of the "blind love"
of Irish Henley for the notorious Lord Harry Norland - and the
trap into which her unwavering devotion gradually and inexorably
leads her.
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Defined
sometimes as Father and other times as Grandfather of the British Detective
genre, Wilkie Collins was born in London in 1824. He was son of the landscape
painter William. He studied law but seemed to have had little interest
in both the latter as well as commerce. However he was good at writing
and painting (had a picture hung in the Royal Academy). Collins' first
book was a biography of his father (1848) followed by a romance (Antonina;
or the Fall of Rome) and Basil. Starting
from 1851 he began an association with Charles Dickens where he learnt
how to characterize and add humor to his work. Dickens was influenced
by him as shown in the more suspenseful plots of A Tale of Two Cities
and Great Expectations. Collins' first major success, The
Woman in White, appeared on Dickens' periodical All the Year
Round. Despite the enormous amount of publications (including collection
of essays, a travelling book, romances, ghost stories, non fiction, plays)
he will be remembered mainly for writing The Moonstone
which is considered the first detective story. Two more works feature
in his golden moment even though not quite as famous as the two aforementioned:
Armadale and No Name.
With the death of Dickens Collins seemed to have been quite at loss and
instead of going on by himself he found another partner in Charles Reade
who was greatly concerned in the social abuses of his time. Influenced
by him and also perhaps by the recourse to laudanum to cure his pain derived
by gout, Collins began on his crusade attacking many social conflicts
of the Victorian times and leaving the more sensational side of his work.
He never married but had two daughters and a son by Martha Rudd. He died
from a paralytic stroke in 1889. 