Wilkie Collins

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Standard Name: Collins, Wilkie
Used Form: William Wilkie Collins
Used Form: W. Wilkie Collins
Best remembered for his sensational fiction of the 1860s, WC was, in the course of his forty-year writing career, the author of many ingeniously-plotted novels, as well as a writer of plays (some in collaboration with Charles Dickens ), short stories, a biography of his father, and a travel book. Innovative narrative technique is a feature of his work, along with legal and social critique. His writings are also notable, in a literary culture that viewed physical difference as a marker of moral failure, for their sympathetic representation of disability.
Caricature of Wilkie Collins, with oversized head and hat and skinny legs. He is putting up a poster for The Woman in White and his jacket pocket is stuffed with posters.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Henry Handel Richardson
The child Ethel Richardson was a great reader. She identified with male fictional characters, and cherished three books which her father gave her almost on his death-bed: The Pilgrim's Progress by Bunyan , Robinson Crusoe...
Education Jean Plaidy
Eleanor Alice Burford (later JP ) learned how to read at four years old: I do feel that books were my thing, right from the word go, she told an interviewer in 1991.
qtd. in
Bennett, Catherine. “The Prime of Miss Jean Plaidy”. The Guardian, 4 July 1991, pp. 23-4.
23
She...
Education John Strange Winter
After this she completed her education at home. Although even in this context she says, I was not well educated, for I never would learn,
Bainton, George, editor. The Art of Authorship. J. Clarke, 1890.
24
she also described herself as having always been from...
Family and Intimate relationships Anne Thackeray Ritchie
Following his death Charles Collins (Wilkie 's brother), with his wife (the former Kate Dickens ) and family, were the main sources of support for ATR and her sister. Between 1,500 and 2,000 mourners...
Friends, Associates Jane Loudon
As well as horticultural and artistic friends and associates, JL and her husband had literary friends, who included Robert Chambers and his wife Anne , Elizabeth Gaskell , Mary Howitt , Julia Kavanagh , Charles Dickens
Friends, Associates Frances Power Cobbe
FPC 's wide London circle included Walter Bagehot , Frances Sarah Colenso and her husband Bishop Colenso (while they were home from Africa), Henry Fawcett , Charles Kingsley , W. E. H. Lecky , Sir Charles Lyell
Friends, Associates Lucy Walford
LW had many friends among literary people and those who moved in literary circles. She discussed the books of her childhood with Reginald Palgrave , who shared many of her early reading experiences, and Wilkie Collins
Friends, Associates Charles Dickens
As one of the leading literary figures of the period, CD had an extensive social network. His early acquaintances in publishing included Richard Bentley , William Harrison Ainsworth , and John Forster (who later became...
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Elizabeth Braddon
It opens in medias res aboard a steamer travelling from Cape Town to London, with the chance encounter of childhood friends. These are Arnold Wentworth, alias Alfred Wildover, the prodigal son of a gentleman...
Intertextuality and Influence Charlotte Chanter
Critic John Sutherland discerns the influence of Wilkie Collins on the novel's plot. Certainly the figure of the mysterious woman in black who aims to avenge herself on her husband's destroyers recalls the description of...
Intertextuality and Influence Mrs Alexander
Its plot is similar to that of The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins , published the year before in All The Year Round, except that the sexes are transposed.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press, 1989.
After the awe-inspiring moment of death...
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Cholmondeley
In its parody of the mystery genre, this often melodramatic novel features an unreliable narrator, stock characters (e.g. rich maiden aunt, prodigal son, American stranger, poor cousin), and is said to bear a resemblance to...
Intertextuality and Influence John Strange Winter
At the height of her career JSW gave an account of her early development to the memoirist George Bainton . She said she hardly knew how or why she came to be able to write...
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Elizabeth Braddon
MEB was encouraged to write from an early age, particularly by her mother. She would later recall how when she was eight and had just learned to write, her godfather bought her a beautiful brand...
Intertextuality and Influence Harriet Martineau
According to HM 's Autobiography, she drew inspiration for the setting and heroine of a later story (The Hamlets, part of Poor Laws and Paupers Illustrated) from seeing William Collins 's...

Timeline

4 May 1799: Forces in Mysore, India, opposing British...

National or international item

4 May 1799

Forces in Mysore, India, opposing British rule were finally defeated at the second capture of Seringapatam.
Bayly, Christopher Alan. Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
under Seringapatam
Marshall, Peter James. Problems of Empire: Britain and India, 1757-1813. Allen and Unwin, 1968.
under Seringapatam
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
70 (1800): 165-6
Bozman, Ernest Franklin, editor. Everyman’s Encyclopaedia. 4th Edition, J. M. Dent, 1958, 12 vols.
11: 237

April 1863: Henry Mansel in the Quarterly Review attacked...

Writing climate item

April 1863

Henry Mansel in the Quarterly Review attacked sensation novels as preaching to the nerves and as indications of a wide-spread corruption, of which they are in part both the effect and the cause; called into...

1876: John Maxwell sold Belgravia to Chatto and...

Writing climate item

1876

John Maxwell sold Belgravia to Chatto and Windus , ending Mary Elizabeth Braddon 's association with the monthly.
Edwards, Peter David et al. Indexes to Fiction in Belgravia 1867-1899. Victorian Fiction Research Unit, Department of English, University of Queensland, 1989.
passim

28 September 1883: A meeting of authors, chaired by Walter Besant,...

Writing climate item

28 September 1883

A meeting of authors, chaired by Walter Besant , gathered to found the Company of Authors, later the Society of Authors , to improve the earning prospects of writers and lobby for copyright protection.
Parker, Derek. “Onward to 3000”. The Author, Vol.
cx
, No. 4, 1 Dec.–28 Feb. 1999, pp. 166-8.
166-7

Texts

Collins, Wilkie. Antonina. R. Bentley, 1850, 3 vols.
Collins, Wilkie. “Appendices”. Heart and Science, edited by Steve Farmer, Broadview Press, 1996, pp. 329-79.
Collins, Wilkie. Armadale. Smith, Elder, 1866, 2 vols.
Collins, Wilkie. Basil. R. Bentley, 1852, 3 vols.
Collins, Wilkie et al. Blind Love. Chatto and Windus, 1890, 3 vols.
Collins, Wilkie. Heart and Science. Chatto and Windus, 1883, 3 vols.
Sayers, Dorothy L., and Wilkie Collins. “Introduction”. The Moonstone, Dent; Dutton, 1967, p. v - xi.
Collins, Wilkie. No Name. Sampson Low, 1862, 3 vols.
Collins, Wilkie. Poor Miss Finch. Bentley, 1872, 3 vols.
Collins, Wilkie. The Evil Genius. Chatto and Windus, 1886, 3 vols.
Collins, Wilkie. The Law and the Lady. Chatto and Windus, 1875, 3 vols.
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Tinsley Brothers, 1868, 3 vols.
Collins, Wilkie, and Dorothy L. Sayers. The Moonstone. Dent; Dutton, 1967.
Collins, Wilkie. The New Magdalen. Bentley, 1873, 3 vols.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Sampson Low, 1860, 3 vols.