Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Wilkie Collins
-
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.
Her estate was valued at £36,393, 13s. 3d., a substantial amount for any writer of the period (and considerably more than contemporaries such as Wilkie Collins
and Anthony Trollope
).
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Textual Production
Dorothy L. Sayers
DLS
supplied another introduction in 1944, to the Everyman's Library edition of Wilkie Collins
's The Moonstone.
Illustrated by George du Maurier
, this serial ran alongside fiction by Trollope
and Thackeray
, and shared the lead with Collins
's Armadale. EG
received £2,000 for the serialisation (as compared to Collins's...
Textual Production
Michelene Wandor
Novels adapted by MW
are not restricted to those by women. Works by male writers she has revised for broadcasting include Kipps by H. G. Wells
, aired on Radio 4
in 1984 and runner-up...
Textual Production
Frances Power Cobbe
FPC
also supported other writers on the subject, such as Wilkie Collins
, whom she supplied with materials towards his novel Heart and Science, 1883.
Collins, Wilkie. “Appendices”. Heart and Science, edited by Steve Farmer, Broadview Press, pp. 329-79.
370
Textual Features
Dinah Mulock Craik
This original fairy tale features the Prince Dolor, who is crippled as an infant, deprived of his rule by a Prince Regent uncle, and brought up in miserable conditions. A fairy godmother gives him a...
Textual Features
Ella D'Arcy
Perhaps aimed at a Temple Bar formula, it has thriller-style action and stilted dialogue which suggests a sensation novel by Wilkie Collins
or Mary Elizabeth Braddon
, but which proved not to be D'Arcy territory...
Textual Features
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
In a letter to Bulwer-Lytton
from this period, Braddon admits studying the inventive plotting of Frédéric Soulié
and borrowing from it.
Wolff, Robert Lee. Sensational Victorian. Garland.
128
This plot-driven sensation novel features a former valet, Joseph Wilmot, who, having taken...
Textual Features
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Robert Lee Wolff
argues that this is one of MEB
's very best Wilkie Collins
-style investigations.
Wolff, Robert Lee. Sensational Victorian. Garland.
243
As in much of MEB
's other fiction in this style, the reader can easily and...
Textual Features
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
MEB
recalled the publisher's desire for a blend of the human interest and genial humour of Dickens
with the plot-weaving of G. W. M. Reynolds
.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth et al. “My First Novel”. The Trail of the Serpent, edited by Chris Willis and Chris Willis, Modern Library, pp. 415-27.
422
She indeed opens with a Dickensian flourish, conjuring...
Reception
Harriet Smythies
In April 1863 HS
's novel The Daily Governess; or, Self-Dependence (1861) was included as part of Henry Mansel
's attack on sensation novels in the Quarterly Review. Although HS
was not a major...
Reception
Queen Victoria
Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands outsold many books that appeared in 1868, including Wilkie Collins
's The Moonstone, Robert Browning
's Ring and the Book, and Louisa May Alcott
Reception
Lucy Walford
After the publication of Recollections of a Scottish NovelistLW
decided that there were still stories in her mind that rank among the great days of my life, yet which did not fit in with...
Reception
Sarah Waters
SW
calls this book on the one hand a homage to the sensation novels of Braddon
and Wilkie Collins
, on the other hand a reflection of 1990s excitement over the concept of queer. Writing...
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.
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...
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.
Texts
Collins, Wilkie. Antonina. R. Bentley, 1850.
Collins, Wilkie. “Appendices”. Heart and Science, edited by Steve Farmer, Broadview Press, 1996, pp. 329-79.
Collins, Wilkie. Armadale. Smith, Elder, 1866.
Collins, Wilkie. Basil. R. Bentley, 1852.
Collins, Wilkie et al. Blind Love. Chatto and Windus, 1890.
Collins, Wilkie. Heart and Science. Chatto and Windus, 1883.
Sayers, Dorothy L., and Wilkie Collins. “Introduction”. The Moonstone, Dent; Dutton, 1967, p. v - xi.
Collins, Wilkie. No Name. Sampson Low, 1862.
Collins, Wilkie. Poor Miss Finch. Bentley, 1872.
Collins, Wilkie. The Evil Genius. Chatto and Windus, 1886.
Collins, Wilkie. The Law and the Lady. Chatto and Windus, 1875.
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone. Tinsley Brothers, 1868.
Collins, Wilkie, and Dorothy L. Sayers. The Moonstone. Dent; Dutton, 1967.
Collins, Wilkie. The New Magdalen. Bentley, 1873.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Sampson Low, 1860.
