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.
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. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press.
After the awe-inspiring moment of death...
Literary responses
Marjorie Bowen
Critically, the book was very well received. Edward Wagenknecht
in the New York Times Book Review enthused over MB
's settings, calling her a genius in the creation of atmosphere,
Johnson, George M., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 153. Gale Research.
153: 45
and stated that...
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...
Publishing
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
It ran as a serial in Temple Bar competing with the Cornhill Magazine's Armadale by Wilkie Collins
, whose power MEB
felt she had to fight with his own weapons, mystery, crime, etc.
Wolff, Robert Lee. Sensational Victorian. Garland.
167
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Charlotte's Inheritance treats the Stock Exchange
and a poisoner based on art critic and murderer Thomas Griffiths Wainewright
. Both these books, according to Wolff, reveal the influence of Collins
and Balzac
, about whose...
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...
Publishing
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Several collections of MEB
's short fiction appeared in the early twenty-first century: The Cold Embrace and Other Ghost Stories (2000) from Ash-Tree Press
, At Chrighton Abbey and Other Horror Stories (2002) from Wildside Press
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...
Literary responses
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Margaret Oliphant
's critique of the sensation novel in 1867 relied heavily on attacking MEB
's reputation. The best she would say was that some of Braddon's works deserved some of their success. Braddon's sole...
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...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Its criminal heroine or anti-heroine, a blonde and childlike paragon of Victorian femininity, is a villainous counter-type of the passive, fair-haired Laura Fairlie, heroine of Wilkie Collins
's The Woman in White, which MEB
Wolff, Robert Lee. Sensational Victorian. Garland.
9
Arnold Bennett
gave it very high praise. Of the passage in which Lucy Audley decides to try to murder Robert, he...
Literary responses
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Henry James
's review in 1865 considered Braddon's success alongside that of Collins
, pronouncing her the founder of the sensation novel (defined as devising domestic mysteries adapted to the wants of a sternly prosaic...
Intertextuality and Influence
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
MEB
infused a touch of poetry more literally by frequent allusion to works by Tennyson
, including Mariana, The Deserted House, and The Lotos-Eaters. Her trademark use of other authors' texts as...
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.
