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The Evil Genius - A Domestic Story
by Wilkie CollinsCollins' most financially successful novel, The Evil Genius, opens with a jury determining the fate of a sea captain whose ship allegedly facilitated a diamond theft. The story develops into a powerful novel of Victorian private life, including deception, adultery and divorce. The story was ahead of its time in presenting both the wife and the..
A Fair Penitent
by Wilkie CollinsAn editor introduces the confession of a former star of the Paris stage who leaves her life of vice and sin to eventually become a Carmelite nun. The fair penitent of the title is a renowned stage actress who decides to give up her life of cultural refinement and cushy creature comforts to seek out a more spiritually fulfilling path. Will she ..
The Fallen Leaves
by Wilkie CollinsThe Fallen Leaves of the title are 'The people who have drawn blanks in the lottery of life...the friendless and the lonely, the wounded and the lost'. The novel was not well received and a planned Second Series, showing an unconventional marriage failing because of outside pressures, was never written.The novel follows the fortunes of four w..
The Frozen Deep
by Wilkie CollinsThe Frozen Deep was written by Collins during 1856, although conceived, cast and revised by Dickens. Collins was a friend of Charles Dickens, and together they produced a theatrical version of The Frozen Deep. The published edition was turned into a novella that reads like a play. There are five acts with a good deal of action, though I am no..
The Guilty River
by Wilkie CollinsThe Guilty River isn’t concerned with the supernatural, but with heredity. It is a mystery which betrays a certain fear of characteristic inheritance. Collins was not alone in this exploration. Like organic memory, heredity was a subject written about in literary and scientific circles alike, and at times the two were in direct conversation. Thomas..
The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice
by Wilkie CollinsWilkie Collins's ghost story was set in 1860 and published in book form with 'My Lady's Money'. It was dedicated to his friends Mr and Mrs Sebastian Schlesinger. Apart from supernatural elements, the story contains detective procedures and an insurance fraud relying on substituted identity that anticipates the later Blind Love (1890).&n..
Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time
by Wilkie CollinsHeart and Science, one of Wilkie Collins’ later novels, is concerned with the debate over what he termed ‘the hideous secrets of vivisection.’ The tale of a family split by various opinions and sentiments, as well as the novel’s clear parallels to the animal welfare/animal rights debates of today will strike chords of understanding with modern read..
Hide and Seek
by Wilkie CollinsHide and Seek was Wilkie Collins' third published novel. It is the first of his novels involving the solution of a mystery, the elements of which are clearer to the reader than to the novel's characters. Suspense is created from the reader's uncertainty as to which characters will find out the truth, when and how. ..