Wilkie Collins : A Literary Life

Abstract

This new biography focuses on the career of the popular Victorian novelist Wilkie Collins (1824-89) and provides a new account of his professional life in the literary world of nineteenth-century Britain. It draws on recently available business and personal correspondence to establish a fresh portrait of one of Victorian Britain's busiest authors, taking in Collins's notoriously complicated private life and his friendship with Charles Dickens, as well as his work as journalist, reviewer and playwright. There is discussion of Collins's best known novels, including `The Moonstone' and `The Woman in White' but attention is also given to lesser-known works and to Collins plays, which have long been neglected.