"the" definitive Wilkie Collins site

Best known in this household for writing THE WOMAN IN WHITE and THE MOONSTONE, Wilkie Collins had far more going for him.

Wilkie Collins was born on 8 January 1824 and died on 23 September 1889. In those 65 years he wrote 27 novels, more than 50 short stories, at least 15 plays, and more than 100 non-fiction pieces. A close friend of Charles Dickens from their meeting in March 1851 until Dickens' death in June 1870, Collins was one of the best known, best loved, and, for a time, best paid of Victorian fiction writers. But after his death, his reputation declined as Dickens's bloomed. Now, Collins is being given more critical and popular attention than he has for fifty years. Almost all his books are in print, he is studied widely, and new film and television versions of some of his books have been made. Nevertheless, there is still much to be discovered about this superstar of Victorian fiction.

Includes articles, bibliography, biography, links to e-texts of almost every piece of Collins' work: fiction, nonfiction, books, letters, articles, plays, short stories PLUS! the letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins. (The letters from Wilkie Collins to Charles Dickens were, of course, burned in the bonfire at Gad's Hill Place in September 1860.)

e.g. A Queen's Revenge: 15 August 1857 Household Words XVI 156-162
A Queen's Revenge -- A historical account of Queen Christina of Sweden and her murder of her equerry.

The things they never taught us in world history class. If they'd spiced things up with stuff like this, more students might've paid attention.

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   posted by Sal Towse at  5:02 PM|| |