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Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins

William 'Wilkie' Collins (8 January 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. Events 871 - Battle of Ashdown - Ethelred of Wessex defeats a Danish invasion army Year 1824 ( MDCCCXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap year Events 1122 - Concordat of Worms. 1459 - Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the English Year 1889 ( MDCCCLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common The English people (from the adjective in Englisc) are a Nation and Ethnic group native to England who predominantly speak English A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or Drama. An author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created He was hugely popular in his time, and wrote 27 novels, more than 50 short stories, at least 15 plays, and over 100 pieces of non-fiction work. His best-known works are The Woman in White, The Moonstone, Armadale and No Name. The Woman in White is an Epistolary novel written by Wilkie Collins in 1859, serialized in 1859-1860 and first published in book The Moonstone (1868 by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century, British, Epistolary novel, generally considered the first Armadale ( 1866) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century semi- epistolary Novel. No Name (1862 by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century novel revolving upon the issue of illegitimacy

Contents

Life

Collins was born in London, the son of a well-known Royal Academician landscape artist, William Collins. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. This article refers to an art institution in London For other meanings of Royal Academy see Royal Academy (disambiguation. William Collins (1788-1847 was a British landscape and genre painter Named after his father, he swiftly became known by his second name (which honoured his godfather, David Wilkie). Sir David Wilkie may refer to Sir David Wilkie (artist (1785-1841 Scottish painter Sir David Wilkie (surgeon (1882-1938 British From the ages of 12-15 he lived with his parent in Italy, which made a great impression on him. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest At the age of 17 he left school and was apprenticed as a clerk to a firm of tea merchants, but after five unhappy years, during which he wrote his first novel, Iolani, he entered Lincoln's Inn to study law. Clerk, the vocational title commonly refers to a White-collar worker who conducts general office or in some instances sales tasks The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which Barristers of England and Wales belong and where (Iolani remained unpublished for over 150 years until 1999. ) After his father's death in 1847, Collins produced his first published book, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq. Year 1847 ( MDCCCXLVII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common , R. A. (1848), and also considered a career in painting, exhibiting a picture at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1849, but it was with the publication of his first published novel Antonina in 1850 that his career as a writer began in earnest. Year 1848 ( MDCCCXLVIII) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap The Summer Exhibition is an open Art exhibition held annually by the Royal Academy in Burlington House, Piccadilly in central London Year 1849 ( MDCCCXLIX) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common For the game see 1850 (board game. 1850 ( MDCCCL) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link

An instrumental event in Collins' career occurred in 1851 when he was introduced to Charles Dickens by a mutual friend, Augustus Egg. 1851 ( MDCCCLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common year Augustus Leopold Egg ( 21 May 1816 in London, England &ndash 26 March 1863) was a Victorian artist best known for his modern They became lifelong friends and collaborators; Collins became an editor of Dickens' "Household Words", and several of Collins' novels were serialized in Dickens' weekly publication All the Year Round, and Dickens later edited and published them himself. Household Words was an English weekly Magazine edited by Charles Dickens which took its name from the line from Shakespeare "Familiar in All the Year Round was a Victorian periodical being a British weekly Literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, published Collins' younger brother Charles Allston married Dickens' younger daughter Kate.

Collins suffered from a form of arthritis known as 'rheumatic gout' and became severely addicted to the opium that he took (in the form of laudanum) to relieve the pain. Arthritis (from Greek arthro-, joint + -itis, inflammation plural arthritides is a group of conditions involving damage to the Joints of the body Opium is a Narcotic formed from the Latex (ie sap released by lacerating (or "scoring" the immature seed pods of opium poppies ( Laudanum (ˈlȯd-nəm or ˈlȯ-də-nəm also known as Opium Tincture or Tincture of Opium, is an Alcoholic herbal preparation As a result he experienced paranoid delusions, the most notable being his conviction that he was constantly accompanied by a subjective doppelgänger he dubbed 'Ghost Wilkie'. The syndrome of subjective doubles is a rare Delusional misidentification syndrome in which a person suffers from the Delusion that he or she has a double or His novel The Moonstone prominently features the effects of opium and opium addiction. The Moonstone (1868 by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century, British, Epistolary novel, generally considered the first While he was writing it, Collins' consumption of laudanum was such that he later claimed to have no memory of writing large parts of the novel.

Collins never married, but lived, on and off from 1858, with a widow, Mrs. Year 1858 ( MDCCCLVIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common Caroline Graves, and her daughter. He also fathered three children by another woman, Martha Rudd, whom he met after Mrs. Graves left him in 1868. Year 1868 ( MDCCCLXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Leap Mrs. Graves returned to Collins after two years, and he continued both relationships until his death in 1889.

He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, West London. Kensal Green Cemetery is a burial ground located in Kensal Green, London, England. His grave notes him as the author of The Woman in White. The Woman in White is an Epistolary novel written by Wilkie Collins in 1859, serialized in 1859-1860 and first published in book Grave Number 31754, Square 141, Row 1.

Works

His works were classified at the time as 'sensation novels', a genre seen nowadays as the precursor to detective fiction and suspense fiction. The sensation novel was a Literary genre of fiction popular in Great Britain in the 1860s and 1870s following on from earlier Melodramatic novels and the Detective fiction is a branch of Crime fiction in which a Detective (or detectives either professional or amateur investigate a crime usually Murder He also wrote penetratingly on the plight of women and on the social and domestic issues of his time. Like many writers of his time, he published most of his novels as serials in magazines such as Dickens's All the Year Round, and was known as a master of the form, creating just the right degree of suspense to keep his audience reading from week to week. The term " serial " refers to the intrinsic property of a series &mdash namely its order. Magazines, periodicals or serials are Publications generally published on a regular schedule containing a variety of articles, generally All the Year Round was a Victorian periodical being a British weekly Literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, published (Sales of All The Year Round actually increased when The Woman in White followed A Tale of Two Cities. A Tale of Two Cities (1859 is the second Historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the )

He enjoyed ten years of great success following publication of The Woman in White in 1859. His next novel, No Name combined social commentary - the absurdity of the law as it applied to children of unmarried parents (see illegitimacy) - with a densely-plotted revenge thriller. No Name (1862 by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century novel revolving upon the issue of illegitimacy In Common law, legitimacy is the status of a Child that is born to parents who are legally married to one another or that is born shortly after the Armadale, the first and only of Collins' major novels of the 1860s to be serialised in a magazine other than Dickens' "All The Year Round", provoked strong criticism, generally centered upon its transgressive villainess Lydia Gwilt; and provoked in part by Collins's typically confrontational preface. Armadale ( 1866) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century semi- epistolary Novel. The novel was simultaneously a financial coup for its author and a comparative commercial failure: the sum paid by Cornhill for the serialisation rights was exceptional, eclipsing the prices paid for the vast majority of similar novels by a substantial margin, yet the novel itself failed to recoup its publishers' investment. The Moonstone, published in 1868, and the last novel of what is generally regarded as the most successful decade of its author's career, was, despite a somewhat cool reception from both Dickens and the critics, a significant return to form and reestablished the market value of an author whose success in the competitive Victorian literary marketplace had been gradually waning in the wake of his first "masterpiece. The Moonstone (1868 by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century, British, Epistolary novel, generally considered the first " Viewed by many to represent the advent of the detective story within the tradition of the English novel, The Moonstone remains one of Collins's most critically acclaimed productions.

However, various factors (most often cited is the death of Dickens in 1870 and thus the loss of his literary mentoring; Collins's increased dependence upon laudanum; and a somewhat ill-advised penchant for using his fiction to rail against social injustices) appear to have led to a decline in the two decades following the success of his sensation novels of the 1860s. Laudanum (ˈlȯd-nəm or ˈlȯ-də-nəm also known as Opium Tincture or Tincture of Opium, is an Alcoholic herbal preparation Social Injustice is a concept relating to the perceived unfairness or injustice of a Society in its divisions of rewards and burdens His novels and novellas of the '70s and '80s, whilst by no means entirely devoid of merit or literary interest, are generally regarded as inferior to his previous productions and receive comparatively little critical attention today.

The Woman in White and The Moonstone share an unusual narrative structure, somewhat resembling an epistolary novel, in which different portions of the book have different narrators, each with a distinctive narrative voice (Armadale has this to a lesser extent through the correspondence between some characters). An epistolary novel German Briefroman ---> is a Novel written as a series of documents Armadale ( 1866) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century semi- epistolary Novel. The Moonstone, being the most popular of Collin's novels, is known as a precursor for detective fiction such as Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes is a famous fictional detective of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who first appeared in Publication in 1887

After The Moonstone, Collins's novels contained fewer thriller elements and more social commentary. The subject matter continued to be "sensational", but his popularity declined. Swinburne commented: "What brought good Wilkie's genius nigh perdition? Some demon whispered - 'Wilkie! have a mission. Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909 was a Victorian era English poet '"

Bibliography

References

External links

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