About the Author

Hello,
Here is a paragraph about the author of the novel, obtained from http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/india/wilkie-background.htm.

William Wilkie Collins
This page last revised 7 November 2000
I am grateful to Paul Lewis for use of the image of Collins.
William Wilkie Collins was born in London on January 8 1824, the son of the renowned painter William Collins (1788-1847). His father was a religious man, who was disappointed by his son's freethinking nature: Collins refused to conform to parental expectation, failing to make a career at the tea-merchants Antrobus and Co., to which he was apprenticed at the age of seventeen, and at the law, which he entered as a student in 1846. Collins was twenty-two when his father died, and was now determined to become a professional writer. His first book, published in November 1948, was Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, R.A., but, as Julian Symons comments, "he settled after this act of piety to a life of which his father would strongly have disapproved" (8).
In a writing career that lasted from 1843, when he published his first story in The Illuminated Magazine, until his death in 1889, Wilkie Collins wrote thirty-three books, and numerous plays and short stories. Although he was already an established writer with the publication of the memoir of his father and his first novel Antonina, it was when he met Charles Dickens in 1851 that his literary career began to take off. Collins regularly contributed to Dickens's magazine Household Words, and the writers even collaborated on a story called "The Perils of Certain English Prisoners" published in the Christmas 1857 number. Collins's first major success was The Woman in White which was published serially in Dickens's new journal All the Year Round from November 1859. In the decade that followed Collins produced the remainder of his best work: the novels No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone(1868). Although he continued to write for another twenty years his reputation fell into decline as his choice of subject matter veered to the sensational: for example Poor Miss Finch (1872) is the story of a blind girl who falls in love with one of a pair of identical twins whose skin is dyed blue by a cure for epilepsy.
Collins himself believed The Woman in White to be his finest work, and stipulated that the inscription on his tombstone should simply read: "'Author of The Woman in White and other works of fiction'" (Symons, 7).

Reviews

Hello,
Here are some reader reviews for my independant reading novel.

Sarah
Masterpiece
poignant...anyone wanting to travel to this place and time will appreciate this wonderful read.
3 years ago


Sarah Vanderwolf
typical victorian novel
Like most if not all Victorian novels, this book is really long and very descriptive. I gave up after about 400 pages. Any of the good qualities in this book (I've heard it called a 'pychological thriller') are lost in the length and the excruciating detail, in my opinion.
4 years ago


Tanya
Fantastic Read!
This review is from: The Woman in White (Trade Paperback)
8 years ago
Although considered a classic, Collins Woman in White is a must read for any mystery lover. The characters are detailed & real; and the villians are extrordinary!! The one villian is a man that will charm you all the while you are hating him! Great story, Great characters, and Exceptionally well written!

Blog

Hello,
The purpose of this blog will be to discuss my independant reading novel. The novel is entitled The Woman in White by William Wilkie Collins. I will be posting various discussions, quotations, and general observations based on this story.
Thank you and enjoy the blog