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With a specially commissioned afterword, the "Collector's Library" series includes a brief biography of the author, and a further reading list. This edition contains an afterword by David Stuart Davies.
An elegant gift edition of one of the very first detective stories ever written, introduced by historian, journalist and author, Judith Flanders.
A doctor is visited by a desperate woman with a question: am I evil, or insane? When the letters from Italian servant to his wife in London suddenly cease, she is convinced he has been murdered. In the darkened bedroom of a mouldering palazzo by the Grand Canal, an English lord sickens and suddenly dies. How are these little mysteries connected?
Part of Alma Classics Evergreens series, this edition of The Woman in White includes pictures and an extensive section on Collins's life and works.
This suspenseful case study in villainy pits the scheming Madame Fontaine against another strong woman, and a former inmate of Bedlam asylum. With its intricate plot and memorable characters, Jezebel's Daughter shares its sensational nature with Collins's major novels. This edition examines the Victorian fascination with criminality.
Originally published in Household World in 1855 as 'The Ostler', but recast and expanded two decades later, The Dream Woman is a powerfully dark and suspenseful multi-narrative novella from the master of the mystery genre and the author of some of the most enduringly popular novels of the Victorian era.
Innehåller de två novellerna Svarta stugan och Den misslyckade detektiven. Titelnovellen handlar om en stenstuga täckt med svart tjära, belägen i västra England. I det fattiga hushållet bor en ung kvinna och hennes far. En dag får de förtroendet att vakta en plånbok åt ett rikt par medan de är i stan. Samtidigt har fadern i huset åkt iväg för att arbeta, så den unga kvinnan är ensam hemma. Och då dyker givetvis inbrottstjuvar upp!William Wilkie Collins (1824–1889) var en brittisk författare, mest känd för sina detektiv- och spänningsromaner. Han skrev romaner, noveller och pjäser.
Part of Alma Classics Evergreen series, The Moonstone is here presented with an extensive section on Collins's life and works.
HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.'The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.'One of the earliest works of 'detective' fiction with a narrative woven together from multiple characters, Wilkie Collins partly based his infamous novel on a real-life eighteenth century case of abduction and wrongful imprisonment. In 1859, the story caused a sensation with its readers, hooking their attention with the ghostly first scene where the mysterious 'Woman in White' Anne Catherick comes across Walter Hartright. Chilling, suspenseful and tense in mood, the novel remains as emotive for its readers today as when it was first published.
Rachel opened the box and lifted out the diamond. She held it up in a ray of sunlight that poured through the window, and cried out in amazement.
The Moonstone is a beautiful yellow diamond that was stolen from the statue of a Moon god in India. When Franklin Blake brings it to Rachel Verinder's house in Yorkshire for her birthday, it brings bad luck with it. How many people will the Moonstone hurt? How many must die before the diamond's revenge is complete?
The only edition in print, Man and Wife combines the fast pace and sensational plot of Collins's most famous novels with a biting attack on the inequitable marriage laws in Victorian Britain.
Armadale tells the devastating story of the independent, murderous, and adulterous Lydia Gwilt. This traditional melodrama also considers the modern theme of the role of women in society.
With an Introduction and Notes by Scott Brewster, University of Central Lancashire.Wilkie Collins is a master of mystery, and The Woman in White is his first excursion into the genre. When the hero, Walter Hartright, on a moonlit night in north London, encounters a solitary, terrified and beautiful woman dressed in white, he feels impelled to solve the mystery of her distress.The intricate plot is peopled with a finely characterised cast, from the peevish invalid Mr Fairlie to the corpulent villain Count Fosco and the enigmatic woman herself.
Magdalen Vanstone and her sister Norah learn the true meaning of social stigma in Victorian England only after the traumatic discovery that their dearly loved parents, whose sudden deaths have left them orphans, were not married at the time of their birth. Disinherited by law and brutally ousted from Combe-Raven, the idyllic country estate which has been their peaceful home since childhood, the two young women are left to fend for themselves. While the submissive Norah follows a path of duty and hardship as a governess, her high-spirited and rebellious younger sister has made other decisions. Determined to regain her rightful inheritance at any cost, Magdalen uses her unconventional beauty and dramatic talent in recklessly pursuing her revenge. Aided by the audacious swindler Captain Wragge, she braves a series of trials leading up to the climactic test: can she trade herself in marriage to the man she loathes? Written in the early 1860s, between The Woman in White and The Moonstone, No Name was rejected as immoral by critics of its time, but is today regarded as a novel of outstanding social insight, showing Collins at the height of his powers. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Wilkie Collins's fifth novel, The Dead Secret explores the relationship between a fallen woman, her illegitimate daughter and the recovery of a hidden secret. Set in rugged Cornwall, the novel blends romance with Gothic drama, and in characterization and setting, clearly anticipates the qualities of Collins's next novel, The Woman in White.
'A masterpiece' The TimesAfter the tragic deaths of their parents, Magdalen and Norah discover the devastating news that they are both illegitimate and not entitled to any inheritance.
'The first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels' T S EliotWhen Rachel Verinder receives a gift of an astonishing yellow diamond from her bitter old uncle for her eighteenth birthday, she has no idea that the stone brings great danger with it.
Intrigue, investigations, thievery, drugs and murder all make an appearance in Collins's classic who-done-it, The Moonstone. Published in serial form in 1868, it was inspired in part by a spectacular murder case widely reported in the early 1860s.
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