Wilkie Collins is best known as the author of
The Woman in White,his 1860 novel which became a popular success and which he later successfully adapted for the stage. 1868 saw the publication of
The Moonstone,which some critics have claimed as the first English detective novel. Though that is debatable, the novel certainly cemented Collins’s reputation as a popular author and the best known writer of the subgenre called the “sensation novel”. Collins was also a prolific literary journalist, and, as a friend of Charles Dickens, contributed to his journals
Household Wordsand
All the Year Round. He was also an actor, and a successful playwright. Collins’s personal life was also somewhat sensational. Though he never married, he did have two common law wives, one of whom bore him…
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Citation: Tredennick, Bianca. "Wilkie Collins". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 September 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5095, accessed 22 November 2024.]
