Wilkie Collins

Bianca Tredennick (SUNY, Oneonta)
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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 Words

and

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…

2682 words

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 19 March 2024.]

5095 Wilkie Collins 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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