Wilkie Collins, página 11 de 33

Armadale is a mystery novel by Wilkie Collins, first published in 1864-66. It is the third of his four great novels of the 1860s, after "The Woman in White" and "No Name", and before "The Moonstone". The story starts with a deathbed confession by the murderer in the form of a letter to be given to his baby son when he grows up. Armadale is Collinss longest novel and combines several of his favorite themes, including the supernatural, identity, murder, and detection.Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was an English writer and early master of the mystery story, known for his sensational novels and plays. He is considered the grandfather of the English detective novel and a pioneer of detective fiction. Collins explored the effects of mysterious, shocking, and criminal happenings within Victorian middle-class families in his works, including "The Woman in White", "No Name", "Armadale", and "The Moonstone".

The loving heart of the protagonist of the novel, Iris, remains faithful to the master of her destiny. The conflict with the father does not prevent the lovers from connecting, but how does this stor

This is a charming and highly readable novel written in the middle of the 19th century. This novel also combines the adventure and twists of a novel with a moderately upper-class protagonist. Frank sees work life as a problem, and by his 25th birthday, he has failed in medicine, portraiture, caricature, and even forgery. Disillusioned with life, he despaired of finding something to do until he met Alicia Dulcifer.

Gerard Roiland, a typical Collins outsider, returns from college in Germany to take over his family estate at Trimley Dean and falls inappropriately in love with Kristel Toller, the daughter of one of his tenants. There is a mysterious deaf tenant who is also after Christelle.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century British epistolary novel. It is an early example of the modern detective novel, and established many of the ground rules of the modern genre. The story was serialised in Charles Dickensmagazine All the Year Round. Collins adapted The Moonstone for the stage in 1877.Rachel Verinder, a young English woman, inherits a large Indian diamond on her eighteenth birthday. It is a legacy from her uncle, a corrupt British army officer who served in India. The diamond is of great religious significance and extremely valuable, and three Hindu priests have dedicated their lives to recovering it. The story incorporates elements of the legendary origins of the Hope Diamond (or perhaps the Orloff Diamond or the Koh-i-Noor diamond).Rachels eighteenth birthday is celebrated with a large party at which the guests include her cousin Franklin Blake. She wears the Moonstone on her dress that evening for all to see, including some Indian jugglers who have called at the house.Later that night the diamond is stolen from Rachels bedroom, and a period of turmoil, unhappiness, misunderstandings and ill luck ensues. Told by a series of narratives from some of the main characters, the complex plot traces the subsequent efforts to explain the theft, identify the thief, trace the stone and recover it.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins The Woman in White is Wilkie Collinss fifth published novel, written in 1859 and set from 1849 to 1850. It is a mystery novel and falls under the genre of "sensation novels".The story can be seen as an early example of detective fiction with protagonist Walter Hartright employing many of the sleuthing techniques of later private detectives. The use of multiple narrators (including nearly all the principal characters) draws on Collinss legal training, and as he points out in his preamble: "the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness".Collins also drew on memories of his father, the artist William Collins, in the creation of drawing master Walter Hartright, and populates his story with a number of Italian characters, likely inspired by two years spent in Italy during childhood.In 2003, Robert McCrum writing for The Observer listed The Woman in White number 23 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time", and the novel was listed at number 77 on the BBCs survey The Big Read.

Conocido universalmente gracias a sus dos grandes obras, "La dama de blanco" y "La piedra lunar" (ambas editadas por Montesinos), Wilkie Collins es autor de un buen número de novelas y relatos. "Monkton el loco" es una de sus piezas fantasticas mas perfectas. Escrita en un tono a la vez reposado y tenso, ritmico y escueto estilo comun a toda su obra y que ha desatado las alabanzas de Borges, Eliot y Swinburne, esta breve obra maestra narra la angustia y desventura de un joven abocado a la muerte, o mejor dicho, a la ambiguedad de una muerte probable. Todo podria reducirse, para Alfred Monkton, al padecimiento de una fuerte neurosis obsesiva. Pero una sucesion de pequeños elementos instaura esa duda abismal ante lo desconocido que caracteriza a los mejores ejemplos de un genero, el fantastico, en el que "Monkton el loco" se inscribe con todos los honores.

«Basil» es la historia de un hombre débil, hipersensible, que se enamora de una jovencita a la que ve un día por casualidad y decide casarse con ella sin conocerla en absoluto. A partir de este momen

A classic collaboration between two literary giants, The Perils of Certain English Prisoners is a gripping adventure story filled with murder, intrigue and strong female characters. Following on from the success of The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices, Hesperus presents another collaboration from close friends and literary giants, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Their legendary friendship resulted in a number of joint literary ventures - in this case Collins wrote the second chapter under Dickens supervision. Inspired by events of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, but wishing to distance himself from the context of India itself, Dickens chose to set his novella in Central America. Fascinating in its use of female heroines, The Perils of Certain English Prisoners is an adventure story. On an island near the English colony of Belize, a silver mine is overrun by pirates, these in turn murder a number of English colonists and take the remaining prisoner. In the diverting narrative that follows, the initiative of intrepid women prisoners enables the captives to escape.

Tr.: Henry Dallemagne

Wilkie Collins's investigation of illegitimacy and 'the woman question' in No Name (1862) compels with a wholly different order of suspense from that of The Woman in White or The Moonstone. For its family secret - the Vanstone daughters' illegitimacy, their consequent disinheritance and fall from social grace - is revealed early on, and as Magdalen Vanstone struggles to reclaim her identity, the plot uncovers many a moral, social and legal skeleton in the cupboards of Victorian society. Mercurial and unscrupulous, Magdalen is Wilkie Collins's most exhilarating heroine, one of the rare subversives in Victorian fiction and a woman dazzlingly versatile in her powers of self-transformation. Through her, with great comic vigour, No Name exposes how social identity is constructed, and how it can be dismantled, buried, borrowed or invented.

In the year 1860, the reputation of Doctor Wybrow as a London physician reached its highest point. It was reported on good authority that he was in receipt of one of the largest incomes derived from the practice of medicine in modern times.One afternoon, towards the close of the London season, the Doctor had just taken his luncheon after a specially hard mornings work in his consulting-room, and with a formidable list of visits to patients at their own houses to fill up the rest of his daywhen the servant announced that a lady wished to speak to him.Who is she? the Doctor asked. A stranger?Yes, sir.I see no strangers out of consulting-hours. Tell her what the hours are, and send her away.I have told her, sir.Well?And she wont go.Wont go? The Doctor smiled as he repeated the words. He was a humourist in his way; and there was an absurd side to the situation which rather amused him. Has this obstinate lady given you her name? he inquired.No, sir. She refused to give any nameshe said she wouldnt keep you five minutes, and the matter was too important to wait till tomorrow. There she is in the consulting-room; and how to get her out again is more than I know.

Before I begin, by the aid of my wifes patient attention and ready pen, to relate any of the stories which I have heard at various times from persons whose likenesses I have been employed to take, it will not be amiss if I try to secure the readers interest in the following pages, by briefly explaining how I became possessed of the narrative matter which they contain.Of myself I have nothing to say, but that I have followed the profession of a traveling portrait-painter for the last fifteen years. The pursuit of my calling has not only led me all through England, but has taken me twice to Scotland, and once to Ireland. In moving from district to district, I am never guided beforehand by any settled plan. Sometimes the letters of recommendation which I get from persons who are satisfied with the work I have done for them determine the direction in which I travel. Sometimes I hear of a new neighborhood in which there is no resident artist of ability, and remove thither on speculation. Sometimes my friends among the picture-dealers say a good word on my behalf to their rich customers, and so pave the way for me in the large towns. Sometimes my prosperous and famous brother-artists, hearing of small commissions which it is not worth their while to accept, mention my name, and procure me introductions to pleasant country houses. Thus I get on, now in one way and now in another, not winning a reputation or making a fortune, but happier, perhaps, on the whole, than many men who have got both the one and the other. So, at least, I try to think now, though I started in my youth with as high an ambition as the best of them. Thank God, it is not my business here to speak of past times and their disappointments. A twinge of the old hopeless heartache comes over me sometimes still, when I think of my student days.

En 1857, Charles Dickens y Wilkie Collins se pusieron a escribir una historia a cuatro manos. El resultado fue esta divertida novela protagonizada por dos profesionales del ocio, dos amigos cuya holgazaneria constituye un paradojico acto de rebeldia en una Inglaterra victoriana que ensalzaba la diligencia y la productividad como virtudes rectoras.Como el Bartleby de Herman Melville, el duo comico formado por Thomas Idle y Francis Goodchild preferiria no hacer nada, o al menos nada que comporte un esfuerzo demasiado oneroso. Aun asi, hilarantes aunque modestas aventuras les salen al paso en sus viajes por los pueblos de Inglaterra. La ascension de una montaña, un dia en las carreras de caballos, un partido de criquet, un trayecto en ferrocarril o la visita a un balneario; hasta la actividad mas anodina puede propiciar el encuentro con personajes pintorescos y situaciones disparatadas que acabaran por reafirmar a Thomas Idle en su resolucion de no volver a ser activo nunca mas, bajo ningun pretexto y por todo el tiempo que le quedara de vida.Esta deliciosa novela de espiritu cervantino da rienda suelta, a traves de digresiones e historias intercaladas, a lo mejor de cada autor: el realismo lirico y la satira social de Dickens, el misterio y el suspense que con tanto exito cultivo Collins.

"Little Novels" isnt quite a "Little Women" spin-off, as the title might suggest. While you wont be treated to Timothée Chalamet, you will be treated to fourteen short stories – or little novels (ah