Wilkie Collins, página 9 de 33

Described by T.S. Eliot as "the first, the longest and the best of modern English detective novels," Wilkie Collins's classic "The Moonstone" is also an important precursor of the modern mystery and suspense genres. When Rachel Verinder's legacy of a priceless Indian diamond is stolen, all the evidence indicates that it is her beloved, Franklin Blake, who is guilty. Around this central axis of a crime and a thwarted love, Collins constructs an ingenious plot of teasing twists and surprises, and an elaborate multi-voiced narrative that never flags in human interest. A huge hit when first published and ever since, "The Moonstone" keeps the reader guessing until the end, and together with "The Woman in White" places Collins among the greatest storytellers in the English language.

Translator: Anton Oskar Forsman

What is "poor" about Miss Finch? Well, with a novel with names like "Mr Sebright" (hes an eye specialist "see bright", geddit?), its all about sight. You see, Lucilla Finch has been blind since infancy until she meets the eccentric German doctor Herr Grosse who partially restores her sight. Far from treating her simply as a "poor" blind Victorian woman, this novel is conscious of the experience of blindness, particularly that of blindness and romance.Published a few years after his acclaimed mystery novel, "The Moonstone" (which starred Sarah Hadland in a recent BBC adaptation), Wilkie Collins now keeps up the mystery in "Poor Miss Finch". Having researched a real case of regained sight, Collins depicts great detail in Lucillas experience of colours whilst in the midst of a love triangle.Two brothers want Lucillas hand in marriage; their deception and plotting must be foiled before Lucilla unwittingly changes her life forever.

"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

Cagney and Lacey may be the most iconic female detective duo, but who was the fictional female sleuth who started it all? Nancy Drew? Maybe Miss Marple? Nope one of the first literary female detectives was Valeria Brinton, this novels heroin. "The Law and the Lady" is the trailblazing book that begins the whole detective genre.In this suspenseful Victorian story, something is amiss with Valerias new husband, Eustace. Valeria becomes suspicious during their honeymoon in Ramsgate on the Kentish coast. Back in London, Valeria digs deeper and discovers Eustaces dark past.On the trail of truth, Valeria secretly investigates the legal proceedings surrounding Eustace to find her own evidence. After travelling to Edinburgh in Scotland, she unearths the answer that will rock the future of her marriage.Next time youre getting into your favourite detective movie deerstalker in hand remember where it all started.

When you think of Charles Dickens ghost stories, you may first think of A Christmas Carol and the ghosts that visit Scrooge. However, The Trail for Murder is perhaps Dickens second best-known ghost tale. Written in 1865, The Trial for Murder is a short story in which the ghost of a murder victim materialises to the foreman of the jury at his own murder trial. In this supernatural horror story, the ghost harasses the jurors and witnesses to ensure that his murderer is found guilty. While The Trial for Murder might not be considered scary by our modern-day standards it was one of the first ghost stories widely published and is a great read for fans of films like The Sixth Sense.

Joaquin Phoenix won an Oscar for playing the Joker, capturing the psychologically dark personality of a villain. Critics were stunned just as how the villainous character of Lydia Gwilt in "Armadale" stunned critics of the time. "Armadale" might give us the Victorian answer to the Joker, but its not only a psychological thriller. This novel is also a feat of classic Victorian themes of the supernatural, detectives, and romance.Inheriting his mothers family estate in Norfolk, Allan Armadale is brought into contact with the spine-chilling Lydia who is jealous of his love interest. Meanwhile, Allans friend, Ozias Midwinter, receives a letter written years before by a man on his deathbed also named Allan Armadale. The letter reveals a shocking secret that connects the past of Allan and Ozias.Discovering this secret, Lydia "the Joker" Gwilt uses it to plot against Allan in a dramatic tale of stolen identity and family inheritance.

"You dont have to put on the red light", as Sting sings except this female main character, Mercy Merrick, comes to that conclusion herself. Originally written as a play, "The New Magdalen" is a classic Victorian sensation novel, highlighting the prejudices against a woman of the streets in English society.Mercy is at the frontline of the war in France when she meets Grace Roseberry, a traveller who is returning to England to connect with her wealthy English relative, Lady Roy, after being left penniless in Italy. Spotting an opportunity to change her life, Mercy cunningly takes Graces name. Its a dramatic tale of a stolen identity amongst the upper classes, which would be right at home in the pages of "The Talented Mr. Ripley". Not only a thriller, this novel is a touching display of female friendship and unexpected romance, with twists in every chapter.

If youve seen "The Sixth Sense" with Bruce Willis, youll be familiar with Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome: deliberately making a person feel unwell in order to care for them. In "Jezebels Daughter", the poisonous Mrs Fontaine does exactly that in a plan to get her daughter, Minna, married. This is a story of romance and what happens when parents get too involved in their childrens marriages.Centred around a business based in London and Frankfort (or Frankfurt as we say today), "Jezebels Daughter" offers distinctive Victorian characters. Fritz Keller, the son of a partner of the business, is in love with Minna Fontaine. Meanwhile, the kindly proto-feminist Mrs Wagner runs the London office which employs women. She is caring for a patient, Jack, from the Bedlam psychiatric hospital.This thriller of a tale culminates when Mrs Fontaine, Mrs Wagner, and Jack all clash in a gothic plot that will determine the happy ending of Fritz and Minna.

Youve gotta love those travel documentaries with celebrities awkwardly trying to make their interactions with locals seem impromptu and organic. Perhaps its best to let the writers express the escapism of travel. And why not leave travel writing to Wilkie Collins, the star of Victorian-era mystery and thriller novels? In "Rambles Beyond Railways", Collins exchanges his London ale for a Cornish pasty when he writes of his travels around Cornwall.While the Victorians were crazy about building railways, rail access didnt extend to the whole of Cornwall. Instead, Collins goes by foot across Cornwall with his friend, Henry Brandling, who provided illustrations for the original publication. True to his love of the sensational, Collins explores the enchanting Cornish locations whence stories of ghostly shipwrecks and semi-mythical kings originated.Get lost in Collinss Cornwall instead of Jeremy Clarksons ill-fitting jeans.

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.

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.

Lord Montbarry rompe su compromiso con Agnes Lockwood y contrae matrimonio con la condesa Narona. Tras su luna de miel se instalan en un vetusto palacio veneciano junto al asistente de él. Allí se une a ellos el hermano de la condesa, el barón Rivar. Lord Montbarry fallece y Agnes recibe la noticia a través del hermano de este, Henry Westwick. La condesa y su hermano se van a América, el asistente desaparece, y su esposa, que vive en Londres, recibe mil libras de un anónimo. El palacio se rehabilita y se convierte en un hotel, y es aquí donde años más tarde se reúne la familia del fallecido. Tres de los miembros sufren un extraño malestar general con insomnio, falta de apetito, olores nauseabundos… Al mismo tiempo, la condesa Narona viaja a Venecia guiada por el destino. Allí, entre todos

This is the story of what a Womans patience can endure, and what a Mans resolution can achieve.If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events which fill these pages might have claimed their share of the public attention in a Court of Justice.But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the pre-engaged servant of the long purse; and the story is left to be told, for the first time, in this place. As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now. No circumstance of importance, from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence. When the writer of these introductory lines (Walter Hartright by name) happens to be more closely connected than others with the incidents to be recorded, he will describe them in his own person. When his experience fails, he will retire from the position of narrator; and his task will be continued, from the point at which he has left it off, by other persons who can speak to the circumstances under notice from their own knowledge, just as clearly and positively as he has spoken before them.Thus, 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 witnesswith the same object, in both cases, to present the truth always in its most direct and most intelligible aspect; and to trace the course of one complete series of events, by making the persons who have been most closely connected with them, at each successive stage, relate their own experience, word for word.Let Walter Hartright, teacher of drawing, aged twenty-eight years, be heard first.