Not that I wish to minimize its historical importance. The Moonstone, generally recognized as the first detective novel (despite the appearance of The Notting Hill Mystery a few years before), is not only a work of historical importance but also a work that transcends the genre it created, in the artfulness of its plotting, in its compassionate depiction of servants, and in its enlightened resolution of the theme of the British Empire, its crimes and their consequences. ' in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe. Eliot called it 'the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels. 'The Moonstone', is seen by many as the first true detective novel T. The 1860s saw Collins' creative high-point, and it was during this decade that he achieved fame and critical acclaim, with his four major novels, 'The Woman in White' (1860), 'No Name' (1862), 'Armadale' (1866) and 'The Moonstone' (1868). It was in 1848, a year after the death of his father, that he published his first book, 'The Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R.A'., to good reviews. In 1846, Collins became a law student at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1851, although he never practised. Returning to England, Collins attended Cole's boarding school, and completed his education in 1841, after which he was apprenticed to the tea merchants Antrobus & Co. However, there is still much to be discovered about this superstar of Victorian fiction.īorn in Marylebone, London in 1824, Collins' family enrolled him at the Maida Hill Academy in 1835, but then took him to France and Italy with them between 18. He is studied widely new film, television, and radio versions of some of his books have been made and all of his letters have been published. Most of his books are in print, and all are now in e-text.

Now, Collins is being given more critical and popular attention than he has received for 50 years. But after his death, his reputation declined as Dickens' bloomed. A close friend of Charles Dickens from their meeting in March 1851 until Dickens' death in June 1870, William Wilkie Collins was one of the best known, best loved, and, for a time, best paid of Victorian fiction writers.

The moonstone 1868