Wilkie Collins

Lore & Background

Collins was born in London to painter William Collins and Harriet Geddes. He moved with his family to Italy at age twelve, living there and in France for two years, learning Italian and French. After working as a tea merchant, his first novel Antonina was published in 1850, leading to a friendship with Charles Dickens, who became his mentor. Collins contributed to Dickens' journals Household Words and All the Year Round and collaborated with him on drama and fiction. By the 1860s, he achieved financial stability and an international following.

Collins suffered from gout and began using laudanum regularly to treat it, eventually becoming addicted. His health declined in the 1870s and 1880s, and the reception of his artistic output suffered. He criticized the institution of marriage and maintained relationships with two women: widow Caroline Graves, with whom he lived most of his life and whose daughter he treated as his own, and Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children.

His early life included education at home from his mother, attendance at the Maida Vale academy, and a period living in Italy and France. He later attended Reverend Cole's private boarding school, where he was bullied by a boy who forced him to tell stories nightly—an experience Collins credited with awakening his storytelling power. After leaving school, he worked as a clerk for a tea merchant for over five years before turning to writing.

Reader's Guide

Wilkie Collins' significance lies in his pioneering contributions to the mystery and detective genres. The Woman in White (1860) became a landmark sensation novel, while The Moonstone (1868) established ground rules for the modern detective novel and is regarded as perhaps the earliest clear example of the police procedural. His four major novels of the 1860s—The Woman in White, No Name, Armadale, and The Moonstone—secured his international reputation and financial stability. Collins' use of multiple narrators, legal knowledge, and social criticism (including his critique of marriage) influenced later writers. His collaboration with Charles Dickens and his work in Dickens' journals helped shape Victorian popular fiction. Despite declining health and addiction to opium in later decades, his best work remains enduringly influential.

Did You Know?

• Collins learned Italian while living in Italy and became fluent in French.
• He was forced to tell stories nightly by a school bully, which he said awakened his storytelling power.
• His first novel, Iolani, was rejected by a publisher and remained unpublished during his lifetime.
• Collins used his legal knowledge from studying at Lincoln's Inn in many of his novels.