William Wilkie Collins (January 8th 1824 - September 23rd 1889) is a British writer of the time victorienne, contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens. It was largely popular at its time and wrote 27 novels, more than 50 news, at least 15 plays and more than 100 tests.

Biography

Wilkie Collins was born with London the January 8th 1824. He was the son of a painter famous landscape designer, William Collins. At the 17 years age, it gave up the school to become apprentice in a company of trade of the. After five years during which they will write its first novel Iolani (published only in 1999). It entered to the Lincoln' S Inn in order to study the right. These studies will be sanctioned by a lawyer title in 1851. After the death of his/her father in 1847, Collins published its book, Mémoires and Life of William Colllins, Esquire (1848), pursuant to the paternal will, and began a career of painter, exposing to the Royal Academy Summer exhibition of 1849. But it is with the publication of its Antonina novel, in 1850, that its career of writer started truly.

In 1851, Collins was presented to Charles Dickens by a mutual friend, Augustus Egg. From there, will be born a long friendship and collaboration; several of the Hake novels having been published in the weekly magazine of Charles Dickens: All the Year Round, in the form of serials. Charles Dickens published and published then itself the Hake novels.

Hakes suffered from the drop, and became depend on the Opium (in the form of Laudanum) which it took in order to relieve its pain. It resulted from it from the crises of Paranoïa where it was convinced to be continued by a Doppelgänger (its ghostly double)… Its novel The Moonstone describes the effects of the Opium and its dependence. Hakes admitted, after having written this novel, that its consumption of Laudanum was such, that it did not remember any more to have written the major part of the novel.

Hakes never married, but lived with a widow (Mrs. Caroline Graves) and her daughter, starting from 1858.

He is also the father of three children whom he had with another woman, Martha Rudd, that he met after having left Mrs. Low registers in 1868. Mrs. Low registers returned towards Collins after two years, and they continued their relation until his death in 1889.

Hakes is buried with the Kensal Green Cemetary with London. Its epitaph identifies it like the author of " The Woman in White " (The lady in white).

Its work

Its writings were qualified at the time of “Sensational news”, a precursory kind of the Detective novel and Roman with suspense. He also wrote with perspicacity a social and marital criticism of the women of this time. As much of other writers of its time, it published the majority of its news in the form of serials in magazines the such All the Year Round of Charles Dickens, and was recognized like a Master of the kind, creating a degree of adequate suspense, in order to hold in breath the reader of week in week.

He knew ten years of great success, following the publication of the Lady in white in 1859. Its following novel, the Mélodramatic Armadale , caused a sharp criticism for its immorality, but knew very good sales in parallel. Its Novel No Name combines, as for him, a criticism on the nonsense of the law in connection with the fate of the children of nonmarried couples, with an intrigue worthy of a thriller. The Moonstone , published in 1868 can be regarded as the first detective novel of the English literature. Innumerable copies of these novels were distributed through the England, the America and the Europe.

The Woman in White and The Moonstone shares an unusual narrative structure, resembling more epistolary novels, in which the various parts of the book have various narrators, equipped each one with a distinct narrative voice.

After The Moonstone , the Hake novels contained less elements with suspense with the profit of a greater social criticism. The main object remained about the sensational novel, but its popularity started to decline. Swimburne noted: “What led the genius of Wilkie to its loss? Certain demons murmured `Wilkie has a mission'”.