Monatsarchive: September 2021

My Lady’s Money

My Lady’s Money – Wilkie Collins

“In relation to the purely literary side of the question,” as Mr. Wilkie Collins says, there can be no doubt that his studies of character in ‘My Lady’s Money’ do seem to be drawn from nature. The story is constructed with his accustomed skill, the details fit together as usual with the precision of the facts in a criminal trial.

My Lady's Money

My Lady’s Money.

Format: eBook.

My Lady’s Money.

ISBN: 9783849658427

 

Excerpt from the text:

 

“MY nephew!” Lady Lydiard exclaimed in a tone which expressed astonishment, but certainly not pleasure as well. “How many years is it since you and I last met?” she asked, in her abruptly straightforward way, as Mr. Felix Sweetsir Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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The Fallen Leaves

The Fallen Leaves – Wilkie Collins

In ‘Fallen Leaves’, Mr. Wilkie Collins has touched on some very difficult problems, and has done it with delicacy. Though the main interest of the story does not lie in the plot, but rather in the characters and in the novel situations he has found, yet there is a sense of consistency and completeness, which draws from the reader as he proceeds the keenest interest, in spite of an occasional touch of melodrama, which Mr. Wilkie Collins finds it very difficult to leave behind him. Amelius Goldenheart, the representative of an old English family, has been educated at a socialist institution in America ; and having fallen under a misconstruction, is glad to make … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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The Haunted Hotel

The Haunted Hotel – Wilkie Collins

‘The Haunted Hotel’ is a story which, like others of Mr. Wilkie Collins’s stories, fascinates the reader, and compels him to finish it at a sitting. It has, too, this merit, that as the story progresses one is forced to recall the facts of the earlier part, and see the object for which they were related and the bearing they have upon subsequent events. It is often possible to put together a mass of intricate details none of which is irrelevant, but it is a rare skill which can make it plain to a reader reading at full speed that they all had their necessity and proper effect. Few writers can do this so … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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The Two Destinies

The Two Destinies – Wilkie Collins

The story of two people who begin to love each other as boy and girl. Some mysterious agency seems to be at work, all through the story, in their behalf; for though apparently separated as children forever, they are brought together again by a most singular chain of circumstances. Apparitions and other strange hallucinations abound in the work. Altogether a pleasantly weird and odd story, and very much different from Wilkie Collins’ other novels.

The Two Destinies

The Two Destinies.

Format: eBook.

The Two Destinies.

ISBN: 9783849658397

 

Excerpt from the text:

 

MANY years have passed since my wife and I left the United States to pay our first visit to England.

We were provided with letters Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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The Law and the Lady

The Law and the Lady – Wilkie Collins

‘The Law and the Lady’ is one of the most ingenious and most repulsive of Wilkie Collins’s novels, and we doubt, if having begun, that anyone would leave it unfinished. The heroine marries a man and soon discovers that she is his second wife, and that he has been tried in Scotland for the murder of his first, – the jury returning a verdict of” Not proven,” which, not establishing his innocence, simply declared that the evidence was not sufficient to convict him. She resolves to devote her life to the task of proving her husband’s guiltlessness, and sets to work, without his knowledge. When he becomes aware that she has learned … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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The Dead Alive

The Dead Alive – Wilkie Collins

A curious story of two brothers who are tried for a murder and found guilty under strongly convicting circumstances. After pleading innocence of the crime, they strangely make a confession to the effect that they murdered the man, who at the last moment turns up alive. The author, in a note, says whatever seems improbable in the story is a fact, and whatever reads like truth is pure invention. Truth or fiction, however, the little book will while away an hour very pleasantly.

The Dead Alive

The Dead Alive.

Format: eBook.

The Dead Alive.

ISBN: 9783849658373

 

Excerpt from the text:

 

“I WANT to speak to you,” Naomi began “You don’t think ill of me for following Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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The New Magdalen

The New Magdalen – Wilkie Collins

Though perhaps this story does not equal, from a literary point of view, some of Collins’s previous efforts-it being less sensational and less complicated in its plot-it is, nevertheless, one of the best he has ever written. It is an able and eloquent protest against the false state of society and that cruel sentiment which prevents an erring woman ever returning to the path of virtue. Aside from its moral purpose, the story is exceedingly interesting. It should be read thoughtfully by everyone.

The New Magdalen

The New Magdalen.

Format: eBook.

The New Magdalen.

ISBN: 9783849658366

 

Excerpt from the text:

 

IT was a dark night. The rain was pouring in torrents.

Late in the evening a Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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Man and Wife

Man and Wife – Wilkie Collins

If the only test of fiction is that it shall secure interest, then Mr. Wilkie Collins has succeeded to the full with this novel. The construction is almost perfect, and the interest is so graduated, and the plot so skillfully developed, that no portion can be skipped without loss. Mr. Collins is facile princeps in invention, and introduces no detail that is not of importance in reference to the whole. His novels, indeed, are too complete and self-contained to wholly satisfy any taste that is still simple enough to look at life as it is with anything of the pause and wonder that must often overtake the disinterested observer. There are so many loose … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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The Moonstone

The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins

“I’m sick to death of novels with an earnest purpose. I’m sick to death of outbursts of eloquence, and large-minded philanthropy, and graphic descriptions, and unsparing anatomy of the human heart, and all that sort of thing. Good gracious me ! Isn’t it the original intention or purpose, or whatever you call it, of a work of fiction, to set out distinctly by telling a story? And how many of these books, I should like to know, do that? Why, so far as telling a story is concerned, the greater part of them might as well be sermons as novels. Oh, dear me! what I want is something that seizes hold of my interest, and … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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No Thoroughfare

No Thoroughfare – Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens

The joint-effort of Mr. Dickens and Mr. Wilkie Collins, apart from its merits or demerits, must excite curiosity and interest. It is clear that in ” No Thoroughfare ” the latter gentleman has had the lion’s share of the labour, whatever of lion’s share may fall to him besides. Mr. Dickens’s portion is merely incidental, though some of his touches are surpassing fine and unmistakably marked. Mr. Collins’s superb inventive faculty shows itself throughout, though under a little restriction here – unfolding, doubling up, coiling, and uncoiling in its brilliant, baffling, serpentine fashion. And the result is exactly such as might be expected. Mr. Wilding is a little over-done, but full of humor … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

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