Wilkie Collins

William Wilkie Collins (8 January, 1824 – 23 September 1889) was an English novelist, playwright, and writer of short stories. He was hugely popular in his time, and wrote 27 novels, more than 50 short stories, at least 15 plays, and over 100 pieces of non-fiction work.

Life

Collins was born in London, the son of a well-known landscape painter, William Collins. At 17 he left school and was apprenticed to a firm of tea merchants, but after five unhappy years, during which he wrote his first (unpublished) novel Iolani, he entered Lincoln's Inn to study law. After his father's death in 1847, Collins produced his first published book, Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R.A. (1848), and also considered a career in painting, exhibiting a picture at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1849, but it was with the publication of his first novel Antonina in 1850 that his career as a writer began in earnest.

Related Topics:
London - Lincoln's Inn - 1847 - 1848 - Royal Academy - Summer exhibition - 1849 - 1850

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An instrumental event in Collins' career occurred in 1851 when he was introduced to Charles Dickens by a mutual friend, Augustus Egg. They became lifelong friends and collaborators; several of Collins' novels were serialised in Dickens' weekly publication All the Year Round, and Dickens later edited and published them himself.

Related Topics:
1851 - Charles Dickens - Augustus Egg

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Collins suffered from a form of arthritis known as 'rheumatic gout', and became severely addicted to the opium that he took (in the form of laudanum) to relieve the pain. As a result he experienced paranoid delusions, the most notable being his conviction that he was constantly accompanied by a doppelganger he dubbed 'Ghost Wilkie'. His novel The Moonstone prominently features the effects of opium, and opium addiction. While he was writing it, Collins' consumption of Laudanum was such that he later claimed to have no memory of writing large parts of the novel.

Related Topics:
Arthritis - Opium - Laudanum - Doppelganger - The Moonstone

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Collins was never married, but lived, on and off from 1858, with a widow, Mrs Caroline Graves and her daughter. He also fathered three children by another woman, Martha Rudd, whom he had met after Mrs Graves left him in 1868. Mrs Graves returned to Collins after two years and he continued both relationships until his death in 1889.

Related Topics:
1858 - 1868

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He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, West London.

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