Wilkie Collins Victorian Writer

Most people when they think of Victorian literacy, can name but one author, that being Charles Dickens. By all rights though, William Wilkie Collins should be mentioned in the same breath as Dickens. Indeed, in his own lifetime, his popularity, and sales of novels and plays, far outstripped that of his aforementioned friend and rival.

William Wilkie Collins was born on the 8th January 1824, in the Marylebone district of London, and was the eldest son of the renowned portrait and landscape artist William Collins.

Wilkie Collins - Elliott and Fry - PD-life-70

To distinguish himself from his father, Wilkie soon became known by his middle name, a name that had been given to him in honour of his godfather, Sir David Wilkie.

His schooling, whilst extensive, did not impress upon him any sense of satisfaction. His schooling commenced at the Maida Hill Academy in 1835, but his time there was brief as the following year saw him depart on a two year period of travel around Europe with his parents and younger brother, Charles.

Taking in France and Italy, Collins is quoted as saying he learnt more in those two years, “which has been of use to me, among the scenery, the pictures, and the people, than I ever learned at school.”
Returning to England in August 1838, Collins’ tuition continued at Cole’s boarding school in London. His education though was disrupted due to bullying because of his abnormal appearance; Collins had disproportionately large shoulders and head, and his storytelling began in order to appease the main bully.

Wilkie Collins’ early career was as unhappy as his school days. At the age of 17 Collins left school and joined a firm of tea merchants, Antrobus & Co in the Strand, as a clerk. A period of five years passed, noted only for the start of Collins professional writing career, which saw the publication of “The Last Stage Coachman” in Douglas Jerrold’s Illuminated Magazine in August 1843.

A further five years passed in further education as he studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, although he never took law up as a profession. During this period of study, Collins supported himself through journalism and the publication of his first works.

His 1848 work in memorial of his father, “The Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq. RA”, was his first published work, and upon receipt of excellent reviews, Collins embarked on his first historical and contemporary novels.

Collins’ career took off after he met Charles Dickens in 1851, and the two writers soon became firm friends and collaborators; a friendship that lasted until Dickens’ death in 1870.

Wilkie Collins Cabinet Card - Harvard University - PD-life-70

Collins wrote and edited for Dickens’ “Household Words”, and a number of Collins’ novels were serialised in the Dickens’ weekly publication “All the Year Round”. It was Dickens in fact who provided Collins with his first stable income from writing, as he was taken on as a permanent member of staff. Dickens was a huge influence on Collins, but equally Collins made an imprint on the more experienced writer, as Dickens was impressed with the hard work and dedication that Collins put into his writing.

As Collins reputation and popularity as a writer increased, his health went in the opposite direction. Suffering from Rheumatic Gout, a form of arthritis, Collins was forced to seek out remedies, starting out on quinine and health spas; he was eventually prescribed laudanum for the pain.

This medication was to have profound affect on his writing, laudanum is a derivative of opium, and as he became addicted to the drug he became both paranoid and forgetful. This addiction was not detrimental to his work, in fact far from it, his best known work “The Moonstone” was written in this period and displays the effects of both opium and opium addiction.

His works from this period have been classed as sensational’ novels and as such are the precursor of the suspense and detective thrillers. It has also often been argued that all writers of detective fiction have been influenced in some degree by Collins. T.S. Eliot in fact described “The Moonstone”, as the “first and greatest of English detective novels”. This period would prove to be the peak of Collins’ popularity and the pinnacle grade of his work.

Aside from opium and Dickens the other main influence on Collins was his personal life, which was by all means a very Bohemian existence. Aside from, good food and good wine, which he enjoyed to excess, Collins was noted for his flamboyant wardrobe.

He has been most noted for his liaison with two women. Whilst never married, Collins lived for most of his adult life with a widow, Mrs Caroline Graves, and her daughter. At the same time Collins met the other woman in his life, Martha Rudd, a woman at nineteen, who was his junior by twenty-one years. Both women were put up in houses within walking distance of each other, and whilst this did cause a two year split with Caroline Graves, both women were soon back in relationships with Collins. Collins in fact kept both relationships going until his death some twenty years later. Collins did though insist on at least a facade of respectability, and whilst he and Martha Rudd were never married, they assumed the identities of Mr and Mrs Dawson, a surname passed onto their three offspring.

The 1870s and 1880s saw a decline in work. This has been attributed to both the death of Charles Dickens in 1870 and the increasing dependency upon opium that Collins found himself faced with.
Collins’ health continued to decline, breathing difficulties became more pronounced, and in addition to the opium, Collins was forced to resort to capsules of amyl nitrate and hypo-phosphate. No matter what the reason, his later works had less of a thrilling element to them, without the force and freshness, and as such are perceived as being inferior to the work of the 1860s.

In January 1889, at the age of 65, Collins was involved in an accident that he never recovered from. Following a fall from a hansom cab, complications set in with first bronchitis and then a stroke. Collins died on the 23rd September 1889, having been a prolific writer for fifty years.

His list of works included 27 novels, over 50 short stories, 15 plays and over 100 non-fiction works. He had influence and his writing gripped many of the prominent people of the Victorian age, including politicians such as Gladstone. His circle of friends was just as noted, as aside from Dickens, many of his friends were at the forefront of the artistic world including some of the foremost artists, playwrights, theatrical personalities, musicians, publishers, physicians and society figures of the time.
Upon his death, much of work and his reputation drifted into relative obscurity, as the works of his friend and mentor Dickens flourished.

Recently though, Collins’ work has been pushed back into the literary limelight, with television and cinematic adaptation of his work, meaning nearly all of his work has been republished. Given time his works should once again match the popularity of all the great Victorian writers, and he will be known for far more than just “The Moonstone” and “The Woman in White”.

Copyright - First Published 11th February 2008