Wilkie Collins
Books by Wilkie Collins
“It’s very much a thesis novel: Collins’s 1883 attempt to enter the anti-vivisection debate.” Read more...
The Best Books by Wilkie Collins
Jason Hall, Literary Scholar
“This is one of my favourite Collins novels, because it’s very funny and very touching” Read more...
The Best Books by Wilkie Collins
Jason Hall, Literary Scholar
“Like The Woman in White, it’s one of the more famous novels by Collins. It’s another with several characters, lots of perspectives, a great mystery at the middle of it. It’s the first novel that makes detection its whole business; it introduces Sergeant Cuff, a memorable literary detective…how do you keep your readers on the edge of their seats?” Read more...
The Best Books by Wilkie Collins
Jason Hall, Literary Scholar
“It’s credited with being the beginning of the whole genre of suspense. That’s why I picked it. I’ve only read it twice, but it’s lingered in my consciousness: the images and the feel of it. He really is a master of the tricks. I read somewhere that there are 40 cliff-hangers in it—he sort of invented the cliff-hanger. And I like the Russian doll structure of all the different accounts. You gradually lift off each little doll’s body and find another plot strand and another secret. I love that. It’s very cleverly done.” Read more...
Lucy Atkins, Journalist
“The colouring of imagination that Collins throws over the landscape is as interesting as what he witnesses” Read more...
The Best Books by Wilkie Collins
Jason Hall, Literary Scholar
Interviews where books by Wilkie Collins were recommended
The Best Books by Wilkie Collins, recommended by Jason Hall
Wilkie Collins, the sensationalist author and inventor of the detective novel, knew precisely how to “make ’em laugh, make ’em cry, make ’em wait”. Jason Hall, Victorian literature expert and editor of a new edition of Jezebel’s Daughter, chooses the five best books from Collins’s extensive oeuvre – and considers the voracious appetites and unorthodox lifestyle of this intriguing Englishman.
Favourite Books, recommended by Sophie Roell
It goes without saying that I have more than five favourite books and some important ones are missing from this page (even though I’ve cheated and included six). I suppose the nonfiction ones are books that opened doors for me in some way or enabled me to see the world more clearly, including professionally. The fiction ones are ones I was completely overexcited about when I read them.
