The Evil Genius by Wilkie Collins
The Evil Genius by Wilkie Collins
Evil Genius is a novel by Wilkie Collins published in 1886, dedicated to William Holman Hunt, treating the related themes of divorce and child-custody. The story was ahead of its time in presenting both the wife and the mistress of an adulterous husband in a sympathetic light and concentrating the reader's attention on the plight of the child involved in the break-up of a marriage. The 'evil genius' of the title is an interfering mother-in-law. Collins unexpectedly upholds double standards in a passage added shortly before publication, claiming that a husband's adultery should not, by itself, be sufficient grounds for divorce, and ends the novel with a reconciliation and remarriage. Collins also used the plot for a dramatic version with the same title. He wrote the book and play simultaneously and traces of his method can be detected in the novel which has an unusually high proportion of dialogue. The play, tauter and in some ways more effective than the book, was never performed, though it was given a single reading for the purpose of establishing dramatic copyright.
A close friend of Charles Dickens from their meeting in March 1851 until Dickens' death in June 1870, William Wilkie Collins was one of the best known, best loved, and, for a time, best paid of Victorian fiction writers. But after his death, his reputation declined as Dickens' bloomed.
Now, Collins is being given more critical and popular attention than he has received for 50 years. Most of his books are in print, and all are now in e-text. He is studied widely; new film, television, and radio versions of some of his books have been made; and all of his letters have been published. However, there is still much to be discovered about this superstar of Victorian fiction.
Born in Marylebone, London in 1824, Collins' family enrolled him at the Maida Hill Academy in 1835, but then took him to France and Italy with them between 1836 and 1838. Returning to England, Collins attended Cole's boarding school, and completed his education in 1841, after which he was apprenticed to the tea merchants Antrobus & Co. in the Strand.
In 1846, Collins became a law student at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1851, although he never practised. It was in 1848, a year after the death of his father, that he published his first book, 'The Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R.A'., to good reviews.
The 1860s saw Collins' creative high-point, and it was during this decade that he achieved fame and critical acclaim, with his four major novels, 'The Woman in White' (1860), 'No Name' (1862), 'Armadale' (1866) and 'The Moonstone' (1868). 'The Moonstone', is seen by many as the first true detective novel T. S. Eliot called it "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels ..." in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe.
Evil Genius is a novel by Wilkie Collins published in 1886, dedicated to William Holman Hunt, treating the related themes of divorce and child-custody. The story was ahead of its time in presenting both the wife and the mistress of an adulterous husband in a sympathetic light and concentrating the reader's attention on the plight of the child involved in the break-up of a marriage. The 'evil genius' of the title is an interfering mother-in-law. Collins unexpectedly upholds double standards in a passage added shortly before publication, claiming that a husband's adultery should not, by itself, be sufficient grounds for divorce, and ends the novel with a reconciliation and remarriage. Collins also used the plot for a dramatic version with the same title. He wrote the book and play simultaneously and traces of his method can be detected in the novel which has an unusually high proportion of dialogue. The play, tauter and in some ways more effective than the book, was never performed, though it was given a single reading for the purpose of establishing dramatic copyright.
A close friend of Charles Dickens from their meeting in March 1851 until Dickens' death in June 1870, William Wilkie Collins was one of the best known, best loved, and, for a time, best paid of Victorian fiction writers. But after his death, his reputation declined as Dickens' bloomed.
Now, Collins is being given more critical and popular attention than he has received for 50 years. Most of his books are in print, and all are now in e-text. He is studied widely; new film, television, and radio versions of some of his books have been made; and all of his letters have been published. However, there is still much to be discovered about this superstar of Victorian fiction.
Born in Marylebone, London in 1824, Collins' family enrolled him at the Maida Hill Academy in 1835, but then took him to France and Italy with them between 1836 and 1838. Returning to England, Collins attended Cole's boarding school, and completed his education in 1841, after which he was apprenticed to the tea merchants Antrobus & Co. in the Strand.
In 1846, Collins became a law student at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1851, although he never practised. It was in 1848, a year after the death of his father, that he published his first book, 'The Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R.A'., to good reviews.
The 1860s saw Collins' creative high-point, and it was during this decade that he achieved fame and critical acclaim, with his four major novels, 'The Woman in White' (1860), 'No Name' (1862), 'Armadale' (1866) and 'The Moonstone' (1868). 'The Moonstone', is seen by many as the first true detective novel T. S. Eliot called it "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels ..." in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe.
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